Cibrar;p of €he trheolo^ical ^eminarjp

PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY

<i^j>

PRESENTED BY
Delavan L. Piers on
 Mecca
A bird's-eye view showing, in the centre, the Kaaba, or ^Joslem Holy of Holies.
MOHAMMED OR CHRIST
AN ACCOUNT OF THE RAPID SPREAD OF ISLAM IN ALL
PARTS OF THE GLOBE. THE METHODS EMPLOYED TO
OBTAIN PROSELYTES, ITS IMMENSE PRESS, ITS
STRONGHOLDS, & SUGGESTED MEANS TO BE
ADOPTED TO COUNTERACT THE EVIL

BY

S. iM. ZWEMER, D.D., F.R.G.S.

EDITOR OF "the MOSLEM WORLD '

AUTHOR OF "Arabia: the cfaule or islam"

Sd»c. &'c. dfc.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

The Right Reverend C. H. STILEMAN, M.A., D.D.

late bishop of PERSIA

WITH 12 ILLUSTRATIONS

New York Chicago Tof

Fleming H. Revell Company

London and Edinburgh
 PREFACE
_LHE following chapters have been brought together

and revised at this critical time in the history of the

Moslem world to set forth the appeal of that world

for the Gospel. It is a decisive hour ! The old

order is changing, and there is a new attitude

towards the old message everywhere. New national
responsibilities will follow the great world war and
also new opportunities, especially in the Turkish

Empire, Arabia, and Egypt. If this volume

awakens a sense of responsibility for the emanci-

pation of Moslem womanhood, the uplifting of its

childhood, and the winning of its manhood, it will

have fulfilled its purpose.

Grateful acknowledgment is given to The Con-

structive Quarterly, The Missionary Review of the

World, and The International Missionary Review, for

permission to use articles originally prepared for

these magazines.
S. M. ZWEMER.
June 80, 1915.
 CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. The Tale of Three Cities 19

II. A United Christendom and Islam 37

III. A Census of the Moslem World 55

Islam in Russia
IV.
n
V. Islam in South Africa
VI. Why Arabia? ....
The Impending Struggle
91

lOI

VII. in Western Asia

VIII. The Clock, the Calendar, and the Koran 139

IX. Translations of the Koran 155

X. The Dying Forces of Islam 181 X

XI. Arabic Literature and its Evangelisation 191

XI I. The Fulness of Time in the Moslem World 203

XIII. The Stumbling-Block of the Cross 227

XIV. The Present Attitude of Educated Moslems

TOWARDS Jesus Christ and the Scriptures 245

Index ......
XV. The Message and the Man 273

283
 6

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Mecca ...... Frontispiece

The Hub of Islam .... Page 1

A Page from an Egyptian Calendar .

» 147
FACING PAGE
Mecca Pilgrims encamped at Arafat . 80

A Moslem Family in the Caucasus . . .80

Mosque in Western China . . . .128

Mosque at Lagos, West Africa . . . .128

A Page from a Polyglot Koran . . .160

A Page from the Arabic-Javanese published at

Batavia . . . . . . .164

A Page from Rev. W. Goldsack's Bengali Trans-

lation OF THE Koran . . . . .168

A Specimen Page of Chinese Koran Commentary . 172

Pilgrims at Mecca . . . . . .216

 INTRODUCTION
Dr. ZWEMER has done well to remind the Church
of Christ once again in these chapters of the greatness

and the urgency of the Moslem problem. And the

opportunity is as great as the urgency. He tells us
that of the two hundred and one million Mohammedans,
ninety and a half millions are under British rule or
protection, and another seventy-six and a half millions
under other Western or Christian Governments.
Doors which have been almost closed for centuries
are now open, or being opened, by Him who opens
and no man can shut. There is every probability
that the result of the present abnormal conditions
will be to fling those doors still more widely open.
Islam is becoming more and more disintegrated.
We hear its cry of despair and its call for reform.
Not every one may know that Dr. Zwemer is a
distinguished American missionary with a close
knowledge of the problems which face the spread of
Christianity in Mohammedan lands. He has for
many years lived in Moslem countries, and is a
recognised authority on them. So far back as 1890,
when I was a C.M.S. missionary in Turkish Arabia,
 INTRODUCTION
he was travelling round the Arabian coast with a
view to establishing stations of the American Arabian
Mission of which he was for the next twenty years one
of the pioneers. This volume from his pen constitutes
a fresh call to Christ's people to rise to the height of
their responsibilities and privileges and to go forth
in the strength of the Lord, bearing the Gospel of

salvation to those who are trying in vain to satisfy

themselves with the dry husks of the Koran and the

traditions.

We are reminded that, for this purpose, many more

specially trained men and women with a message

are needed. For these we must pray the great Lord

of the Harvest, Who alone can prepare and provide

them. Scarcely less necessary is the printed page

for circulation in Moslem lands.

And, in the mobilisation of our spiritual forces,

we do remember that prayer is " not only a

well to

precious privilege, but a primary method of work."

It is prayer which links our impotence to God's
omnipotence. And true prayer seeks its own answer
in sacrifice and service. The result of the great con-

flict with Islam is not in doubt. The only thing

that is in doubt is the share which each one of our
Master's fellow-workers will claim in bringing in the
glorious day when it shall be no longer necessary to
ask the question '
Mohammed or Christ ? ' but

when in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and

 INTRODUCTION
every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father (Phil. ii. 11).

That day will be hastened by His servants uniting

in a holy fellowship of prayer, sacrifice, and service

for the Moslem world.

CHARLES H. STILEMAN
(Bishop).

Wimbledon, Sept. 1915.

The Hub of Islam.
 CHAPTER I

THE TALE OF THREE CITIES

 " The dominant impression of mj^ recent visit to the
Levant is that a new day of unparalleled openings for
work among Moslems has dawned. We must attempt
great things, meeting present opportunity and arousing
Western Christendom to its neglected task. Prayer has
disintegrated the stolid indifference of Islam. Time has
come for aggressive action. No agency can penetrate
Islam so deeply, abide so persistently, witness so daringly,
and influence so irresistibly, as the printed page. May we
set up new standards of prayer, faith and effort for the
winning of the Moslem world to Christ." —Dr. Charles R.
Watson, The Hub of the Mohammedan World,

18
 ;

MOHAMMED OR CHRIST
CHAPTER I

THE TALE OF THREE CITIES

IHE unity of the Moslem world is recognised to-

day as never before, by the secular press, by students
of Islam, by the Christian Church in its missionary
councils, and by Moslems themselves. The most
vivid illustration, however, of this unity is found in
the present-day importance and influence of the
three great capitals of the Moslem world which knit
together, by the warp and woof of their cosmopoli-
tan influence, the whole. Mecca, Constantinople,
and Cairo stand out supreme as centres of influence
to-day. Every Moslem throughout the world, even
at the uttermost extremities of the vast brotherhood,
as, for example, those who are in Japan or in China,
has personal relations almost daily with these three
cities. He stretches his prayer - carpet towards
Mecca ; he prays on Fridays, not for his own local
sovereign or ruler, but for the Caliph of Stamboul
and the chances are that if he reads the Koran, it
bears on its title-page the imprint of Cairo. His
hope for salvation culminates in a pilgrimage to
Mecca ; his hope for victory over the unbelievers
who oppress Moslems, and for whom the day of
vengeance will come, is in the great Rajah of Con-
10
20 THE TALE OF THREE CITIES
stantinople and his hope to succeed in worsting
;

his Christian opponents by arguments, is fostered by

the productions of the Cairo press. Mecca has not
lost its importance with the passing of the centuries,
but is still a city whose pulse throbs with a religious
life that finds an outlet to the farthest limits of the

Moslem world. It is the heart of Islam. Cairo

is the head, where religious thought and education,
controversy and Moslem propagandism through the
press have their real centre. And Constantinople
has, since the Ottoman Turks made it their capital,
been the hand of Islam, the centre of its political
power and also, alas ! of grievous political persecution.

I. Mecca not only the religious capital of the

is

cradle of the Moslem

faith and the birthplace of their
Prophet, but it is the central shrine of Islam, towards
which for centuries prayers and pilgrimages have
gravitated. The whole Old Testament narrative
as it is given in distorted form, both in the Koran
and in tradition, finds in Mecca its real environment.
Adam and Eve met each other at Mt. Arafah. Eve
lies buried at Jiddah. God Himself appointed the
place for the Kaaba, and the stone is still sacred
on which Abraham stood when he erected the
building !

The importance of Mecca

not in its stationary
is

population of scarcely 60,000, but in the number of

pilgrims from every nation of Islam that visit it every
year. Statistics are hopelessly contradictory and
confusing as regards the number of those who visit
the city annually. According to Turkish official
estimates in 1907, there were no less than 281,000
pilgrims. Their coming is an index of the growth
and strength of Islam, and their return from Mecca
 THE TALE OF THREE CITIES 21

to their native villages in Java, Bengal, West Africa,

Cape Colony and Russia, means the advent of
fanatical ambassadors of the greatness and glory
of their faith, however much they may have been
disappointed in the actual condition of the city and
of the Kaaba. When we consider Mecca, Moham-
med's words of prophecy in the second chapter of
his book seem to have been literally fulfilled " So :

we have made you the centre of the nations, that

you should bear witness to men." The old pagan
pantheon has become the religious sanctuary and
the goal of universal pilgrimage for one-seventh of
the human race. From Sierra Leone to Canton, and
from Tobolsk to Cape Town, the faithful spread their
prayer-carpets, build their houses, in fulfilment of
an important tradition (and even their outhouses !),
and bury their dead towards the meridian of Mecca.
Seen from an aeroplane, there would be concentric
circles of living worshippers covering an ever-widen-
ing area, and one would also see stretched out vast
areas of Moslem cemeteries with every grave built
towards the sacred city. Well may we ponder the
words of Stanley Lane-Poole as to the place which
Mecca and the pilgrimage hold in the Moslem faith.
Have they not a special significance at this day when
we speak of the strategic occupation of the world
for its evangelisation ?
He wrote :

" Is it asked how the destroyer of idols could have

reconciled his conscience to the circuits of the Kaaba and
the veneration of the Black Stone covered with adoring
kisses ? The rites of the pilgrimage cannot certainly
be defended against the charge of superstition but it is
;

easy to see why Mohammed enjoined them. . . He.

well knew the consolidating effect of forming a centre

22 THE TALE OF THREE CITIES
to which his followers should gather, and hence he re-
asserted the sanctity of the Black Stone that came down
'

from heaven he ordained that everywhere throughout

'
;

the world the Moslem should pray looking toward the

Kaaba, and enjoined him to make the pilgrimage thither.
Mecca is to the Moslem what Jerusalem is to the Jew.
It bears with the influence of centuries of associa-
it all

tions. It carries the Moslem back to the cradle of his

faith and the childhood of his prophet. . .And, most
.

of all, it bids him remember that all his brother Moslems

are worshipping toward the same sacred spot that he
;

is one of a great company of believers united by one

faith, filled with the same hopes, reverencing the same

thing, worshipping the same God."

The question of the occupation of Mecca as a

centre for Christian missions may well stagger our
faith when we consider at what tremendous cost the
city was unveiled by intrepid travellers. Augustus
Ralli has recently given us a book under the striking
title of Christians at Mecca, in which he tells the
story of those Christian pilgrims who, either in
all
disguise or by abandoning their faith, or in one or
two eases under compulsion, reached the sacred
city. Bartema, Wilde and Joseph Pitts, Burton,
Burckhardt, Hurgronje and Courtellemont, took
their lives in their hands, herded with strange
companions, underwent untold hardships, and by
luck or pluck came scathless out of this lions' den
of Islam. According to Doughty, scarcely a pilgrim-
age takes place without some persons being put to
death as intruding Christians. An educated and
pious Moslem in Cairo assured me only a short time
ago that when he w^ent on pilgrimage and took
pictures of the city, his life was endangered more
than once by the fanaticism of the inhabitants.
 THE TALE OF THREE CITIES 23
However, there are many who believe that the
opening of the Hedjaz Railway, especially as a
branch is to be carried to Jiddah, and the gradual
breaking up of Turkish power in Arabia, may mean
the removal of restrictions against non-Moslems.
Mecca is a challenge to faith and to Christian
heroism. If it were an island in the South Seas
with a similar population and annual pilgrimage,
how long would the Church have to wait for men
like Paton, Chalmers, or Williams to enter fearlessly,
even though it should cost them their lives ? No
one who has read the account of social life at Mecca
as given by Hurgronje and corroborated by every
recent traveller, can doubt the utter need of the Gospel
for this city. Mecca is the microcosm of Islam in
its religious life and aspirations. According to
Hurgronje, "it is Islam, the official religion, which
brings together and amalgamates all the hetero-
geneous constituents of Meccan life. On the other
hand, this society itself welds into a chaotic whole
the prejudices and superstitions of all countries."
In other words, Mecca is the sink-hole of Islam.
All witnesses agree as to the flagrant immorality
which pervades the streets and even the mosques of
the sacred city, the prevalence of the slave trade,
the fleecing of pilgrims, and the corruption of the
local government. If Mecca is the glory of the
Moslem world, they glory in their shame. The
Christ Who wept over Jerusalem and had compassion
on the multitudes is surely waiting for some one
to go to this great city and to stand amid its hundred
thousand pilgrims and point them away from the
reeking shambles of their yearly sacrifice to the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world ;
away from the well of Zemzem to the Water of Life !
24 THE TALE OF THREE CITIES
II. Constantinople by its very location on the
Bosphorus, facing two continents and two great
civilisations, will always be of political and com-
mercial importance. In view of the wonderful
events that are transpiring as we write these lines, the
words of Sir William Ramsay concerning this great
capital of Islam seem almost prophetic :

" Constantinople is the centre about which history

revolves. It is the bridge that binds the East to the
West, the old to the new civilisation, which must be
brought into harmony before the culmination of all
civilisation can appear, bringing peace on earth and good-
will toward men."

Founded by Constantine and beautified by Jus-

tinian, the old city represented visibly the overthrow
of paganism and the triumph of Christianity. The
great church of St. Sophia was literally built by
stripping the glory from heathen temples far and
near, and yet that very church has for centuries, since
the fall of Constantinople in 1453, also symbolised
the conquest of Oriental Christianity by Islam.
Will it soon again resound with praises to the
Trinity ?
It is evident to the student of history that all other
factors which add to the glory of this metropolis are
insignificant in comparison with its political and
religious importance in relation to the Moslem world.
The position of Turkey and of the Ottoman Empire
is unique among other Moslem countries. For
centuries it has stood out as the one great temporal
power of Islam, with laws and usages built upon the
book and the traditions of the Prophet. Here is the
residence of the Caliph, the Imam-el'Muslimin, the
supreme pontiff of the church State called Islam.
 THE TALE OF THREE CITIES 25

Even at the present day Constantinople and its

politics are the cynosure of Islam from Morocco to
the Philippine Islands. The fall of Constantinople
would be interpreted by Moslems everywhere as the
direst disaster. This accounts for the enthusiastic
and almost fanatic response in every part of Moslem
India to the appeals to help the Sultan during the war
in Tripoli and in the Balkan States.
Constantinople is the capital of the Ottoman
Empire. To it all the States of Turkey look for
political direction, and representatives from every
tribe and race in the empire are found on its streets.
" As a base for missionary operations not only upon
Turkey, but upon adjacent countries as well," says
Dr. Barton, " it is unexcelled. A publishing house
at Constantinople is calculated by its very location to
reach millions who might otherwise refuse to read
what is printed. In Arabia an Arabic Bible, at first
rejected because it is an infidel's book, is later
accepted because it bears upon its title-page the
authoritative permission of his Imperial Majesty. As
a strategic centre for Christian work, calculated
directly and indirectly to reach the 200,000,000 who
bear the name of the prophet of Arabia, there is no
place that can compare with Constantinople, resting
upon two continents and swaying the most mighty
religious empire on earth."
The population of Constantinople is given as
1,106,000, but of these scarcely more than one-half
are Moslems. This fact only emphasises, however,
its importance as a missionary centre. Here the
forces of Christianity and Islam, numerically con-
sidered, are so nearly balanced that the impact of a
vital Christianity once more dominant in the Oriental
Churches would exercise an influence such as would
26 THE TALE OF THREE CITIES
not be possible elsewhere. And for the past fifty
years such influence has been felt. The late Mr.
William T. Stead once said " How many American
:

citizens, I wonder, are aware that from the slopes

of Mt. Ararat all the way to the shores of the blue
Mgean Sea, American missionaries have scattered
broadcast over all this distressful land the seed of
American principles ? They
are here everywhere
teaching, begetting new life in these
preaching,
Asiatic races." Robert College, the Bible House at
Constantinople, the American College for Girls, and
similar institutions have from this strategic centre
sent out, as from a power-house, currents of life and
thought throughout the Moslem world. But for the
adequate occupation of this centre, especially face to
face with present-day changed conditions and un-
heard of liberties, the present missionary force might
well be doubled. Can it be true, as Dr. Dwight asserts,
that in place of applying its tremendous power to
the problems of these awakening races, the Christian
printing apparatus at Constantinople is crippled for
lack of funds ? ^ The strength of Islam lies in its
ignorance the strength of Christianity, in Christian
;

education. The new situation calls for an enormous

expansion of all the present existing agencies in
order to win the political capital of Islam for Christ.

III. Cairo, " the victorious," as its name signifies,

is at once the capital of Egypt, the metropolis of all
Africa and the brain centre of the Moslem world.
With a Moslem population nearly twice as large as
that of Stamboul and larger than that of any other

See his chapter on " A Half -forgotten Agency," in Constantinople

^

and its Problems and also an important article on " Constantinople

;

as a Centre of Islam," in The Moslem World, vol. i. p. 229.

 THE TALE OF THREE CITIES 27

Moslem city in the world, its influence is steadily-

growing, not only throughout North Africa but
throughout the nearer East. Its statistics of popu-
lation, its architectural monuments, educational
institutions, municipal government, street cries, and
street signs and daily life, make it evident to even
the casual observer that this is a thoroughly Moslem
city. Of the fifteen quarters into which the vast city
is divided, there is only one quarter, the Esbekieh,

where non-Moslems are in the majority ; and even

this quarter contains 13,000 Moslems compared with
14,000 Copts. In the Darb-ul-Ahmar quarter there
are 62,000 Moslems and a non-Moslem population of
only 2000. Bulaq quarter has 82,000, a city in itself,
with a total non-Moslem population of only 7800.
The Gemalieh quarter has 50,000 Moslems compared
with 2000 non-Moslems, and the Khalifa quarter
has 53,000 Moslems and 1340 non-Moslems. Saida
Zeinab quarter has over 63,000 Moslems and a non-
Moslem population of only 2300. The Moslem
population of Gizah Mudiriah, close to Cairo, is 11,900,
while the number of non-Moslems is less than 4000.
The total population of this great world capital is
nearly 800,000, of which probably 90 per cent, is
Mohammedan. Cairo has 206 mosques, not count-
ing the smaller ones, and among them at least 100 are
architectural monuments of the history and the
glory of Islam. In the Khedival Library one can
trace the literary history of the city in priceless
MSS. of the Koran and other books. Away from
the tourist-infected Esbekieh and the shopping dis-
trict of the Levantines, Cairo is still so Moslem in
character that it is the best place in the world
for the study of Moslem life and superstitions.
Only a stone's throw from the Central Railway
28 THE TALE OF THREE CITIES
station is the tomb of the famous Weli Madbouli, the
patron saint of the capital, whose reputed restless-
ness in his tumble-down tomb raised a riot on the
streets of Bulaq only a short time ago. Lane's
Modern Egyptians^ which describes everyday life in
Cairo, still continues to be the best authority on
Moslem home life and social institutions.
If Mecca is the religious centre and Constantinople
the political centre of the Moslem world, Cairo above
all things is its literary centre. The Earl of Cromer,
not without reason, described the ulema of Cairo as
" the guardians of the citadel of Islam." No other
city in the Moslem world has so many students of
Moslem theology and law, or pours out such a flood
of Moslem literature as does Cairo. Millions of
pages of the Koran in many and beautiful editions,
commentaries and books of devotion by the hundred
thousand, thousands of books and pamphlets attacking
the Christian faith or defending Islam and propagating
its teaching, come ceaselessly year after year from
the Moslem presses of this great centre of Moslem
learning. Books printed in Cairo are read by the
camp-fires of the Sahara, in the market place of
Timbuctoo, under the very shadow of the Kaaba,
in the bazaars of Baghdad, and are treasured as
authoritative in the mosques of Java, Burma, Cape
Town, and Canton. There is no speech or language
in the Moslem world in which the voice of the Cairo
press is not heard. Its line is gone out through all
the earth, and its words to the end of the world. A
visitor to the booksellers' quarter near El Azhar
University is soon convinced of the intellectual
vitality of the Moslem religion. The intellectual
readjustment which has become necessary in the
minds of all thinking Moslems, because of the philo-
 THE TALE OF THREE CITIES 29
sophical and social disintegration of Islam through
the impact of the West and Christianity, is here felt
as nowhere else. The currents of thought run
contrary and with terrific force. One must read
Moslem papers to appreciate the pathos of the situa-
tion. Attack and counter-attack are incessant.
The conservatives have as their watchword " Back
to Mohammed " They hope to reinvigorate the old
!

religion by a return The weakness

to the golden age.
of Islam, they say, is its compromise. This
spirit of
movement still finds its stronghold in El Azhar
University in spite of recent attempts at reform.
The progressives, the advocates of a new Islam,
are just as anxious to get away from Mohammed
and the old traditionsand to substitute for the
Mohammed an idealised prophet. A new
of history
commentary to the Koran, which is to supersede the
old standards, is appearing month by month in a
leading magazine. When the attempts to reform El
Azhar University in its curriculum and administra-
tion failed, there was a great clamour for the founding
of an Egyptian University to provide at once Arabic
and Western learning from a Moslem standpoint.
According to the testimony of one thoroughly ac-
quainted with the situation, all the government
secondary and professional schools in Cairo are either
Moslem or agnostic in their influence.

" The universities, both old and new, are centres of

Islam and under purely Moslem control. Neither in their
ethical teaching nor in the lives of their professors is
there to be found a basis for the upbuilding of Christian,
spiritual, moral character. The students of the secondary
and professional schools are drifting away from their
traditional moorings of belief and the restraints of life
into unbelief and immorality."
30 THE TALE OF THREE CITIES
With increased intellectual light and the enormous
development of education in recent years, there has
come a French and in Arabic
flood of literature in
translation, which not only non-Christian and
is

often anti-Christian, but to a great degree immoral

and corrupting. The vendors of this literature are
found at every street corner, and it is even offered
for sale on the tramcars and at the railway
stations.
This brings us to a second point in the strategic
influence of Cairo, namely, its journalism. At the
gateway between the East and the West and on the
cross-roads of the commerce of three continents, it
is no wonder that Cairo has more than sixty daily

newspapers. In one year (1909) 25,169,000 news-

papers and periodicals passed through the Egyptian
mail, and of these more than 2,500,000 copies went
from Egypt into other Moslem lands. Of the dailies,
thirty-nine are published in Arabic. There are
seventeen Arabic literary reviews, three judicial
periodicals, three medical journals, two women's
journals, and eleven Moslem magazines devoted to
religion. One of the most influential dailies, the
^Alam, has recently been suppressed by the govern-
ment for indulging in criticism of Turkish and British
rule. It was believed to have a circulation of at least
15,000 copies daily, probably the largest of any
Arabic paper in the world.
If, as some suppose, the dervish orders and Sufiism

are the real strength of Islam among the masses,

then also Cairo holds perhaps the first rank as a
Moslem city, for since the decay of temporal power
in the Moslem world, all the various dervish fra-
ternities have their centres here, as has been
shown by the investigations of Depont and Coppo-
 THE TALE OF THREE CITIES 31

lani in the striking map which accompanies their

book.i
The intellectual revival in Egypt, therefore, the
spread of education, the freedom of the press under
the British Occupation, and the increased use of
Arabic and the Arabic character throughout all
North Africa, have facilitated the propagandism of
Islam from Cairo as a centre, and emphasises its
growing importance. It is the Gibraltar of the
Moslem faith.
But Cairo is becoming a Gibraltar of the
also
Christian faith, not only for Egypt but for all North
Africa. The splendid work of the American Mission
in the Nile valley is known to every student of
missions. The wonderful results of their educational
policy, the establishment of a strong evangelical
Church, so that the Census of 1907 showed 25,000
Protestants, the revival of the Coptic Church, and
the well-known fact that Christians of Egypt, intel-
lectually, socially, and morally, are head and shoulders
—
above the Moslem population all these together
combine to prove the strategic importance of Cairo
as a missionary centre. Cairo is to be the seat of the
future Christian University for the Nile valley. Men
of vision are already laying its foundations in faith.
In Cairo the Church Missionary Society, the American
Mission, the Bible Societies and other agencies are
working in perfect harmony for the strategic occupa-
tion of the city.
Last, but not least, the Nile Mission press must
be mentioned. Established in 1905 for the purpose
of producing and distributing religious books and
magazines in Arabic, and preparing special literature
for Moslems the world over, the press has grown with
^ Les ConfrSries Religeuses Musulmans, Alger, 1897.
32 THE TALE OF THREE CITIES
startling rapidity, and has more than fulfilled the
hopes of its founders. What better proof can be
given that Cairo is not only the intellectual centre
of Islam for reaching Moslems than this eloquent
list of countries which purchase Arabic literature

from the Nile Mission press for Moslems —the

Kameruns, Lagos, South Nigeria, North Nigeria,
Hausaland, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Tripoli,
Egypt, Egyptian Sudan, German East Africa, British
East Africa, Nyasaland, Transvaal, Natal, Cape
Colony, Turkey in Europe, Russia in Europe, Russia
in Asia, Asia Minor, Cyprus, Syria, Palestine, Arabia,
Turkish Arabia, Persian Armenia, Persia, India,
Bengal, United Provinces, Punjab, Sindh, South
India, China (every province), Chinese Turkestan.
When we notice the avidity with which special
literature for Moslems is received in Cairo itself,
and how the same class of literature is demanded
by workers among Mohammedans everywhere, the
conclusion reached by Dr. Charles R. Watson seems
inevitable: he stated that his dominant impression,
after a recent visit to the Levant, was that " no
agency can penetrate Islam so deeply, abide so
persistently, witness so daringly, and influence so
irresistibly, as the printed page."
The three capitals of the Moslem world come to
us with a threefold appeal. Like Nineveh of old,
Constantinople, because of its vast population,
appeals to our pity. " Should not I spare Nineveh,
that great city, wherein are more than six score
thousand persons that cannot discern between
their right hand and their left hand ? " The con-
ditions in Mecca, that Jerusalem of Islam with its
Scribes and Pharisees, its sins and hypocrisies, its
hatred of the Christ, remind us of what Luke records,
 THE TALE OF THREE CITIES 33
" When He drew nigh, He saw the city and wept
over it "
while some of us who are working here in
;

Cairo, when we experience how accessible the Moslem

population is and how comparatively little is yet
being done for them, think of the Lord's words to
Paul at Corinth, in a vision "Be not afraid, but
:

speak, and hold not thy peace for I am with thee,

:

and no man shall set on thee to harm thee: for I

have much people in this city." Mecca represents the
unoccupied fields of Islam, and challenges faith and
heroism. Constantinople, with its mosque of St.
Sophia, appeals to our loyalty. We must win back
what was lost to the Church of Christ. Cairo is the
city of opportunity, of the open door and the beckon-
ing hand. Mecca represents Islam as the excluder,
behind closed doors, defying the entrance of the
Christ ;Constantinople, Islam as the intruder into the
domains of the King ; Cairo reminds us that in
Africa Islam is the great rival faith, and that here
must be fought to the finish the struggle for a con-
tinent. The three cities voice the appeal of three
continents, Asia, Europe, and Africa, to be freed
from the thraldom of Mohammed and welcomed
into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
 CHAPTER II

A UNITED CHRISTENDOM AND ISLAM

 CHAPTER II

A UNITED CHRISTENDOM AND ISLAM

In a Calcutta vernacular paper, Mukammadi,

dated 28th February 1914, there appeared a long
article entitled " Immense Preparations against
Islam." It spoke of all the Christian sects as arous-
ing themselves to united action and world-wide
effort. There were references to the Conference
at Kikuyu, to work of the World's Sunday-School
Association for Moslem childhood, and then the
paper appealed to its readers as follows :

" Where is the spirit that existed in our forefathers

when they withstood so boldly the crusades of the
Christians ? Then Muslims were united and with great
self-sacrifice and for the glory of Islam fought and con-
quered, '
stamping the Christians beneath their feet.'
But now the Christians are attempting to rise. They are
everywhere sinking their sectarian differences with the
one aim to destroy our faith. They are not marching
on us to-day with unsheathed sword to shed streams of
blood, but with peaceable methods, which are a thousand
times more deadly. First of all they are urging the need
for Christian Unity. Conferences have often been held
at which it has been confessed that missions have utterly
failed to arrest the progress of Islam. Now the Christians
maintain that only a united Christian Church can over-
come Islam.
" Surely when Christians are planning such a huge
37
38 A UNITED CHRISTENDOM
campaign it is an evil day for Islam. Will you not bestir
yourselves ? If you spend one rupee where Christians
spend a thousand, then the victory of Islam is sure and not
a Christian will be able to remain in Asia.
" The fact is, Christians are becoming more united,
while in Islam, alas ! we are all divided. We spend our
time watering the poisonous trees of domestic and social
quarrels, when we should be starting missions everywhere
to check the inroads of the Christian faith. ..."

The Cairo press has sounded forth similar warn-

ings for the last year or two, giving its readers an
exaggerated idea of the wonderful unity of purpose
and the world-wide co-operation in Christendom
for the winning of the Moslem world. When we
think, however, of present-day conditions in the
Near East, of the sad divisions and dissensions in
the Oriental Churches, of the scattered and under-
manned mission stations in North Africa, and the
ineffectual attempts to stem the tide of Moslem pro-
pagandism even south of the Equator, we may
well hope that our Moslem brethren will prove true
prophets and seers as regards the future.
The present situation throughout the entire
Moslem world is an unprecedented one, and is a
challenge not only to a dauntless faith, but is a
distinct call to unite all our forces in the coming
struggle. The defeat of Turkey on the battlefield
and her loss of territory in Europe were the result of
the Union of the Allies. Their dissensions, mutual
suspicions, and final open hostility w^as Turkey's
opportunity to retrieve at least a part of her losses
and re-occupy Adrianople. These events are cer-
tainly not without significance. They may well
form a warning in the spiritual conflict with spiritual
weapons for the victory over Islam.
 AND ISLAM 39
Islam arose as a world religion and grew strong be-
cause of the divisions and dissensions in the Christian
field. The weakness of the Oriental Churches and
their corrupt state were, one might almost say, a
preparation for the spread of Islam. The Moslems
presented a united front, Christendom was divided.
The preaching of the apostles of Islam was earnest
and demanded as unconditional a surrender as did
their weapons. The thunder of their cavalry was
not more terrible to the enemy than the clamour of
their short, sharp creed in the ears of an idolatrous
and divided Christendom :
" La-ilaha ilia Allah !

Allahu Akbar."
The whole story of the early spread of Islam in
Persia, Syria, Egypt, and North Africa is tragic because
of the light it throws on the real condition of the
Christian Churches during that period. What a sad
fate overtook Christianity ! The body of religion was
torn and bleeding, its soul dying, while sect and faction
were fighting about the hem of its garments. But
we thank God that the power of Christianity is re-
viving in the Orient. The old Churches by their
unfaithfulness were the occasion of the great
apostasy, the falling away to Islam. Surely we
may say that their requickening is a pledge of its
downfall.
The history of the Armenian Church (faithful unto
death during persecution), the present-day reforms
in the Coptic Church, and the growing sense of re-
sponsibility among the younger leaders in all the
Oriental Churches for the evangelisation of Moslems,
are full of encouragement. We are too apt to under-
estimate the spiritual forces that remain vital
throughout all the Moslem lands of the East. They
are both many and mighty, with latent power.
40 A UNITED CHRISTENDOM
" Among all the peoples in Western Asia," says Viscount
Bryce, " the Armenians are unquestionably the strongest
and what I have seen of them both in their own country
and in America, where many of them have sought refuge
and secured prosperity, leads me to believe them to be,
in point of industry, intellect, and energy, the equals of
any of the European races. The fullest proof of their
constancy and courage was given when, in the massacres
of 1895 and 1896, thousands died as martyrs rather than
save their lives by accepting Islam."

This testimony is confirmed by all those who have

made a sympathetic study of the Armenian problem.
One of the most startling visual proofs of the
present-day strength of Christianity in the Ottoman
Empire, as well as of itssad divisions, is found in a
map recently published. It was prepared by Major
R. Huber, formerly Professor in the Imperial Otto-
man War School, and chief engineer in the Lebanon
Province. The map shows on large scale, the pro-
portionate population of Moslems, Catholics, Ar-
menians, Greek Orthodox, Syrians, Jacobites,
Nestorians, and Protestants in every Province.
It also gives the number and location of the various
patriarchates, bishoprics, cathedrals, churches, con-
vents, schools, orphanages, and hospitals, each division
of the Christian Church being represented by a
different colour. The map is literally dotted with
Christian institutions and mission centres, but the
colour-scheme is as perplexing and discouraging as
that of the " Rainbow Bible " to one who believes
in the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch !

If anything can unite these forces of Christendom

in the Ottoman Empire, it surely is the unprece-
dented opportunity now, under the new conditions
of government, economic development, and freedom
 AND ISLAM 41

to evangelise the Moslem population. Everything

calls for a united Church.
If the opportunity in the Near East is so urgent,
it is equally so, and on a much larger scale, in India.

The total Moslem population of India, according to

the last census, is 67,871,767. This is the largest
single unit of Moslem population in the world, with
open doors, absolute freedom, wonderful accessi-
bility, and a responsiveness not met elsewhere. Here
also there have been remarkable results.
On the other hand, the Moslems in India are active
in the spread of their faith and are gaining many con-
verts from among the low castes, especially in those
very regions where there are mass movements towards
Christianity. Bishop Whitehead of Madras, speak-
ing at a missionary meeting in London, referred to
these conditions when he said ;

" I cannot sit down before I say one more word. It is

that these urgent needs and necessities, this great crisis
coming upon us in India, do constitute a great call not
merely to the members of the Church Missionary Society,
and not merely to the members of the Church of England,
but to all Christians here in the homeland, to promote
unity and co-operation. When I first went to India
thirty years ago, I was strongly opposed to co-operation
with bodies who are outside the Church of England.
Thirty years' experience has made me a complete con-
vert. You are enthusiastic for co-operation and unity
here ; but I do not think that you can realise how in-
tensely we long for it in the Mission field. The work here
in England has been built up largely upon the basis of
competition between different religious bodies. Now,
in the Mission field, competition is absolutely fatal to us.
If we are to do the work as God calls us to do it, we must
have co-operation now ; and God grant that we may
have unity at no distant time. Not merely for the sake
42 A UNITED CHRISTENDOM
of a theory, but in the name of those milhons of souls
who, through our divisions, are being kept outside the
Christian Church, kept apart from the saving truth of the
Gospel of Christ, I appeal to you all here in England to
study the things that make for peace and make for
unity."

Although he spoke specially of his experience in

Southern India, his words are equally true of the
necessity for closer co-operation in Bengal and the
Punjab, if we would win the Moslems.
And what shall we say of Africa ? If ever there
was a missionary situation that called for the closest
possible co-operation, and a situation on which the
whole Church and not a fraction or faction should
concentrate attention and effort, it is that of the
threatening advance of Islam in Africa. In the
words of the Edinburgh Conference finding "It
:

presents to the Church of Christ the decisive question

whether the Dark Continent shall become Moham-
medan or Christian in the present generation."
It needs only a glance at the present distribution
of Protestant and Roman Catholic missionary forces
in the Dark Continent to make perfectly evident
this fact face to face with Islam there must be no
:

rivalry or overlapping of territory or of energies.

The urgency too
issues at stake are too vital, the
great for anything save united effort. We need the
help of all. No single denomination can adequately
cope with the situation.
A few years ago Canon Sell wrote from Madras,
India :

" There are times when it is very difficult to balance

the competing claims of various parts of the Mission field.
I see no difficulty now. . Certain parts of Africa form
. .
 AND ISLAM 43

now, in military language, the objective, and are the

strategical positions of the great Mission field. . . . Parts
of Africa in which the Moslem advance is imminent have
for the present a pre-eminent claim. The absorption
of pagan races into Islam is so rapid and continuous that
in a few years' time some may be quite lost to us."

Roman Catholic missionaries and those of Pro-

testant Societies are entirely agreed as to the character
of Islam in Africa and its present-day peril. At the
German Colonial Congress held in 1910 at Hamburg,
the subject was presented by Inspector Axenfeld,
representing Protestant Missions, Dr. Hansen, repre-
senting the Roman Catholics, and Professor Becker,
one of the keenest students of Islam from a secular
point of view. A strong resolution was then adopted
by the whole Congress, which read :

" Since the progress of Islam in our Colonies is accom-

panied by grave perils, this Colonial Congress recommends
a thorough study of Moslem propagandism. The Congress
is thoroughly convinced that everything which favours

the progress of Islam and hinders the progress of Chris-

tianity should be avoided, and especially commends the
cultural efforts of missionary education and hospital
work to the support of the Colonial Government. We
also recognise in the Moslem peril an urgent challenge to
German Christianity to occupy the regions threatened
by Islam with missionary effort."

If a Colonial Congress could unite in so strong a

resolution,what should be the response of the Christian
Church ? The situation in Africa is unique. Out
of the total Moslem population of 42,039,349 all are
under the rule of Western Christian Governments
with the exception of 780,000 Moslems in Abyssinia
and Liberia. The situation in the former country
 44 A UNITED CHRISTENDOM
is alarming, as Dr. Enno Littmann has shown (in

Der Islam, vol. i. No. 1) that whole Christian tribes

have gone over into Islam within the last two
decades.
That the present situation of the whole Moslem
world demands united action and a united front on
the part of Christendom is incontrovertible, but how
and where is such united action possible ? Are there
indications that the Churches of Christendom are
drawing closer together that there is mutual under-
;

standing, where formerly there was only suspicion ;

that it is possible to sink some of our differences face

to face with such a peril and opportunity ?
My desire is to indicate certain lines on which
Protestant Christendom at least maj^ take the initia-
tive towards this consummation.

J I. We must recognise unity in scholarship in the

study of this problem.— As Dr. Francis Brown pointed
out so ably in a recent number of The Constructive
Quarterly, the guild of scholarship offers oppor-
tunities for religious fellowship, in which our very
diversities lead to enrichment and do not tend to
separation, but to mutual understanding. What
he indicated as true for Christian scholarship in
general applies also, and in a special way, to the stud}^
of Islam, both as a religious system and in its modern
development as a missionary problem. No student
of the subject can help acknowledging the magnificent
contribution already made by the various branches
of the Christian Church, and by many outside its
bounds, for a thorough understanding of the history
and character of this great non-Christian faith. Surely
we may see in this work of preparation a special
providence of God. Others have laboured in this
 AND ISLAM 45
field of scholarship,and the missionary has entered
into their labours. Not to speak of the great Semitic
scholars of the eighteenth century and the earlier
half of the nineteenth century, how much we owe to
thought on Islam such
living leaders in the world of
as Noldeke, Goldziher, Snouck Hurgronje, Hart-
mann, Becker, MacDonald, Margoliouth, Prince
Caetani, Lammens, Cheikho, Le Chatelier, Houtsma,
Arnold, Seligsohn, Casanova, Schaade, Grimme,
Sayous, Montet, and Massignon, not to mention
others.
Many of the scholars mentioned belong to the Roman
Catholic Church, whose missions to Moslems bear no
comparison with those of Protestant Societies either
in extent or efficiency, they themselves being judges.
But Protestant Christendom owes a large debt to
Roman Catholic scholarship for the critical study of
Islam. The splendid work done at Beirut by the
Jesuit fathers of the Faculte Orientale by publishing
the Arabic Pre-Islamic Christian poetry, and by the
investigation of the sources of Islam, is only a single
example of the possibilities of scholarly co-operation.
Prince Leone Caetani and Henri Lammens working at
Rome are placing at the disposal of every student of
Islam all the early sources with critical care ; the
former in his massive work Annali DelV Islam, in
fifteen quarto volumes, the latter in his Berceau
de VIslam, equally ambitious and thorough. When
we note how Lammens employs the higher critical
method to sift Moslem tradition and to set the Koran
and Mohammed before us in their real character, we
not only welcome his co-operation, but are glad to see
on the title-page vignette :
" Verbum Domini Manet
in Aeternam.''^ We must compel educated Moslems
to go back to the sources of their spurious revelation
46 A UNITED CHRISTENDOM
that they may accept that Word of God from us and
with us.
Students of Islam are learning to recognise the
missionary work done among Moslems long before the
days of Henry Martyn and long before the Reforma-
tion. God left not Himself without a witness. When
two biographies of Raymond Lull appeared from the
press almost simultaneously in New York (1902) and
in London (1903), both the Protestant writers seemed
to be in ignorance that the one published in a series
of lives of the saints at Paris in 1900, Le Bienheureux
Raymond Lull par Marius Andre, was already in its
second edition. So attention was directed from three
quarters to that first missionary among Moslems of the
thirteenth century, whom Dr. Eugene Stock designates
as the greatest, and who still lives on. But the
devotees of Lull might well turn to Denmark, and in
the perusal of Dr. Christian H. Kalkar's Kirken
Virksomhed hlandt Muhammedanerne indtil Constanti-
noples Frohering (Copenhagen, 1884), learn that Lull
was not a pioneer only, but an apostolic successor to
many who came long before.
It is this common forum of thought, this unity of
scholarship, which will deliver usfrom provincialism
and sectarianism in facing the Moslem problem. We
have much to learn from the past and from each other.
The missionary to Moslems who remains in ignorance
of this great common literary heritage impoverishes
himself.

II. Our common faith is assailed by Islam and needs

our united defence. — Most of the great common creeds
of Christendom were in existence before Islam arose.
The opposition of the Moslem mind and heart is

directed chiefly against that on which all the Churches,

 AND ISLAM 47
East and West, agree. The very character of the
conflict, therefore, calls for unity.The one supreme
and final revelation of God in our common Scriptures
is opposed to the Koran one Lord, one Faith, one
:

Baptism, one God and Father is— opposed to

Mohammed and his teaching. The issues that unite
us are so fundamental that those which divide us
seem at times almost secondary. There is hardly
an important fact concerning the person, life, and
work of Our Saviour which is not ignored, perverted,
or denied by Islam. In spite of all that can be said
against any of the Oriental Churches in regard to
errors of doctrine, Meredith's simile applies, and

" Sharp as a sickle is the edge of shade and shine "

between them and Islam.

When in Africa or Asia the true disciples of Christ
face Islam and fight for the faith once for all delivered
to the saints, they are all Christians, Churchmen, and
Catholics in the deepest sense of those words.
Christians because they follow Christ, not Mohammed;
Churchmen because they are incorporated into His
mystical body and not into the earthly fellowship
of a Moslem brotherhood ; Catholics because they
belong to that Church which existed before the
Hegira and will exist even after Islam is forgotten
in Arabia, the cradle of its birth. It strengthens
one's faith and love to confess in strategic centres
like Cairo and Constantinople : " / believe in the
Holy Catholic Church.'' In conflict with Islam the
Church will gain a stronger grip on the great funda-
mentals of the Christian faith. The doctrine of the
Incarnation, the Atonement, and the Trinity will
become more and more the subject of special study
as we preach to Moslems. In reading the Gospel
48 A UNITED CHRISTENDOM
with and to Moslems, it becomes evident more and
more to every missionary that the death of Christ,
which is denied in Islam, occupies the supreme
place in the Gospels and in the Epistles as the very
heart of God's revelation to man. The same is true
in regard to the nature and evidences of the resurrec-
tion of Jesus Christ, and our faith in the character
of the Godhead, as compared with the barren
monotheism of Islam.
In the second place, the Christian Church Catholic
will be forced to work out her theology and creeds
experientially in contact and conflict with unitarian,
deistic Islam. In this respect the Mohammedan
problem may possibly be as life from the dead to
the Oriental Churches, when they face its real and
spiritual issues and become conscious of the duty
of evangelism. The doctrine of the Incarnation and
of the Holy Spirit are not pieces of polished armoury
to be kept on exhibition in proof of our orthodoxy
but are vital to the very life of the Christian.
In view of all this, would it not be wise for the
Protestant Churches in facing the Moslem problem
to recognise more than we have yet done our unity
of faith with each other and with other Churches
Churches that withstood the terrific impact of Islam
before the Reformation, and bore witness to the
truth, sealing it by the life-blood of countless
martyrs ?

III. We can show a united front by a strategic

—
survey and occupation of the field. The unoccu-
pied mission fields in Asia and Africa were largely
occupied or are being pre-occupied now by Islam.
There are no Protestant missions among the
twenty million Moslems of the Russian Empire
 AND ISLAM 49
but when we remember the splendid work done
by Nicolas Swano witch Ilminsky, who died 27th
December 1891, we cannot help hoping that the
Orthodox Church of Russia will continue and extend
what he so nobly began.
Bokhara, Chinese Turkestan, Afghanistan, and
other regions in Central Asia await pioneer
still

effort among Moslems. Surely,the occupation

in
of these territories, there is abundant room for the
exercise of the laws of charity and comity so that
the Moslem world may not witness the spectacle of
sectarian division or mere proselytism !

The same holds true of the great island world of

Malaysia, with its thirty-five million Moslem popula-
tion. And if the new survey now being attempted
by the Edinburgh Continuation Committee of the
actual distribution and present-day spread of Islam
in the Dark Continent is to have a practical value,
this at least should be one of its results, namely, a
recognition of territory occupied by Roman Catholic
missions among pagan races on the border-marches
of Islam.
Surely in our attempt to stem the tide of Islam we
must reckon with such enterprises as those conducted
by the " White Fathers " at Timbuctoo, and in the
French Sahara. There are indications that the
Roman Catholic Church is willing to co-operate in
such division of territory and to follow the laws of
comity where they concern the winning of pagan
races in territory threatened by Islam. The urgency
of the situation demands emphasis of this principle,
for the unoccupied fields of the world have a claim
of peculiar weight upon the Church in this twentieth
century. By far the largest proportion of the
wholly untouched areas and populations in Africa
4
50 A UNITED CHRISTENDOM
are Moslem. Indeed, as the Edinburgh Report
says : " The greater part of the Mohammedan
world is practically unoccupied " (vol. i. p. 366).
Has not every part of Christendom a responsibility
toward this world to-day ? Can that responsibility
be met except by mutual agreement, wholehearted
sympathy, and a recognition of God's Providence in
the present political division of Moslem territory in
Africa among the powers of Europe ? The Crucifix
and the Cross never have so much in common as
when you compare them with the Crescent. Has
not the mantle of Raymond Lull fallen also on the
" White Fathers " ?
I will close with two personal experiences of the
possibility of closer fellowship.
A Roman Catholic friend of mine and of the work
among Mohammedans wrote from Paris during last
year :
" There is a word '
prayer ' in your letter very dear
to my heart. Though bound by temporal bands to the
French Board of Education^, I wait with patient and silent
hope the hour when I shall more freely and more openly
work for what I pray for since many years every day
'
Thy Kingdom come.' I know you spend all your
strength and life for the Lord Jesus, and I pray Him in
the Holy Communion of the Church that He may give
you for ever the theological trinity of supernatural
virtues, Faith, Hope, and Love, that syndrome of blessings
which make the canonised saints of the triumphant
Church. I am happy that you were engaged about the
life of Beatus R. Lullius —
he was a great lover of the
Passion, and he gained the crowning glory of martyrdom
the 29th of June it will be next year his 600th anni-
;

versary. ... As for prayer, the Catholic Church has

taught me to say the Pater Noster for all my brethren,
and that is the best in which I can help you."
 AND ISLAM 51
Does not such a letter show the possibilities of real
union in a life of prayer for the Moslem world ?
And I also remember with peculiar pleasure a
visit made to the University of Munich in company
with Pastor Friedrich Wiirz, of Basel, in 1913, and
our delightful interview with Professor Herbert
Grimme, a leading student of Islam. His know-
ledge of the real heart of the Moslem missionary
problem, his sympathy with Protestant efforts, and
his advocacy of closer co-operation, especially in
Africa, were a delightful surprise to us both.
I cannot help, even at the risk of inviting criticism,
quoting the words of Bishop Brent of the Philippine
Islands, spoken at the Edinburgh Missionary Con-
ference ;they apply also to the Moslem problem :

" I want to speak of an extremely difficult thing.

There
is a wonderful, and great, and venerable Church sitting

apart to-day in an aloofness that is more pathetic than it

is splendid. It is not co-operating with us as we can
compel it to co-operate, that is, if we set our minds upon
it. Shall we wait for the Roman Catholic Church to
lead us, or shall you and I take the lead and compel the
Roman Catholic Church to come to us ? They will never
come to us until we go to them. I have learned the
lesson of aloofness. I was one who at a certain period
of my did sit aloof, and I was poor and maimed as
life

long as I did it. I thank God that the Anglican Com-

munion is coming into such
close union with the rest of
Christian workers. can bear testimony to the fact that
I
it is possible for us in a really practicable way
to co-
operate with the Roman Catholic Church, and remember
that the Roman Catholic Church does not mean the
Vatican or the various hierarchies, but the great mass
of devout people we are constantly in touch with. We
can affect them, we can so melt their minds as to affect
the central body. You know what the coppersmith does
52 CHRISTENDOM AND ISLAM
when he wants to buckle a plate. He hits everywhere
but the centre, and at last the centre responds. So let it
be with us in our relation to the Roman Catholic Church."

When we consider the degradation of Islam in

lands like Morocco,its disintegration in Persia, its
stagnation in Arabia, its attempted reformation in
Egypt and India, its neglect in China, and the
encroachment of Islam on all the pagan tribes of
—
Africa shall we not pray and labour for a closer
co-operation of all the forces of Christianity, and
for a united Christendom in its mission to Islam ?
 CHAPTER III

A CENSUS OF THE MOSLEM WORLD

58
 CHAPTER III

A CENSUS OF THE MOSLEM WORLD

[Compiled before the War of 1914]

IT was pointed out at the Lucknow Conference,

1911, that the total population of the Moslem world
is stilla matter of conjecture rather than of actual
statistics.The discrepancies in the different statistical
surveys attempted by various authorities are as
disconcerting as they are surprising. Most of the
estimates have been made by Western writers, al-
though we have one or two instances of an attempted
census by the Moslems themselves. In El Moayyad
(Cairo) for 9th November 1909, the total population
of the Moslem world is given at 270,000,000 but it
;

is evident that the figures are largely guesswork, as

the numbers in China are put at 40,000,000, in Africa

at 70,000,000, and in Russia as high as 24,000,000.
In another case, to which Dr. H. H. Jessup called
attention, the Sublime Porte, under the Hamidian
regime, carefully copied a survey of the Moslem world
published in the Missionary Review of the World in
1898, and gave it as an accurate census taken under
the supervision of the Sultan and at his expense !

The following table gives the totals of the Moslem

world population from various sources :

Brockhaus, Konvers.-Lexikon, 1894 175,000,000

. .

Hubert Jansen, Verbreitung des Islams, 1897 259,680,672

56 A CENSUS OF THE
S. M. Zwemer (Missionary Review of the World),
1898 196,491,842
Allgemeine Missions Zeitschrift, 1902 . 175,290,000
H. Wichmann, in Justus Perthes' Atlas, 1903 240,000,000
Encyclopedia of Missions, lQ04i .. .. 193,550,000
The Mohammedan World of To-day (Cairo
Conference, 1906) 232,996,170
Martin Hartmann, 1910 . . , . . 223,985,780
C. H. Becker, in Baedecker's Egypt (last
German edition) 260,000,000
Lucknow Conference Report, 1911 . 200,000,000

The most detailed statistics can be found in Jansen,

but they are not reliable and are generally over-
estimated, especially in regard to Africa. Hart-
mann's statistics are excessive in regard to Siam,
China, and the Philippine Islands, as well as the
German Colonies in Africa, and Abyssinia, where he
finds no less than 800,000 Mohammedans Gener-!

ally speaking, the population of countries such as

Morocco, Persia, Arabia, and Northern Equatorial
Africa, where there are large desert tracts, has been
estimated too high.
In regard to two large areas of the Moslem world,
we are able to speak with much greater accuracy than
has hitherto been the case. Miss Jenny von Mayer
and Madame Bobrovnikoff have published careful
surveys of the extent and character of Islam in the
Russian Empire, based on Government documents ;

and Mr. Marshall Broomhall, in his Islam in China,

shows that the total Moslem population in the Chinese
Republic, instead of being twenty or thirty millions,
liessomewhere between the minimum and maximum
figures of five and ten millions. With the lowest
figure the careful estimate given by the French
Mission, under Commandant D'Ollone, practically
 .

MOSLEM WORLD 57
agrees {Recherches sur les Musulmans Chinois, Paris,
1911) although some of the missionaries beHeve
;

that both these estimates are ahke too low. In the

case of India and Malaysia we have later statistics,
based on the new census, which were not available
previously. The careful investigations made by
Professor D. Westermann, of Berlin, and others,
concerning Islam and its propagandism in Africa,
enable us now to reduce the exaggerated figures
hitherto accepted for some portions of the dark
continent.
All this makes now to give a better
it possible
estimate, wethan has yet been presented.
believe,
The accompanying tables give in every case our
authorities and references. Professor Westermann
is responsible for Africa, and the writer for the rest
of the world. Where no definite authority is given
and only an estimate is made, it is always conser-
vative and based in every case on considerable
correspondence with those who are authorities on
the subject.
The whole world, according to this
total of the
new estimate, 201,296,696. Of these, 90,478,111
is

are under British rule or protection, and 76,596,219

under other Western or Christian Governments in
possession of colonies, a total of 167,074,330, equal
to 83 per cent., and distributed as indicated :

DISTRIBUTION BY GOVERNMENTS
Under British Rule or Occupation

In Africa . . 22,606,344
In Asia . . . 67,871,767

Total .. 90,478,111
58 A CENSUS OF THE
Other Western or Christian Governments

In Africa :
 MOSLEM WORLD 59

temperature of 68° F," and quotes Mr. Alleyne Ireland

as saying " During the past five hundred years the
:

people of this belt have added nothing whatever to

human advancement. Those natives of the tropics
and sub-tropics who have not been under direct
European influence have not during that time made
a single contribution of the first importance to art,
literature, science, manufacture, or invention ; they
have not produced an engineer or a chemist or a
biologist or a historian or a painter or a musician of
the first rank." But a study of our statistics shows
that such generalisations are rash, for Islam has
extended far to the north and south of this heat
belt, and has, outside this area, a population of no
less than 66,208,796. These are distributed as
follows :

OUTSIDE THE HEAT BELT

3,100,000 In Morocco.
4,175,000 „ Algeria.
1,660,000 „ Tunis.
2,398,320 „ Kashmir.
5,500,000 „ Half of the Punjab.
20,000,000 „ Russia.
6,315,000 „ Three-quarters of China.
5,000,000 „ Afghanistan.
12,278,000 „ Turkey in Asia.
3,400,000 „ Three-quarters of Persia.
2,373,676 „ Europe.
8,000 „ America.

66,208,796

A much more important division of the Moslem

world population than that of climate, or even accord-
ing to government, is the classification of Moslems ac-
60 A CENSUS OF THE
cording to the character of their beliefs and practices.
Snouck Hurgronje, Warneck, and Simon have con-
clusively shown that the Mohammedans of Malaysia
are of animistic type and have little in common
with Moslems as we know them in North Africa or
Arabia. Of the total number who call themselves
Moslems we must reckon, therefore, that 60,000,000 in
Africa, Malaysia, and parts of India belong to this
animistic type, or, in the words of Gottfried Simon,
are really " heathen Mohammedans." The Shiah
sect in Persia and India is also a distinct group,
but does not count more than 10,000,000. Perhaps
from two to four millions of the Moslem world popula-
tion in Persia, Turkey, India, and Egypt have so far
adopted Western education and broken away from
the old Islamic standards of the orthodox tradition
that they should be separately classified also as New
School Moslems. This would leave about 126,000,000
orthodox Moslems who follow the Sunna of the
Prophet, and are themselves cognisant of the exist-
ence and the distinctions of the four great schools
Hanifi, Maliki, Shafi, Hanbali. The Hanifi are in
the great majority and number perhaps 85 millions,
chiefly in Turkey, India, Russia, and Central Asia.
The Maliki school is predominant in Upper Egypt
and North Africa and numbers about 16 millions.
The Shafis are found chiefly in Lower Egypt, Southern
India, and Malaysia, numbering about 24 millions,
while the Hanbali are found mostly in Central and
Eastern Arabia and do not number over one million.
We now present the tables of population, beginning
with Africa :
 .

MOSLEM WORLD 61

AFRICA
Belgian Possessions
Sources {a) for Total Popula-
Name of Total Mohammedan tion, (b) for Mohammedan
Country. Population. Population. Population and other
;

Remarks.
Belgian Congo 15 to 20,000,000 60,000 (a) Le Mouvement Geo-
graphique, 191 2. H.
(6) C. Janssen Pro- :

vince Orientale et
Uelle, 11,000; B.
Struck (whole Belg.
Congo), 57,000.

Portuguese Possessions
Guinea 600,000 200,000 {a) H. 820,000.
:

[h) Fula and Mandingo

are Mohammedans.
S. Thome and Principe 69,000 H.
Angola . . . 4,200,000 H.
East Africa . .. 3,120,000 130,000 {a) H.

Spanish Possessions
Guinea 173,846 .. H.
Rio de Oro 130,000 130,000 H.

Independent Countries
Abyssinia 8,000,000 500,000 (a)H. Estimate prob-
:

ably too high.

(6) J. Richter, in War-
neck's Missionsge-
schichte, 1910, p. 336,
Remark : 333,000.
Liberia 1,200,000 280,000 H. Johnston, Liberia,
London, 1906.

Italian Possessions
Libya 723,000 690,000 (a) H.
Eritrea 279,551 275,000 (a) H.
Somali 400,000 400,000 H.

1,365,000
62 A CENSUS OF THE
French Possessions
Sources (a) for Total Popula-
Name of Total Mohammedan tion, (S) for Mohammedan
Country. Population. Population. Population and other
;

Remarks.
Le Senegal . 1,300,000 650,000

Gum6e Fran9aise 1,935.000

Haut Senegal Niger 5,310,000 2,000,000

Mauritanie . . . 225,000
Cote d'lvoire . . 1,265,000

Dahomey 878,000

Afrique Equa- 7 to 9,000,000

toriale Fran-
9aise
Somali .. .. 208,000
Madagascar.. .. 3,104,000

Reunion
 .

MOSLEM WORLD 63
Sources (a) for Total Popula-
Name of Total Mohammedan tion, (d) for Mohammedan
Country. Population. Population. Population and other
;

Remarks.
Algeria 5,563,828 4,175,000 (a) H. (6) H.
Tunis 1,904,551 1,660,000 (a) H. (6) H.

15,085,000

German Possessions
Togo.. 1,000,000 60,000 {a) A. J., 1909-10, etc.
(b) A. J., 1910-11 :

14,000 indigenous (im

Schutzbegiet heim-
ische) Moh.
Kamerun 3,300,000 720,000 (a) A. J., 1909-10, etc.
{b) Passarge in Das
Deutsche Kolonial-
reich, tome i. p. 511.
Deutsch- 103,000
Siidwestafrika
Deutsch- 7,516,000 700,000 (fl) A.J. [b) A. J., 191 1-
Ostarika 12, 300,000 Kar- ;

stedt, i^ millions.

1,480,000

British Possessions and Countries under British

Influence
Gambia 152,000 120,000 {a) C.O.L., 1913.
Sierra Leone 1,327,000 250,000 [a) C.O.L., 1913.
Gold Coast . 1,504,000 180, 000 [a) C.O.L., 1913.
(&) T. P. Rodger, in
Journal of the African
Society, igog-igio,
p. 14, gives 100,000.
Northern 8 to 9,000,000 7,000,000 (a) C.O.L., 1913.
Nigeria
Southern Nigeria , . 7,858,000 2,000,000 (a) C.O.L. 1913.
(6) Cf. African Mail,
29. 8. 1913.
Somaliland . . . 346,805 345,000 (fl) C.O.L., 1913 ; H.
B. East Africa 3 to 4,000,000 500,000 {a) C.O.L., 191 3 ; H.
64 A CENSUS OF THE
Sources (a) for Total Popula-
Name of
 —— ;

MOSLEM WORLD 65

H. =Otto Hiibner's Geographisch-Statistische Tahellen. Frank-

fort-a-Main, 191 3.
R.G.G. =Die Religion in Geschichte unci Gegenwart. Tiibingen,
1909 a.
2. The information given under C. Janssen (of Brussels, formerly
Governor-General of the Congo State), B. Struck (of Dresden), Dr.
Karstedt (of Berlin), P. Pegard (of Paris), are personal communi-
cations, for which I have to express my sincere thanks. Mr. Struck
besides has given me several valuable suggestions.
3. Fairly accurate data as to the number of Mohammedans are
obtainable {a) where census returns or ofificial estimates are
available e.g. in North Africa and the Union of South Africa ;

{b) where the population of a country is entirely or almost entirely

Mohammedan (c) where whole particular peoples, such as the

;

Haussa and Fula, have accepted Islam, or the great majority of a

population has done so, as in the case of the Wolof or Mandingo,
and thv^ir numbers are known. For the rest, the statistics here
given are based upon the writer's estimates, which have been
founded on recent literature on the subject or derived by com-
parison with the population of neighbouring countries for which
accurate statistics are available.
It should be noted that in many of the border marches of Islam
the boundaries between heathenism and Islam are completely lost
the estimates are, therefore, in some cases arbitrary, and even
experts differ greatly in their estimates.
4. Earlier estimates without exception run into higher figures
than those here given ; even the most recent publications (by
Becker, Hartmann, Margoliouth, Richter) vary between a total of
53 and 76 millions. This over-estimate is due for the most part
to the fact that the population of many parts of Africa was set at
too high a figure [e.g. Morocco, 6 to 10 millions instead of 3,200,000 ;

Darfur, 3,500,000 instead of about 600,000 ; Wadai 2 to 3,500,000

instead of 1,000,000).
5. Estimates that disagree with mine as to the number of
Mohammedans in individual countries I have only given when they
are new, and their accuracy bears a special semblance of probability,
or when they are specially worthy of attention.
6. In most countries, where the population is still partly heathen,
Islam is gaining ground.
66 A CENSUS OF THE
ASIA
A. Under Foreign Rule
British Empire
 .. .. ,..
.

MOSLEM WORLD 67

^"""y Pop^lldon. pjjutiron.

Authority.

Punjab States .. .. 4,212,794 1,319,756

Rajputana Agency . 10,530,432 985,825
Sikkim . . . . . 87,920 44
United Provinces States 832,036 246,358

3i3.477>8i6 66,577,247 S.Y.B.

Federated Malay States 1,036,999 406,860 East & West,

July 1913.
Straits Settlements . 732,510 266,299 .» .»

Total .. .. 67,871,767

Dutch East Indies

Java and Madura . . 30,098,008^ 29,627,557 Official Stat.,
The Hague.
Sumatra . . . . 4,029,503 3,275,000 R.M.M., vol.
vii. p. 112.
Borneo 1.233,655 985,440
Celebes .. .. .. 851,905 640,000 Enc, of Islam,
p. 830 (est.).
Banka and Dependencies 115,189 70,853 Enc. of Islam,
p. 649.
Riou and Dependencies 112,216 93,434 R.M.M., vol.
vii. p. 112.
Billiton . . . 36,858 34,200
Amboine and Dependencies 299,604 71,204 „ „
Ternate, New Guinea and 607,906 108,240 ,, ,,

Dependencies . . (S.Y.B.)
Timor and Dependencies 308,600 34,650 „ „
Bali and Lombok .. 523,535 368,418 „ ,,

Total .. .. 35,308,996

American Colonies
Philippine Islands . . 8,600,000 277,547 R.M.M,, vol.
iv. p. 24.

Total .. .. 277,547

^ Statistics of total population from Of&cial Statistics. —The

Hague, 1912.
68 A CENSUS OF THE
French Possessions
Country.
 MOSLEM WORLD 69

Country.
70 CENSUS OF THE MOSLEM WORLD
p„T<|-|^„. pM°;i=P„. Au.horhy.
Country.

Brazil . . . . . 23,070,969 100,600 R.M.M. vi.

314-
Cuba .. .. .. 2,220,278 2,500
Guiana, British . . 296,000 21,300
Guiana, Dutch . . 86,233 10,584 S.Y.B.
Guiana, French . . .. 49,009 1,570 R.M.M.,,
Jamaica 831,383 3,000
Mexico 15,063,207 1,050
Trinidad 340,000 10,499
Scattered .. 7,438

Total .. .. ^. 166,061

AUSTRALIA
Total Moslem population . 19,500 R.M.M. ii.

394-

Total for the whole world . 201,296,696

AUTHORITIES QUOTED
Total populations as given by the Statestnan's Year Book, 1913
(S.Y.B.), unless otherwise stated.
R.M.M. Revue du Monde Musulman. Paris.
Ofi&cial Stat. Jaarcijfers voor de Kolonien. The Hague, 1912,
Enc. of Islam. Encyclopedia of Islam.
M.W.— The Moslem World.
C.C. Report. Cairo Conference Report, " The Mohammedan World
of To-day."
Broomhall. Islam in China, by Marshall Broomhall. London.
Kampffmeyer. Die Welt des Islams, vol. i. p. i.
Hartmann. Der Islam, by Martin Hartmann. Leipzig, 1909.
Est. —
Estimated from correspondence.
CHAPTER IV

ISLAM IN RUSSIA

Tl
 CHAPTER IV
ISLAM IN RUSSIA

Russia is the greatestcompact empire in the

world. In area it is North America,
larger than all
or than the combined areas of the United States,
Canada, Mexico, and Central America. A total
area of eight and a half million square miles is under
the rule of the Czar. Within the boundaries of
greater Russia two-fifths of all the territory of
Europe and Asia are embraced. Indeed, we are told
by Gilbert H. Grosvenor, that Russia lacks but
ten degrees of reaching half-way around the earth,
and possesses one-sixth of the land area of the
globe.
For more than a century the Russian dream has
been a great Slav empire, extending from Germany
to the Pacific and from the Arctic Sea to the Persian
Gulf. The present war is undoubtedly a part of the
fulfilment of this dream of empire and it is remark-
;

able that Russia alone of the great Christian Powers

has not once been the ally of the Turk. The hatred
of the Slav for the Tatar, whose yoke was thrown off
in 1478, when Ivan stamped and spat upon the
edict which came from the Khan, has never ceased.
For this reason Russia has sacrificed hundreds of
thousands of lives in war against the Turks, to
help Greece to secure freedom, or to deliver Servia,
Roumania, and Bulgaria. Nevertheless in the ex-
73
74 ISLAM IN RUSSIA
pansion of her territory Russia has absorbed large
areas of Moslem population in the Caucasus, Central
Asia, and Siberia, and the highest tribute to her rule
over her Moslem population has been their loyalty
during the present war.
^^
It is of special interest, therefore, to consider
Islam in the Russian Empire. The coming of the
Slav is no longer a prophecy, but history, and we
cannot understand the Moslem problem in Asia unless
we reckon with Young Russia, the land of unlimited
possibilities. As the Russian novelist Dostoievski
expressed it, " Russia has the genius of all nations and
Russian genius in addition. We can understand
all nations, but no other nation can understand
us." When did Islam enter Russia ? What is its
present extent and power ? What are its strategic
centres, and are the Moslems of Russia accessible ?
These are some of the questions that await an
answer.
As early as 672 a.d. the Saracens attacked Bok-
hara. The conquest was not an easy one and the
invaders were repulsed. In 704 Kuteiba, the Arab
conqueror, appeared on the scene, and is said to
have advanced as far as the extreme border of
Eastern Turkestan, imposing Islam as he went. We
"
read that Bokhara was conquered and " converted
three times, only to revolt and relapse until the
strongest measures were taken to establish the new
religion. Every Bokharist, Vambery tells us, had
to share his dwelling with a Moslem Arab, and those
who prayed and fasted, like good Moslems, were
rewarded with money. Finally the city was wholly
given over to the Arabs, and a little later Samarkand
experienced the same fate. From Bokhara as a
centre, Islam, spread gradually by coercion or per-
 ISLAM IN RUSSIA 75

suasion, by preaching or by the sword, in all direc-

tions throughout Afghanistan, Turkestan, and
Chinese Tartary for a period of two hundred years.
When Marco Polo crossed these countries (1271-
1294) he found Islam nearly everywhere dominant.
But as late as the fifteenth century an Arab of
Damascus was a preacher of Islam to the pagan
tribes of Tunganis who lived between Ilia and
Khamil. Sometimes, also, Islam was spread by the
influence or example of kings and princes who be-
came Moslems and set the fashion for their court and
their subjects. So Togoudar Ogoul, when he as-
cended the throne of Turkestan, renounced Chris-
tianity and became a Moslem, his subjects following
his example. We must distinguish, however, be-
tween the Russian dominions in Central Asia which
are Moslem and her ancient European Moslem pro-
vinces which have formed part of the Russian Empire
for a hundred years and more.
The adding of Moslem populations began under
Ivan in the middle of the sixteenth century, when
Kazan was taken and East Siberia subjugated. In
the end of the eighteenth century the Crimea, then
wholly Mohammedan, was added to Russia. The Finns
of the Volga were also among the converts whom the
Tatars won over to Islam. According to Arnold,
one of the most curious incidents in the missionary
history of Islam was the conversion of the Kirghiz
of Central Asia by Tatars sent as emissaries of the
Russian Government in the eighteenth century. At
the time of the annexation of their country few of
them had any knowledge of Islam, and not a single
mosque was to be found throughout the whole of
the Kirghiz steppes. They owed their conversion
to the strange theory that the Russians considered
76 ISLAM IN RUSSIA
them Moslems, and therefore insisted on treating
them as such. Large sums of money were given
for the building of mosques and schools opened for
their children. " This," says Arnold, " is probably
the only instance of a Christian government co-
operating in the promulgation of Islam, and is the
more remarkable inasmuch as the Russian Govern-
ment of that period was attempting to force Chris-
tianityon its Muslim subjects in Europe."
For information regarding the present spread of
Islam in Russia and the numbers and distribution
of its Moslem population, we
are indebted to the
late Mme
Bobrovnikoff, of Petrograd (St. Peters-
burg) (Moslem World, vol. i. No. 1), and Miss
Jenny von Mayer, who has done considerable mis-
sionary work among Russian Moslems in Central
Asia.
Russia and her Moslem colonies are not separated
from each other as is the case with the Netherlands
or Great Britain, but form one geographical whole.
No sea divides the Moslem from the Christian
part of the Empire. Trains go directly from Petro-
grad through Moscow down to the Moslem pro-
vinces of European and Asiatic Russia to Kashgar,
Samarkand, Bokhara, Merv, Askhabad, and the
Caspian Sea. As Miss Von Mayer remarks :
" For
facility of access, both in administration, civilization,
and Christianizing, no other Power can compare
with Russia. About twenty million Moslem subjects
are under her rule, and enter more or less into her
political, social, and commercial life."
According to races the Mohammedans of Russia
may be classified as follows :

Kirghiz 4,886,946 Mohammedans.

Tatars 3,737,627
 . .. ;

ISLAM IN RUSSIA 77
Aboriginal Tribes of Central Asia :

Usbeks 726,534
•
Sartes 968,655
Turkmans 281,357
1,976,546 Mohammedans.
Bashkirs 1,439,136
Georgians, etc. . . 1,336,448 Greek Orthodox.
Of Armenian birth . 1,173,096 Christians.
Mordva 1,023,841 Baptized.

The rest consist of smaller units, Finns, Kurds,

Jakuts, etc.
Moslems are found scatteredin nearly every part
of In the following provinces, however,
Russia.
they form over 50 per cent, of the population Ufa, :

Kars, Tersk, Elisavetpol, Uralsk, Daghestan, and

Baku. All these are in European Russia. In
Asiatic Russia the percentage rises much higher.
The province of Akmolinsk has 64 per cent. Moslems,
while the seven other Trans-Caspian provinces each
contain over 88 per cent. Mohammedans. In the
European provinces the principal centres of Moslem
Kazan, Orenburg, Ufa, Troizk. Here
civilisation are
most of them use the Russian language, and they
are among the most civilised Moslems not only of
Russia but of the world. The principal centres of
Moslem education in Asiatic Russia are Samarkand,
Khokand, Tashkent, Andijan, Bokhara, while in
the Caucasus, Baku is the centre not only of com-
merce but of Moslem learning. The great majority
of Russian Moslems belong to the Sunnite sect
the only exception is in the Caucasus, where there
are a considerable number of Shiahs.
Some of the scattered Moslem communities
in the
other Russian provinces are of considerable import-
ance. Tiflis is a great Moslem centre, and a mosque
78 ISLAM IN RUSSIA
has recently been built in Petrograd. The Russian
occupation of Northern Persia was followed, even
before the present war, by a veritable exodus from
Turkestan into the northern provinces of Persia.
Russia is already dominant politically, and a veiled
protectorate practically exists. We may well expect
that one of the results of the present war will be
the handing over of the Armenian provinces of
Turkey to Russian administration. The result will
be a vast increase of Russia's national responsibility
as regards the Moslem problem. The present number
of Moslems in European Russia is 3,500,000 the
;

remainder are in Russian Turkestan and Bokhara.

It will not be surprising if the total number of
Moslems under the Russian flag at the conclusion
of the European conflict amounts to 25,000,000.
According to those who have studied the situation,
Russia has nothing to fear from Pan-Islamism in
the form of Pan-Turkism. At one time there were
great efforts made from Constantinople to fan the
flames of fanaticism " but it seems likely," says
;

Miss Von Mayer, *' that reasonable liberty being

accorded them for their own national and religious
life, the clever, practical, matter-of-fact Tatars, for

all their undeniable religious fanaticism, though

lacking the deep soul-fire of the Iranic race, will
prefer to be assimilated into the Russian Empire,
with whose traditions and interests of all kinds they
are united, rather than with a problematic pan-
Turkish Empire." The Russian policy, therefore,
seems to be to gradually assimilate those nationalities
incorporated into the Empire by schools and other
methods of civilisation. This is, however, not the
case with Central Asia. Here Russia must expect
disturbances and annoyance. The Moslems are here
 ISLAM IN RUSSIA 79

in the vast majority, and are subject to influence

both from Afghanistan and, because of the pilgrim-
age, from Mecca and Arabia. To quote once more
from Miss Von Mayer, who has travelled more in
this region than any other Christian worker :

" The Moslems of Central Asia are at heart not

friendly disposed towards Russia, and this last year even
less so than before. They do not, as a matter of fact, see
much of the blessings conferred on their land by a govern-
ment which is conspicuous for its lack of initiative and
talent for organization. Take only the question of life
and death for Central Asia, the question of water supply
by irrigation! And they do see much of Russian coarse-
ness and licentiousness; no reason for love, certainly,"

In regard to the social condition of the Moslems

in Russia we must again distinguish between those
in Europe and in Asia. Literacy is as common in
the former as illiteracy among the latter. Accurate
data concerning illiteracy, however, are completely
wanting. The new Islamic movement began in
Russia under a Tatar of Greek extraction named
Gasprinsky, who founded a newspaper, the Terjuman.
It was at once Pan-Islamic in tendency and strong
in its advocacy of reform. Attempts were made
to create a new Islamic language, Pan-Tjoork, which
would be understood by all the different Moslem
tribes living in the Russian Empire, and is a mixture
of Tatar, Turkish, Arabic, and Persian. The new
Islamic books and papers are written in this language,
and a literature is gradually arising covering a wide
—
field, from Uncle Tom's Cabin to Dozy^s Essay on
the History of Islam. The principal centres of this
literary movement are Kazan and Ufa. The former
place has the largest schools and presses ; the latter is
80 ISLAM IN RUSSIA
the headquarters of the Mohammedan ecclesiastical
assembly.
The strength of Islam to-day, and its power of
propagandism, is mostly through the press. A recent
number of La Revue du Monde Musulman (Mar.
1914) gives statistics of Russia as a literary centre
for Mohammedans. During the year 1912, 631 new
publications appeared from the Moslem press. Of
these no less than 249 were published at Kazan ;

64 at Orenburg ; and these two places are the chief

centres of literary effort, although we must not
forget Baku and Tiflis. According to the statistics
given, the largest number of books were in Arabic ;

the next largest in Sart 178 were religious publica-

;

tions ; 95 classical publications 35 poetry ; 80

;

general literature ; 24 books for children ; 24

theatrical publications 13 on geography ; and
;

10 on social questions. Only three of the books

printed were suppressed by the Russian Govern-
ment.
From the list of Moslem presses given by Louis
Bouvat in La Revue du Monde Musulman we learn
that there are three at Petrograd, three at Kazan,
two at Tiflis, one at Baku, and one at Baghtche-
Serai. They publish fifteen journals, many of which
have a large circulation. The influence of these
journals extends over all Central Asia, and, in a
sense far beyond, into Egypt and India.
It was Ismail Bey Gasprinsky, the editor mentioned,
who made the first proposal for a universal Moslem
Congress in 1906 and although the Congress was
;

not as important or as effective as had been hoped,

the fact that it was held under the leadership of a
Russian Mohammedan is significant. Gasprinsky
also made an extended visit to India, advocating
 Meccan Pilgrims Encamped at Arafat
Nearly 200,000 pilgrims go to Mecca each year.

A Moslem Family in the Caucasus

There are over 20,000,000 Moslems in the Russian Empire.
 ISLAM IN RUSSIA 81
education for Moslems on modern lines and Pan-
Islamism through reform. A special edition of the
Koran, what might be called a critical text, has
also been published by Gasprinsky at Baghtche-
Serai, and finds a ready sale in Cairo. Some of the
copies contain on the title-page words strange to
Moslem readers in this connection, viz., " Copy-
righted." have not been able to learn whether
I
this edition of theKoran differs in any important
particulars from those printed in Cairo and Con-
stantinople.
Leaders of religious thought in Russia are awaken-
ing to the importance of the Moslem problem and ;

well they may. One often hears of the Russian

Jews, and yet they number only 3*55 per cent, of
the total population, while the Moslems form nearly
12 per cent, and are growing in influence and power
in the Duma.
In 1912 the Imperial Society of Oriental Know-
ledge established the Mir Islama, a quarterly
review of the Moslem world for Russian readers,
under the editorship of Professor W. Bartold,
which had aim "the study of Moslem
as its
civilisation as a complex historical phenomenon not
accounted for exclusively by the influence of religious
dogmas and precepts and the explanation of all
;

those civilising (huVturnwya) influences and those

political, economic, and other causes by which the
practical life of Mohammedan peoples has been and
is determined."

Next to the press the dervish orders are of import-

ance in the study of Russian Mohammedanism.
The chief orders are the Kadhriya, the Shadiliyeh,
and the Naqshabendi. The last named was founded
at Bokhara, and still finds its chief centre there.
6
82 ISLAM IN RUSSIA
The Province of Bokhara has a separate system of
administration and government under an Amir.
The latter has gained enormously in prestige, and
Dr. Bartold tells us that on this account his kingdom
has been but little influenced by Russian civilisation.
The population is still exploited in the most ruthless
fashion, and the present policy of the government
in allowing Moslem rule to dominate can only be
disadvantageous not merely to the subjects of the
Amir, but to Russian prestige in Central Asia. Some
think that the great secret of success in the Russian
administration of her Moslem population has been
the principle of non-interference and the prohibition
of all missionary propaganda. In his book, The
Duab of Turkestan, W. R. Rickmers says :

*'
Leaving aside the Christianity of the Europeans
and a few mysterious Pamir sects, the whole of the Duab
is under the sway of Islam. The nomads profess their
religion only nominally, but the settlers, and especially
the Bokharan subjects, may be counted among the
most fanatical Moslems in the world. In Bokhara, how-
ever, religious fervour is the work of a few leading spirits,
as is best shown by the condition of things across the
Russian border, where spiritual tyranny is hardly notice-
able. Here one never hears of quarrels between Christians
and Mussulmans, the population being exceedingly tolerant
on both sides. The Russian administration has strictly
forbidden all proselytising even on the part of the
Orthodox Church. This wisdom has excellent results,
contrasting favourably with the questionable effect of
missionary work in other countries."

This opinion is not shared, however, by missionary

workers, who state that Russification is very far from
evangelisation and hinders it in many ways. The
 :

ISLAM IN RUSSIA 83
Orthodox Church in Russia has lost in the last decade
about 50,000 souls, who have reverted to Islam.
The same writer who speaks of the toleration of
Moslems toward Christians in European Russia says
in regard to Bokhara and Samarkand, that Moham-
medan fanaticism here finds its centre. " Haughty
officials pace the streets, ascetic mullahs proclaim
the unadulterated truth, and the people still keep
up their traditions, manner, and dress with almost
demonstrative obstinacy."
The condition of Moslem women in Russia, except
in some educated centres, is still deplorable. In
Bokhara travellers say that woman is conspicuous
by her absence. Architecture and domestic arrange-
ments are influenced by the traditional seclusion of
womanhood. When seen on the street they shrink
at the sight of a stranger and veil themselves closely
in all haste. Polygamy and divorce may not be as
common as in some other Moslem lands, but general
conditions are typical of Islam. There are even
darker shadows in the picture than one would imagine
possible. The Frankfurtar Zeitung recently gave an
account of the sale of one hundred and fifty Moslem
girls in the province of Saratoff to Turkish merchants,
who took them to Tashkent and Samarkand. The
story of womanhood in Turkestan finds pitiful ex-
pression in the words of a Christian worker

" When the heat of the day is over, the inhabitant of

a Mohammedan town goes out for a walk to enjoy the
evening coolness before the gates, and will sometimes
pass the burial-grounds. Weeping and wailing come to
his ear. Pitifully he will look at the figures of
mourning
women who are kneeling by the graves. But the sorrow
which is revealed there is not always meant for the loss
of some beloved one dead ; very often women visit the
84 ISLAM IN RUSSIA
graves of their relations, or, if they have none, of saints,
in order to weep out undisturbed and unheard their
hopeless, desolate lives. In their houses they dare not
give way to their sorrows for fear of their husbands,
therefore they go to the dead in order to tell them their
"
griefs !

On the other hand, Moslem women in Russia are

awakening to their new opportunities, and we read
how a certain number of the educated classes sent a
petition to the Duma to demand popular education
for girls. A
Moslem Congress, attended by forty
delegates from European and Asiatic Russia, was
held last summer at Petrograd, with the authorisa-
tion of the Minister of the Interior. The meetings
reflected a strong determination among the Mos-
lem subjects of Emperor Nicholas to uphold their
religious, social, and educational rights. The estab-
lishment in Petrograd of a centralised authority
to look after the interests of Mohammedans through-
out the Russian Empire was advocated by many
speakers.

" The Mohammedan woman in the light of to-day

was also discussed, and her cause applauded when Akmud
Kuramshin, a member of the first Duma, declared that
without the education of women it would be impossible
to effect progress among the Mohammedans."
" If certain old mullahs continue to proclaim from
the mosques that women have no need of education,"
he said, " they simply speak from ignorance."
Akmud went so far as to say every woman over
twenty-one years of age should have a vote on ques-
tions affecting the community at large. In regard
to matrimony, he contended that both parties should
be asked before the marriage ceremony whether
 :

ISLAM IN RUSSIA 85

they were voluntarily entering into the contract.

This, he said, would eventually put a stop to the idea
that Mohammedan women were so many chattels.
The above-mentioned petition to the Duma closes
with an appeal for women's rights in general, especi-
ally referring to the oppression of Moslem women
by their own husbands on account of the mediaeval
legislation of Islam, and ended with this appeal
" O Moslem deputies duty calls upon you to plead
!

the rights of Mohammedan womanhood. It is within

your province to demand the passage of a law which will
safeguard us from the oppression of our husbands, from
their tyranny and the misery which they inflict upon us.
We are the mothers of the nation, the friends of man,
and it is upon us that the elevation of society rests.
Therefore, if our husbands are not willing to cease this
oppression, let them be aware that the day will come
when they will be slaves. Then the entire Moslem race
will be annihilated."
For some years a reform movement has also gone
on among the Moslems in the Caucasus, with Tiflis
as a centre. There is a great demand for education.
One weekly newspaper is edited by a Moslem of
liberal views and is striving its best to remove old
prejudices and old traditions. A number of the
Moslems in the Caucasus are very wealthy. One
of them, a millionaire, has built a large college for
the education of Moslem girls in Baku. In Tiflis
a diglot edition of the Koran, Arabic and Turkish,
has lately been published, and seems to have a wide
sale. For many years the people of Tiflis have
been longing for a university, and probably the
Russian Government will soon grant them their
desire. Missionary E. John Larson states, however,
that " religious liberty, when it was granted to this
86 ISLAM IN RUSSIA
part of Russia in 1905, had as a result that those
Mohammedans who had been converted by force
to the Christian Church, all returned to Islam." On
the other hand, he speaks of more than thirty Moslems
who experienced a change of heart and became
connected with the Evangelical Church voluntarily.
Turning now to the question of missions to Moslems,
as we have already stated, no Protestant missionary
effort is permitted in the Russian Empire. But
there are indications that after the war a new law
of religious libertymay be possible and this hindrance
removed. There exists a Greek Orthodox Missionary
Society with headquarters at Moscow ; annual
expenditure, £32,422. This society supports several
missions, including five among Moslems at Altai,
Omsk, Tobolsk, a mission in Asiatic Russia, and the
Orenburg mission in European Russia. The result
of this work, however, is very small. In the year
1908 there were only forty-four converts from Islam
to the Greek Orthodox faith in the whole Empire.
Besides this mission there exist in Kazan two educa-
tional institutions to prepare missionary workers,
where the Tatar and Arabic languages are taught,
and also the Moslem faith from the controversial
side. The anti-Christian propaganda of the Moslems,
however, isstronger than these efforts. According
to Mme Bobrovnikoff, the only satisfactory result
so far in missionary activity among Moslems in the
Russian Empire has been the work of Ilminsky and
his followers.

" Nicholas Ivano witch Ilminsky (born 1822) was a

professor of the Ecclesiastical Academy and also of the
University of Kazan. He was a distinguished Orientalist,
had thoroughly studied Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and
several other Eastern languages, and was a corresponding
 ISLAM IN RUSSIA 87
member of the Academy of Science at Philadelphia. In
the year 1857 he began a translation of sacred books into
the language spoken by the baptized Tatars and in 1863 ;

he founded in Kazan the first school for baptized Tatar

boys and girls."

Ilminsky died in 1891, but his work was taken

up by others and from his central schools, put
;

after his death under the direction of M. Bobrovnikoff,

hundreds of religious schoolmasters and school-
mistresses went out as whole-hearted missionaries.
A Translation Committee was founded in 1876, and
parts of the Scriptures, stories, school-books, tracts,
etc., were prepared for Moslem readers. The chief
result of Ilminsky's life-work was to put an end
to the conversion of numbers of aborigines to Islam.
He hoped that the baptized Tatars would act as a
leaven on the surrounding Moslem population, and
that through them the Christian faith would gradu-
ally win ; but as yet there are no signs that this hope
will be realised.
The and Foreign Bible Society reaches
British
many Moslems in Russia through its various
of the
agencies, and is given special facilities by the Russian
Government, both as regards free transportation of
Scriptures and railway travel. Their agency at
Tiflis has been a centre of light for all this region.
The met with are, however, very great,
difficulties
especially in Moslem districts. Miss Von Mayer
rightly remarks :

" But the one faithful whose zeal never

witness,
slackens, whose salt power, which cannot
does not lose its
—
be killed or silenced ^the Word of God —
is on the field.
!

The Gospel, translated into the vernacular of all or

nearly all the Moslem tribes of European and Asiatic
Russia, is within the reach of the Moslems, either in the
88 ISLAM IN RUSSIA
missionary schools (in European Russia) or offered by the
colporteurs of the Russian, but particularly of the British
and Foreign Bible Societies. And, thank God, the number
of copies sold or given to Moslems shows a steady increase.
Whilst this agent is at work, the Word of God itself, let
us not despair of Moslems in Russia finding the way to
Him who is Truth and Life " !

Meanwhile we can only wait patiently until the

door of access is opened, strengthening by faithful
prayer the hands of those who here and there are
sowing the seed of the Word among these millions.
 CHAPTER V
ISLAM IN SOUTH AFRICA
 CHAPTER V
ISLAM IN SOUTH AFRICA

In our study of the Moslem problem, it will not do

to neglect the border marches in Africa and Malaysia,

where Islam is winning pagan tribes nor is it wise to
;

omit such isolated groups of Moslems as are found,

for example, in Trinidad and British Guiana. The
number of Moslems in these places may be small, but
Islam often makes headway where least we expect it.
A letter recently received from the Rev. S. Gara-
bedian, in Cape Town, South Africa, calls atten-

tion to the spread of Islam in South Africa among

white as well as the coloured races. The converts are
not only from natives, but from Europeans and half-
castes. The a missionary of the Society for
writer is

the Propagation of the Gospel, who has spent ten

years in North India. He says :

" can assure you that I am no alarmist. I have

I
seen ten years' active Mohammedan service in and near
Delhi. I was born and brought up in Turkey, lived
seven years in Jerusalem, so that when I say that
Mohammedanism is playing havoc here, it is no ex-
aggeration, and something must be done. There are
whole streets which once were Christian but are now
Mohammedan, and in some streets every other house
has had one or more of its family become Mohammedans.
Mixed marriages are very common indeed. Families
and relations are half Christians and half Mohammedans ;

91
92 ISLAM IN SOUTH AFRICA
not because they were once Mohammedans, but the
reverse."

The facts he gives are sufficiently startling

and so
well corroborated by photographs and the testimony
of other workers, that they should awaken prayer
and new missionary effort for Moslems in this part of
the world.
The total Moslem population in South Africa,
according to the Colonial Office List, London, 1913,
is as follows :

Cape Province
 ISLAM IN SOUTH AFRICA 93
in South Africa.The Malays, we are told, are active
in this work two reasons. One is their desire of
for
winning merit and paradise by the conversion of
Christians to Islam. The other is by mixed marriages
to make their race whiter.
The Indian Moslems are influenced by similar
motives. Although many of them have their own
wives and children in India, they also marry white
women and girls by Moslem rite, and adopt orphans
or neglected children.
Many of the facts communicated to me by my
correspondents cannot be published, but the evidence
given is incontrovertible. We are told that there are
men whose sole object is to ruin girls and win them
over. " For this end they put on English caps and
assume a Christian name. Malay women are always
on the watch to get any child by any means they
possibly can." It seems that many of the Christians
are so ignorant that they speak of the mullah as a
priest, and the mosque as a church, and the Koran
as the Bible. To quote once more from our corre-
spondent :

" There are some Arab, Egyptian, Indian, and Turkish

propagators of Mohammedanism, who are very actively
engaged in spreading their faith up and down the country
by Koranic schools, charms, sorcery, threats, and im-
morality. Many make a practice of taking a Christian
wife, and after he has made sure of her he leaves her
and takes another, and yet another. The law in this
country does not recognise Mohammedan marriage as
legal, and recognises concubinage but to the Mohammedan
;

it is proper marriage plus conversion, so they strive to have

as many Christian wives as they possibly can, and they
cannot be punished either for polygamy or for desertion,
as the marriage is not considered legal.
94 ISLAM IN SOUTH AFRICA
"It is painful beyond description to see everywhere
white and coloured, who once were Christian or Jewish
children, adults bearing Mohammedan names,
now
wearing the Malay head-dress, often, alas decorated with !

charms and it is marvellous to see what a difference this

;

—
has brought about moral deterioration, aloofness, hatred,
antagonism to their former co-religionists and nationality."

Moslem schools are being opened everywhere in

South Africa, and many of the pupils still bear
baptismal names.
The children are taught the Koran daily, and some
of the schools receive Government grants. Among
the children, we are told, there are some who are
pure Dutch and English, so that the better classes are
being drawn in, and it is no wonder that some of these
marry and become Moslems. Thirty-seven distinct
instances are given of Europeans, Dutch, English, and
German, who have been won over to Islam. These
instances are said to be typical. We give only seven
" Father Scotch, station-master, died, leaving five
children daughter barely fifteen, married by Malay rite
;

to Indian without consent of objecting parent had a child ;

before she was sixteen, which died. Doctor attending

said she had no business to have a child at her age and
physical development. Rescued, but eighteen months'
best treatment and care barely restored her to health.
There is much that cannot be written.
" Both parents English daughter fifteen, married by
;

Malay rite to Indian without consent of parents and taken

to India, shut up in zenana writes painfully sad letters
;

to parents ; father and mother broken-hearted.

"Both parents pure Dutch; daughter married by
Malay rite to Malay. Story cannot be related.
" Dutch, said to be orphan, at age of fifteen married to
Malay ; child died, husband fined, girl left him and went
 ISLAM IN SOUTH AFRICA 95
into service. Regularly persecuted by Malay husband,
and threatened.
" Father Dutch, mother slightly coloured placed on
;

Robben Island, brought away by Malay, now in mere

and enslaved.
rags, ill-treated
" Father white, mother coloured ; daughter organist,
married to Indian by Malay rite without consent of
parents, has shop next door to a chapel.
" Scotch girl, parents dead, one sister married bank-
manager, brother in mounted police, sister living on
private means, she herself married to Arab, became
Mohammedan through Malay trick."
A number of mosques have been built in various
parts of South Africa, Natal, Port Elizabeth, and Cape
Town within the last twenty years. There are no less
than forty mosques in Cape Town district alone.
The result of these intermarriagescan only lead to
the degradation of the white race socially and morally,
not to speak of the spiritual atrophy which must result.
A correspondent writes :

" We see a white woman and her white son standing

on the stoop in company with the second or third wife
of her lord and master, ' doekje on her head, in a long
'

nightgown dress, and wooden shoes, looking dejected.

—
We talk to her she does not seem to understand, and has
nothing to say. How should she, since she is out of her
proper sphere, and wonderfully depressed ! We step into
her house ; the rooms are bare, but not devoid of dirt, no
vase, no decoration, no picture, except that of the Sultan
and that of Mecca. At last we have found the secret.
She has no sympathy with her white people the white ;

people's nationality is no longer hers, for she has learned

to look to the Sultan as her king, and to Mecca, the
uncivilised Arabian desert town, as her ideal."

All missionariesseem to be agreed that Islam is no

stepping-stone toward Christianity for the pagan tribes
96 ISLAM IN SOUTH AFRICA
of Central Africa and East Coast, but exactly the
reverse. If Islam is no blessing for pagan races in

the Dark Continent, how much less can we afford to

see itabsorb native Christians in South Africa, unless
we secure a new base for the conquest of the whole
Continent.
One who knows the situation thoroughly writes :

" No one can deny from the standpoint of both Chris-

tianity and civilisation that for the white and coloured,
lapsing implies degradation. What is known as Malay
marriage is in reality concubinage. The ideals of home
so dear to ourselves become utterly impossible under such
a system, where a woman is taken and discarded at the
man's whim and will.
" There is at least one aspect of this problem which
must strike home to all of us who live in South Africa.
The coloured people are chiefly affected, that is to say,
the class which becomes an easy prey to Mohammedanism
is that from which for the most part we obtain the women

and girls who have the care of our children at their

impressionable age."

A Roman Catholic missionary writes as follows

concerning the methods and results of the present
activity

" I began to realise how easily people will fall into

superstition when, as in this country, it crouches at the
door. One can hardly help admiring the enterprise of the
Malay sorcerer, who defies the law, relying, with good
reason, apparently, on the shyness of his victims securing
for him immunity. A
walk through Cape Town will con-
vince one with any knowledge of its history that, as a
Devonshire girl, one of many victims, said the other day,
the Malays want to whiten their race. One sees so large
a proportion of European eyes and faces under a fez or a
doekje. The roll, too, of any list of Malays will have a
 ISLAM IN SOUTH AFRICA 97
large proportion of European names. Among the so-
called churchwardens of a mosque at Paarl comes the
' '

names, Du Toin, Domingo, De Vos, Groenwald note —

both Latin and Teutonic elements."

The leading men of the Cape Town Mohammedans

are educated. They have a number of high schools
and colleges in close touch with the Pan-Islamic
movement of Cairo and Constantinople.
The pilgrimage to Mecca from South Africa is
steadily increasing, especially on the part of the
coloured population. Socially, the Mohammedans
are getting complete control of certain trades, such
as that of tailor, mason, fruit and vegetable sellers,
and carriage drivers.
The only hopeful feature about the situation seems
to be that some of the missionary societies are be-
ginning work among Mohammedans, and are being
roused into preventing further inroads among nominal
Christians.
Mr. Garabedian and his associate write, concern-
ing their work at Cape Town :

" For the time being the greater part of the work lies
in seeking for and winning back those Christians who
through ignorance and sin have lapsed from the Faith
and become Mohammedans. During the past year some,
who were on the verge of lapsing, have by timely minis-
trations of exhortation and sympathy found strength for
recovery, and grace to begin an earnest Christian life.
" Much work has been done of a really valuable and
permanent nature, in following up and investigating cases
reported to us, where children, both white and coloured,
had been given over to Mohammedans and adopted by
them. In many instances it has been found possible to
restore such children to the care of a Christian home."
CHAPTER VI
WHY ARABIA?
 "It is strange how seldom our attention is directed to
Arabia. Here a region of Asia, larger than India
is

proper, the largest peninsular projection indeed of any-

continent, which has begotten the greatest of all rivals
to our creed, and lies along the main highway of our
hemisphere but hardly once a year does an event within
;

its boundaries receive more than passing mention in our

journals. Nevertheless, changes seem to be taking place
behind its border ranges which may not be without
importance to ourselves."—The London Times.

m
 CHAPTER VI
^
WHY ARABIA?

JlHE editor of the Encyclopedia of Missions, in an

article on the unoccupied fields of the world, raises
the question whether it is good mission strategy to
fight against great obstacles in some of these hard
fields, while other populous lands are wide open and
eager for the Gospel. " Religious fanaticism," he
says, '' is a problem in such countries as Afghanistan,
Baluchistan, and Arabia, while the attitude of the
state religion in Siberia, Indo-China, and Tibet is an
obstacle which is most serious. A serious question
may be raised here, namely, that of the wisdom of
expending force in overcoming the difficulties con-
nected with all these lands, except possibly Arabia,
when the missionary contingent is so meagre and is
needed so sorely in countries where there is perfect
freedom of action and a greater number without
the Gospel."
The italics are ours, but why is Arabia excepted ?
Surely because of its strategic importance, which is
second to no other land in the world to-day. The
importance of Arabia is out of all proportion to its
area and poplation. Its strategy is sevenfold.

I. Geographically. —
Arabia lies at the cross-roads of
the commerce of the world, and it was once and will
soon become again the bridge between Asia and
101
102 WHY ARABIA?
Europe, the causeway between Asia and Africa.
The importance of the coming Baghdad Railway,
which will bring together India and England by a
direct route through the Persian Gulf and the
Euphrates Valley, cannot be over-estimated. The
Mecca Railway, with a branch to Jiddah, will greatly
increase the pilgrim traffic and develop commerce
in the Red Sea. Although Arabia has a population
of only eight millions, it has an area of nearly a
—
million square miles ^four times the size of France,
and larger than the United States east of the
Mississippi River.

II. Politically. —A writer in the New York Journal

of Commerce recently said, " We have, from time to
time, endeavoured to make it plain to our readers
that since the effective arrest of Russian ambitions
in Eastern Asia, the international centre of Asiatic
politics must be sought in the Persian Gulf." Arabia
isthe fulcrum of future politics in Asia.
The presentpolitical condition in Arabia deeply
interests not only Great Britain and Germany, but
France and Russia. Turkish rule exists in only
three of the seven provinces, and British influence
obtains along the entire coast of the Persian Gulf
and the Indian Ocean. The Persian Gulf has practi-
cally become an English lake, and British rule has
extended far inland from Aden, while her influence
is supreme in the province of Oman.
" A foreign power," said Dr. Rohrbach
in the
Spectator, " holding the harbour of Kuweit, could
close or open the entire European trade with India
by the Baghdad route in the middle, at the most vital
spot. To England, as soon as the Baghdad line is
running, Kuweit would be, if not wholly, very nearly
 WHY ARABIA ? 103

as important a position as the entrance to the Suez

Canal. If we do nothing to stop England from
holding Kuweit, we virtually renounce in the future
the power to turn to our account the immense com-
mercial and political consequences of the Baghdad
route to Southern Asia."
According to Dr. Rohi'bach, if Germany is to
seize the trade which England has hitherto mono-
polised, now is the time to act, before the Russian
engineers have brought their railway to Bandar
Abbas, whence it will undoubtedly be extended
along the Gulf to Bushire and Busrah. He appeals
to Germans to remember their diplomatic successes
in Siam and on the Yangtsze and take their courage
in their two hands. To shrink back now from an
opportunity so favourable, he urges, would be throw-
ing away a winning card, and he concludes with the
words, in emphatic type: ''Kuweit must remain
Turkish."
In Yemen, the rule of the new Turkish party will
result in an open door for the Gospel throughout all
that populous province. Politics and missions are
closely related in these days of commercial expansion,
and there may be a partition of Arabia, as there was
of Africa, or, at least,the opening of doors closed
for centuries will follow exploitation and political
and commercial ambition in the neglected peninsula.
We must unfurl the banner of the Cross now in every
one of the provinces.

Because of language.—Arahisi is important

III.
because of the Arabic speech. Some time ago a type-
writer firm, in advertising a machine with Arabic
characters, stated that the Arabic alphabet was used
by more people than any other. A professor of
104 WHY ARABIA ?

Semitic languages was asked :" How big a lie is

that ? " He answered :" It is true."
According to this authority there are no less than
five hundred million people who have adopted the
Arabic alphabet, while the Arabic language is spoken
by at least forty-five millions. The Arabic language
is growing in influence and power, and is one of the
great living languages of the world. The Arabic
Koran is a text-book in the day schools of Turkey,
Afghanistan, Java, Sumatra, New Guinea, and
Southern Russia. Arabic is the spoken language not
only of Arabia proper, but forces the linguistic
boundary of that peninsula three hundred miles north
of Baghdad to Diarbekr and Mardin, and is used all
over Syria and Palestine and the whole of Northern
Africa. Even at Cape Colony and in the West Indies
there are daily readers of the language of Mohammed.
Arabic literature is found throughout the whole
Mohammedan world and the Arabic language, which
;

was the vehicle for carrying Islam, will yet become

the great vehicle for the Gospel in Africa and Asia
among the Mohammedans. The Arabs themselves
say :
" Wisdom hath alighted upon three things
the brain of the Franks, the hands of the Chinese,
and the tongue of the Arabs." This wonderful,
flexible, logical speech, with its enormous vocabulary
and delicacy of expression, can only be won for
Christianity when Arabia is won for Christ.

—
IV. Because of the Arabs. Two religions contend
for the —
mastery of the world Christianity and Islam ;

two races are striving for the possession of the Dark

—
Continent ^the Anglo-Saxon and the Arab. No race
has shown itself so strong as a colonising power or so
intrepid in the genius of exploration as has the Arab
 WHY ARABIA ? 105

race. The Arabs crossed Africa long before Living-

stone,and had reached Canton in China in sailing ships
twenty years after the death of Mohammed.
Physically, they are undoubtedly one of the
strongest and noblest races of the world. Baron de
Larrey, Surgeon-General of the first Napoleon, said :

" Their physical structure is in all respects more

perfect than that of Europeans ; their organs of sense
exquisitely acute, their size above the average of men
in general, their figure robust and elegant, their colour
brown their intelligence proportionate to their physical
;

perfection, and without doubt superior, other things

being equal, to that of other nations."

Intellectually they have a glorious history and

literature,and take second place to no other race,
while for religious enthusiasm and devotion there is
no people that can compare with them. If this race
can be won for Christ, they will do for Him what they
once did for Mohammed. It is a virile, conquering
race and not a dying one.
" It surely is not without a purpose," says Edson
L. Clark, " that this widespread and powerful race has
been kept these four thousand years, unsubdued and
undegenerate, preserving still the simplicity and vigour
of its character. It is certainly capable of a great
future and as certainly a great future lies before it.
;

It may be among the last peoples of South-eastern

Asia to yield to the transforming influence of Christi-
anity and a Christian civilisation. But to those
influences it will assuredly yield in the fulness of time."
Is that time now ?

—
V. Because of Islam. What Jerusalem and Palestine
are to Christendom, this, and vastly more, Mecca and
106 WHY ARABIA?
Arabia are to the Mohammedan world. Not only is
this land the cradle of their religion
and the birthplace
of their prophet, the shrine towards which for centuries
prayers and pilgrimages have gravitated but Arabia
;

is the stronghold of Mohammedanism, the religious

centre of this world-wide faith. Every year thousands
of pilgrims from the most distant Mohammedan lands
com_e to Mecca, and the occupation of Arabia by
Christian missions a challenge not only to the Arabs,
is

but to the entire Mohammedan world. In 1888

Mackay of Uganda made a strong plea for missions in
Arabia for the sake of Africa, and asked that " Muscat,
which is, in more senses than one, the key to Central
Africa, should be occupied by a strong mission. It is
almost needless to say that the outlook in Africa will
be considerably brightened by the establishment of a
mission to the Arabs in Muscat."
Because of its religious importance and pilgrim
centres, Arabia is in closest touch also with India,
Malaysia, and Central Asia. The influence of the
Arabian Mission, since it was established, on missions
for the Mohammedan world, has been such that if it
could point to no other results, this indirect influence
would have justified its inauguration and all the years
of service.

—
VI. Because of results, Since 1889, the Arabian
Mission has sent out twenty-nine missionaries to the
field —sixteen men and thirteen women. During
that time one has been recalled and one permanently
invalided, while five have gone to their reward, leaving
twenty-two still on the roll of the Mission. The entire
amount of money spent during these years has not
been over $250,000 in the work, both at home and
abroad, for Arabia.
 WHY ARABIA ? 107

The east coast of Arabia has been definitely occupied

" In
by a permanent mission plant at three stations.
all Eastern Arabia," says Dr. Cantine, " the dense
ignorance regarding true Christianity has been en-
lightened, inborn and traditional prejudices have
been dispelled, indifference has given place to interest,
and the aforetime Kafir, or unbeliever, has become
the present-day friend."
The Mission can point to a total circulation of over
62,000 copies of the Scriptures, mostly in the Arabic
language and purchased by Moslems. Medical
missions have disarmed prejudice and opened the
way into the interior. In the year 1908, 5784 copies
of the Scriptures were sold,and the medical mission-
aries reported 29,412 patients treated.
Nine colporteurs are employed by the Mission, and
in one year they travelled 3530 miles in visiting
486 towns. Regular preaching services are held at
all of our stations, attended by Moslems as well
as
Christians; and although the number of converts
is small and there is as yet no Church
organization,
there are those who are enduring reproach, suffering
shame and the loss ofproperty and liberty for the
sake of Christ. The number of inquirers is increasing,
and the seed sown is beginning to bear fruit.

VII. Because of unfulfilled prophecy.—The future

is as bright as the promises of God.
There is no
land in the world and no people (with the exception
of Palestine and the Jews) which bears such close

relation to the Theocratic covenants and Old Testa-

ment promises as Arabia and the Arabs. The pro-
mises for the final victory of the Kingdom of God
in Arabia are many, definite, and glorious. These
promises group themselves round seven names
 108 WHY ARABIA ?

which have from time immemorial been identified

with the peninsula of Arabia: Ishmael, Kedar,
Nebaioth, Sheba, Seba, Midian, and Ephah.
The sixtieth chapter of Isaiah is the gem of mission-
ary prophecy in the Old Testament, and a large
portion of it consists of special promises for
Arabia
" The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the drome-
daries of Midian and Ephah ; all they from Sheba (South
Arabia or Yemen) shall come they shall bring gold and
:

incense; and they shall show forth the praises of the

Lord. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together
unto thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee :
they shall come up with acceptance on Mine altar, and
I will glorify the house of My glory."

These verses, read in connection with the grand

array of promises that precede them, leave no room
for doubt that the sons of Ishmael have a large
place in this coming glory of the Lord and the bright-
ness of His rising. It has only been delayed by our
neglect to evangelise Northern Arabia. And then
shall be fulfilled that other promise significantly put
in Isa. xlii. for this part of the peninsula " Sing
:

unto the Lord a new song, and His praise from the
end of the earth ... let the wilderness and the
cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages that
Kedar doth inhabit let the inhabitants of the rock
:

sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains."

It is all there, with geographical accuracy and up-
to-date ; " cities in the wilderness," that is Nejd
under its present government; the Kedarenes for-
saking the nomad tent and becoming villagers and ;

the rock-dwellers of Medain Salih ! ''

And I will
bring the blind by a way they knew not ; I will
 WHY ARABIA ? 109

lead them in paths that they have not known I ;

will make darkness light before them and crooked

things straight." The only proper name, the only
geographical centre of the entire chapter, is Kedar.
These unfulfilled prophecies, together with the
command of Christ and the presence of Arabians at
the first Pentecost, should inspire us to pray the
more " O that Ishmael might live before Thee "
: !
 CHAPTER VII

THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE IN

WESTERN ASIA

hi
 " We are confronted with an opportunity and a re-
same pecuHar form,
sponsibility never before faced in the
and in the same degree, by any missionary society. . . .

These opportunities will not indefinitely remain. They

are ours to-day." James L. Barton.

"It is increasingly evident that at present there is a

wide open door for aggressive evangelistic work among
Moslems throughout the whole of Persia, and a feeling
of responsibility on the part of the whole missionary
body in Persia for the speedy evangelisation of the
—
country." Rev. F. M. Stead.

" If the Church rouses itself to evangelise Arabia.

Islam is doomed, and must sooner or later take its place
among the religions that have preceded it in the land of
the Arab."—Rev. J. C. Young, M.D.

lis
 CHAPTER VII

THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE IN

WESTERN ASIA
Mohammed was a true prophet at least once in
his life. He
taught that among the signs of the
coming end of the world and of the fulfilment of
Islam's desire would be the rising of the sun in the
West. It has risen. From the uttermost Western
confines of the caliphate's temporal empire marched
the Albanian troops carrying upon their banners,
" Liberty, equality, fraternity, a constitution." This
was the first proclamation of the new era, and the
dawn of liberty for all Western Asia. Those who
read the papers and pray for the coming of God's
Kingdom, and who remember that only a few years
ago, at the Cairo Conference, a company of veteran
missionaries —some of whom had been fighting the
battle for fifty years — ^knelt in prayer before a map
of the Moslem world and prayed God to give liberty,
are rubbing their eyes with astonishment at
still

what God has wrought. More surprising and sudden

than the transformation effected by Alladin's lamp in
the Arabian Nights have been, not the fictitious, but
the real and stupendous changes which God's Spirit
and God's providence have wrought in Western Asia.
Instead of universal espionage, freedom instead
;

of despotism, constitutions and parliaments instead ;

of a press that was gagged and throttled, a free

8
114 THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE
press ; instead of a grinding system of passports
and permits, free emigration and immigration all over
Persia and Arabia and Turkey instead of banish-
;

ment, amnesty and instead of despotism ruling

;

in the capitals against the rights of the people and

crushing them down, Abdul Hamid, the tyrant, de-
posed, and parliaments sitting in Teheran and in
Constantinople. The great army of spies, numbering
forty thousand, and said to cost two million pounds a
year, has been abolished and the peoples of Turkey
and Persia, blindfolded, gagged, and manacled for
centuries, are almost delirious with new-found liberty.
The Damascus Railway has reached Medina, and
electric lights are burning over the Prophet's tomb.
What hath God wrought in these last few years
throughout the vast region of Western Asia !

Turkey, Persia, and Arabia, the three great Moslem

lands of the Nearer East, have experienced greater
industrial, intellectual, social, and religious changes
within the past five years than befell them previously
in the last five centuries. Nevertheless, the most
sane statesman and the most thoughtful missionaries
are agreed that nothing has ended in Turkey or in
Persia but something has begun in those lands,
;

which every eye is strained to understand.

Western Asia no less than Eastern Asia should
rivet our attention because of the impending struggle
between the Cross and the Crescent for supremacy,
a struggle that is inseparable from the awakening
of those great lands. The populations there are
smaller, the areas are more limited, the races may
not have the same mental and moral calibre though —
their inferiority is not proven but the influence
;

of Western Asia has always been world-wide, and if

the Moslem peril in Africa is a real peril and a real
 IN WESTERN ASIA 115

menace, the security against that peril and the cure

for thatmenace is found in Western Asia, because
Western Asia has always dominated the thought of
Africa.
I desire to call attention to three aspects of the
impending struggle throughout the whole of Western
Asia. First, to the greatest battlefield,and to the
forces which already are prepared for the work of
God. In the second place, to the nature, the origin,
the character,the issues of the struggle. And,
finally, to the certainty of coming victory.

I. What is the battlefield of Western Asia ? Its

area includes no less than 2,600,000 square miles,
ten times the area of all France, or nearly that of
the whole of the United States and in it there is
;

a population of no less than 36,000,000 souls.

Leaving out for the moment all that part of Central
Asia which by its ideals and ideas, its religion and
its language, belongs to Western Asia, the great
—
heart of Asia Afghanistan, Russian Turkestan,
Khiva, Bokhara, and Chinese Turkestan we have —
before us in Persia, Arabia, and the Turkish Empire,
including Syria and Palestine, a population of no
less than 36,000,000 people. Of these, 30,000,000
in round numbers are Mohammedans. I am leaving
—
out of the problem although, thanks be to God,
—
He has not left out of the solution the 6,000,000
of those who, in spite of fire and sword and dungeon,
have remained true to the faith of their fathers I ;

mean the members of the Oriental Churches. But for

our present consideration we have a massed popula-
tion of 30,000,000 Mohammedans, which inhabits
three countries, bearing a very strategic relation
to the whole Mohammedan world. Arabia is the
116 THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE
cradle of its creed, Persia of its philosophy, Turkey
of its politics.
Persia, in a real sense, has for many centuries
been the intellectual and religious hub of all Central
Asia. She wields an influence in the Moslem world
to-day, and has had an influence for over a thousand
years, out of all proportion to the number of her
inhabitants or the character of her people. I refer
to the influence of Persia as a disintegrating power
in the Mohammedan world. Mother of Moslem
heresies, this land has been the centre and source
of authority for all Mohammedans who were not
of the orthodox party. The Babiis found their
leader and their strength in Persia.Every move-
ment against orthodox Mohammedanism has arisen
in that wonderful country of Aryan blood and
thought which rebelled against the bald monotheism
of the Semites from the deserts of Arabia. Here
Aryan thought has largely modified the Semitic
creed. From Persia Mohammedan mysticism, poetry,
and philosophy have gone out on the wings of
literature to the ends of the world. And to-day,
not only by the camp-fires of the Sahara desert or
in the mosques of India and Java, but even in
Oxford and Berlin, you find students of Hafiz and
Omar Khayyam and Jelal-ud-din.
The Turksare a ruling race. They have often
been greatly abused in the public press, but in family
life and as specimens of strong, manly character,

they are, as every missionary to Turkey will testify,

high in the scale of the family of nations.
In natural resources Turkey is the fairest and
richest portion of the Old World. Under a good
government, these undeveloped resources would make
her one of the richest countries in Asia. Her popula-
 IN WESTERN ASIA 117

tion includes a great variety of races and religions,

each able to contribute something of real worth to
the assets of national greatness. The Albanians,
the Armenians, the Greeks, and the Kurds have
vigour of manhood, pride of race, and a splendid
history of leadership in the past, while the
Ottoman Turks are all of them born rulers and
warriors.
Turkey has for four hundred years held the
the papacy of the Moslem
caliphate, In world.
the hands of the Caliph are the old mantle of

Mohammed, signifying his prophetic authority, and

the sword of Mohammed, signifying his political
dominion; and every part of the Moslem world,
every Friday at noon prayer, remembers the great
political capital and prays Allah to bless the temporal
ruler of the Moslem world.
What Jerusalem and Palestine are to Christen-
dom, this and vastly more Mecca and Arabia are to
the Mohammedans. They are the centre towards
which for centuries prayers and pilgrimages have
gravitated. How the Student Volunteer
largest
Convention shrinks in comparative size when you
try to imagine the audience that collects, not in
a half circle, but in a perfect circle, round the
Kaaba, the Beit Allah —
an audience of 70,000
pilgrims.
And they have been gathering there yearly for
thirteen centuries, without attractive music or
speakers, crowding from every part of the Moslem
world to the heart of Islam for the deepening of their
spiritual life. That typifies the strategic importance
of Arabia.
Arabia also at the cross-roads of the commerce
lies

of three continents. It is the causeway into Africa,

118 THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE
the bridge between Europe and Asia. And to-day
there is in North Arabia a struggle to make that
great old highway of history, Mesopotamia, the
highway of the modern nations. The goal of the
game is the commerce of all Asia. The pawns are
the Arabs and the Turks ; the players, the German
Emperor and the King of England ; the checker-
board, the great Mesopotamian Valley. When the
Turkish Sultan gave Germany concessions for the
Baghdad Railway, he also gave the right to control
Turkish soil no less than twelve miles on each side
of that railway for 1200 miles across the whole of
North Arabia. And although Germany was check-
mated when Great Britain took Kuweit, she is
pushing ahead with her railway. On the other hand,
Sir William Willcocks, the wizard of the Nile, has
been sent by the Young Turks to open irrigation
works and flood three million desert acres with new
life and make the desert to blossom like the rose.

According to the New York Journal of Commerce,

and on the authority of Captain Mahan, the future
international centre of Asiatic politics must be sought
in the Persian Gulf. The present political condition,
therefore, of Arabia deeply interests not only Great
Britain and Germany, but France and Russia.
Turkish rule exists in only three of the seven
provinces, and British influence obtains along the
entire coast of the Persian Gulf and the Indian
Ocean. The Persian Gulf has become an English
lake, and British rule has extended far inland from
Aden, while her influence is supreme in the province
of Oman. Within the next few years the Tigris-
Euphrates basin is destined to be the scene of the
greatest contest for commercial supremacy since
the partition of Africa.
 —

IN WESTERN ASIA 119

These three great nations, then, form the arena of

the conflict. And what are the populations ? The
Turkish race, the Persian race, the Arab race, three
of the ruling races of the world. The Persians are
the Frenchmen of the East ; the Turks, in a real
sense the Germans of the East, with the same military-
aspirations, the same military character ; and the
Arabs, the Anglo-Saxons of the Orient. Such is the
—
arena, and these are the ruling races not to speak
of other strong peoples, the Albanians, the Armenians,
the Kurds, who have all shown magnificent energies
in the history of politics and religion.
Asiatic Turkey already has a total of two thousand
seven hundred and fifty miles of railway. This, with
the splendid harbours and river navigation, makes
the greater part of the Empire accessible. And in
that vast area what are the forces ? Over six
hundred Protestant missionaries are now at work in
Persia, Arabia, and Turkey, and mission stations are
dotted all over these countries : Constantinople,
Salonica, Adrianople, Smyrna, Baghdad, Aleppo, Beirut,
Brussa, Kaisariyah, Mosul, Mardin, Adana, Jerusalem.
Why do I give the names ? Every name is eloquent
with the sacrifice of life and love and tears, and no
less eloquent with potentialities for the coming con-
—
flict Trebizond, Diarbekr, Tabriz, Teheran, Ispahan,
Kirman, Yezd, Shiraz, Aden, Muscat, Bahrein, and
Busrah. There is not in the entire territory a single
city of all those given in the Statesman's Year Book
as having a population exceeding twenty thousand
which is not already occupied, save Mecca, Medina,
and Kerbela, still closed by the hand of fanaticism
because they are sacred cities. This is the finger of
God. If there is to be a struggle in Western Asia
—
and who will deny that there is ? that struggle has
120 THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE
been already decided strategically by the pre-
occupation of every important centre, through the
hand of God's providence, by Christian missions.
In this mighty conflict our weapons are not carnal
the only weapon we have is love ; the only sword
we have is the sword of God's Word.
In all five of these Moslem lands, Turkey, Palestine,
Syria, Persia, Arabia, our missionaries are engaged in
educational, medical, and evangelistic work. The
Bible has been translated into all the languages of
Western Asia, and a large Christian literature pre-
pared for its polyglot people. At the Beirut press
alone sixty million pages of Christian books were
printed in a single year, and in one month orders were
on file for a hundred thousand copies of the Arabic
Scriptures, including eighteen cases of Bibles sent to
Shanghai for the Moslems of China What stronger
!

proof can be given of the strategic importance of

Syria in the evangelisation of the Moslem world ?
And who can measure the influence and power of
such great educational centres as Robert College, the
Syrian Protestant College, and similar institutions
at Marsovan, Aintab, Smyrna, Tarsus, Marash, and
Teheran ? Robert College has for the past thirty
years educated and trained fifteen nationalities in the
principles of justice and self-government, and made
possible the present new era in Turkey. " It was
you Americans," said a Turk to President Tracy of
Anatolia College, " who, coming to Turkey, found us
in darkness and showed us the way to the light."
The American missionaries were the pioneers of
modern education in every city of Western Asia, Two
score mission hospitals and dispensaries dot the map
from Constantinople to Aden, and from Smyrna to
Kirman. Medical missionaries have not only dis-
 IN WESTERN ASIA 121

armed suspicion and prejudice, but have won the

lifelong friendship of tens of thousands of the people.
One hospital in Arabia had 13,397 out-patients last
year !

The march of Western civilisation and the work of

missions in all these centres, with the stirring of God's
Spirit in the hearts of the people so long under bondage
and oppression, have precipitated a conflict and a
struggle which is inevitable and which none can hold
back.

|j
II. What nature of the conflict ? The
is the
^
coming struggle be not solely religious, but an
will
educational, industrial, social, and political upheaval
in which religion plays a chief part. The Turks
themselves see what is coming. In a leading editorial
in one of the most influential Turkish papers appeared
these words :

" The Moslem world is in the throes of regeneration

which will affect its social as well as its political condition,
and, indirectly, must concern its ecclesiastical affairs.
It will undoubtedly have the same influence that the
—
reformation of Luther " mark the words " and the
—
French Revolution had upon society and culture. The
dethronement of three absolute monarchs in three in-
dependent Mohammedan states is a novel chapter in the
history of our religion and calls for grave reflection, fellow
Moslems. The social and economical affairs of a nation,
as well as its religious affairs, are absolutely allied to its
politics,and there cannot be a serious disturbance in the
one without having a great influence on the other. It
means either a decay or progress, because there is no
—
such thing " ^wonderful words from Turkey " because
—
there is no such thing as rest or stagnation in society."

These words, coming from an authoritative source,

 122 THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE
put before us the real nature of the struggle. It is
fourfold : between two political parties, between
two civilisations, between two religions, and ultimately
between two great leaders.
^ First of all —
there is the struggle between two
political parties, the party of progress and the party
of conservatism, the party of the Constitution and the
party of the Royalists, the party of the old Koran and
the party of the new regime. By whatever names
they are called, it is simply the repetition of history
— ^the Liberals, the Radicals, as opposed to the Con-
servatives those who would change the order of
;

society, and those who would hold to the ancient

order. It is worthy of remark that the revolutionary
parties both in Persia and Turkey were not anti-
Islamic nor Pan-Islamic, neither professedly religious
nor irreligious in character they were the voice of
:

the people crying for liberty, the expression of general

social discontent.
For many years the better class of Persians, Turks,
and Arabs had freely acknowledged the ignorance,
injustice, and weakness of the Moslem world, and were
groping for a remedy. The fuel was ready in the
educated class who dared to think the spark that
;

kindled the flame was the victory of Japan over

Russia, which had its influence throughout all Asia
and proved that Asiatics can hold their own against
Europeans, and that a new nationalism is the only
remedy against foreign occupation in lands like
Persia and Turkey. But how shall the new national-
ism deal with the old religion ? Here is the struggle.
The brief history of constitutional government in
Persia has already proved the reality of the conflict.
The Persian Constitution was ready for adoption,
when the leaders were compelled to preface the docu-
 ;

IN WESTERN ASIA 123

ment with an article accepting the authority of the

religious law of Islam as final not only the law of
;

the Koran, but the traditional law of Shiah inter-

pretation. " One might as well bind together the
American Constitution and the Talmud," says Dr.
Shedd, " and make the latter supreme and inviolable."
And Lord Cromer in his Modern Egypt states that it
has yet to be proved whether Islam can assimilate
civilisation without succumbing in the process. He
adds : " Reformed Islam is Islam no longer."
The political question to-day in Persia and in
Turkey is whether the old Koran or the new Con-
stitution shall have the right way. Although the
of
Sheikh-el-Islam has publiclydeclared that " The
Turkish Parliament is the most exact application of
the Koranic law, and constitutional government is
the highest possible illustration of the Caliphate,"
—
we have a right to doubt his assertion ^remembering
the thirteen centuries of Moslem intolerance and
despotism. Those who read the Koran in Morocco,
Eastern Turkey, and Arabia have not yet discovered
its constitutional principles, and the reaction against
the new Sultan and the new parliament is already
deep and widespread. One of the most prominent
dailies in Cairo advocated the restoration of Abdul
Hamid, while in Yemen a new Mahdi has appeared
whose followers number twenty-five thousand. He
preaches the old religion, and by his authority liars
are punished by the pulling out of the tongue, and
thieves by the amputation of the hand.
The conflict between the Old and the Young
Turkish party is not only inevitable, but is irre-
concilable. Both parties are animated by the same
patriotism, but their ideals are wholly different and
contradictory. For the Old Turks Islam is an end
124 THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE
for the New Turks it is not an end, but only a means.
The New Turks are hoping to put the new wine into
the old bottles by carefully diluting it, while the Old
Turks have no use for the new wine at all. In the
present Turkish Parliament, out of two hundred
and fifty-six members, two hundred and thirteen
are Moslems, and it would be safe to say that the
vast majority are at heart opposed to any change in
the real character of Islam, and will fight to the end
to make the only religion of the State.
it

Islam does not believe in a State Church, as Lord

Curzon has pointed out, but in a Church State and ;

Lord Cromer has shown in his Modern Egypt that the

—
three great defects of Islam ^the position of woman-
hood, its unchanging civil law, and its intolerant
spirit — are for ever incompatible with real progress.
When a man so well informed as Lord Cromer says
it is impossible, we must not be too ready to believe

that the promulgation of a paper Constitution is

enough to ensure Western Asia at once the rights
we have purchased for ourselves in the course of
centuries at a great price. The conflict is not merely
political, but industrial and social. It is a struggle
between two civilisations between the ideals of the
;

Moslem world and those of Christendom. Islam

has run its roots deep for thirteen centuries into all
the ideals of the East. Architecture, art, music,
social life, language, literature —
all these by their

presence, or by their absence, proclaim the power of

Mohammed and his faith. You might as well try
to pick out the fossils from a limestone rock with your
finger nail as to remove from Arabic literature the
traces of Mohammedanism.
The modern civilisation
clash of against the teach-
ings of Islam is evident on every hand. When it
 IN WESTERN ASIA 125
was proposed to adopt European time for Turkey,
the clerical party made such an uproar that the
President of the Chamber was compelled to leave
the House and the motion was withdrawn. So the
days continue to begin at sunset, and watches must
be reset every day because of the Koran. The new
railway to Mecca is fitted up with a chapel car in the
shape of a mosque. This car allows pilgrims to
perform their devotions during the journey, and has
a minaret. Around the sides are verses from the
Koran, a chart at one end indicates the direction of
prayer, and at the other end are vessels for the ritual
ablutions. Will the orthodox Arabs consider such
'prayer de luxe in accord with Mohammed's teachings ?
As long as Mohammed and his teaching are the ideals
of conduct and the standard of character, there must
be this clash between modern civilisation and the
unchangeable standards of Arabian mediae valism.
If it is impossible to change the curriculum of El
Azhar University in Cairo, will that institution or
Robert College control the thought of Western
Asia?
When freedom was proclaimed in Persia and
Turkey, newspapers sprang up like mushrooms, and
nearly all of them were advocates of liberty, equality,
and freedom. In Teheran the names of the journals
themselves were indicative of progress. The news-
boys cried out their wares and sold copies of The
Assembly, Civilisation, The Cry of the Country, The
True Dawn, Progress, and Knowledge. The French
Revue du Monde Musulman published a list of no
less than seven hundred and forty-seven newspapers
and magazines which had been issued in Turkey
since 24th July 1908, the birthday of liberty. The
old order of the press has gone. Censorship has
126 THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE
ceased, but whither is the new journalism drifting ?

It isvery significant that some of the leading papers

are already the mouthpieces of intolerance and show
a sullen attitude toward Christianity and reform,
stating that the Constitution is destructive of the
sacred law of Mohammed.
The position of womanhood will also be determined
in the coming struggle. Some of the women them-
selves are asserting their rights, abolishing the use of
the veil, and claiming the privileges and honour of
womanhood. There is loud demand for female
education. Judge Kasim Ameen, a leading Moslem
in Cairo, published two books on The Emancipation
of Womanhood which have had a wide circulation
in Western Asia. He exposes the evils of polygamy,
and urges that it be prohibited by law. " Poly-
gamy," says he, " produces jealousies, hatred,
intrigues, and crimes innumerable. Many critics
claim that women in the harems are happy. How
do they know ? Have they any knowledge of harem
life ? " No wonder these books aroused a storm of
opposition and bitter reply. To prohibit polygamy
by law would be to abrogate the Koran and to
stigmatise the Prophet. Civilisation alone will not
end the horrors of Islam behind the veil in Persia
and Arabia. Pierre Loti's Desenchantees shows that
the civilisation of the harem without emancipation
means moral suicide Only Christ can emancipate
!

Moslem womanhood, and three-fourths of all the

women in Western Asia are under the yoke of
still

this awful creed, suffering the burden of tyranny and

oppression.
There can be no real liberty in any department of
lifeunder Moslem rule. Fifty years ago the Sultan
said in his great edict of emancipation "All forms
:
 IN WESTERN ASIA 127

of religion shall be allowed to exist in my realm

without let or hindrance, and no subject shall be
molested in the exercise of his faith. None shall be
forced to renounce his religion." Fifty years ago
this Constitution declared that no one in the bounds
of the Turkish Empire should be persecuted for his
religion.
Fifty years ago there was religious liberty on
paper. Three years ago there was religious liberty
on the streets. Moslem and Armenian embraced
each other. In great capitals over arches of
triumph you could read, " Liberty, Equality, Fra-
ternity." " The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom." People were frantic with joy. They
held memorial services over the Armenians killed in
the massacres years ago and over the Turks who had
died in the revolution. It seemed the dawn of a
new era.
And then came Adana. Yes, Adana. If there is a
singleword that would stir the passion in the blood of
age and make an infant's sinews strong as steel it is
that single word " Adana."
And if Jesus Christ's love is to be our example,
then after we say " Adana," and after we read
"Adana," you and 1 must He said "Love
say, as :

your enemies. Do good them that hate you.

to
Pray for those that despitefully use you and per-
secute you that you may be the children of your
;

Father which is heaven." And here is the record,

not the sensational reports of the press, not the
letters of missionaries written in the terror of their
sufferingand sorrow and despair, but the sum-
ming up in cold blood at Boston, in the office of
the American Board's Monthly after the storm was
over:
128 THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE
" The atrocity with which these Moslems devised
tortures and insults to increase the agony of those they
killed was truly fiendish, almost unbelievable, and far
too horrible to relate in detail. Solemn promises were
violated, and whole villages were tricked into giving up
their arms that they might be slaughtered without means
of defence, like rats in a hole. Women were compelled
to watch while their husbands and children were killed
before their eyes ;
groups were told off and marched to
some convenient place, where, instead of being shot as
they entreated and begged, they were mercilessly hacked
to pieces, men and women and little children, as it was
said, Not to waste powder and bullets on such swine.'
'

Dead and wounded were then piled together and fires

built to consume them. Mothers with newborn babies
were dragged from their hiding places and life beaten out
of them. Women and girls were reserved for a worse
fate. Everywhere there was an orgy of hate and lust,
with hardly a hand lifted to end the struggle."
The furyof that mob has ceased, but the character
of Islam has not changed. It was not a merry
Christmas in Cilicia, with twenty thousand orphans
uncared for and widows crying to God for the aveng-
ing of their slain. And there has been no vengeance
nor a just meting out of adequate punishment.
What does it mean ? It means the life and death
struggle of men who believe their religion, who perse-
cute for their religion. It means also that at the back
of Adana (God grant it) there may have been Sauls
of Tarsus by the score, who breathed threatening and
slaughter against the Church of God, because already
the arrow of conviction was in their souls, and they
were kicking against the goads of the Christ. Not in
vain for fifty years have the American missionaries in
Turkey, like Miner Rogers and Henry Maurer, poured
out their life and their love and scattered the Word of
 Mosque in Western China

Mosque at Lagos, West Africa

 !

IN WESTERN ASIA 129

God by tens of thousands of copies. " Whatsoever

a man soweth," God saith, "that shall he also reap;
and as sure as God's law, we may look upon Turkey
as the coming nation of the future in Western Asia.
For if anything is true, it is this, that Western Asia is
through and through religious. In Arabia when they
quarrel, they begin by calling their enemy a swine ;

they go further when they call him a Jew then they;

say he is a Christian and if they want to rise to the

;

very height of all vituperative, they say, " That man is

a Kafir, he is a man without faith." In Turkey you
cannot insult a man with a more damning insult than
to say of him that he is dinsiz, a man without religion.
What a wonderful part of the world, where the fact
of not having a faith in the supernatural brands a man
as belonging to the very lowest caste of society
There is not the least doubt that tens of thousands
of Moslems in Turkey and Persia, and even in Arabia,
are intellectually convinced of the truth of Christianity
as opposed to Islam. The philosophical disintegration
of Islam, which began in Persia by therise of Moslem
sects, is now being hastened by means of newspaper
discussions. There a general unrest. There are
is

frantic attempts to save the ship by throwing over-

board much of the old cargo. The attack on orthodox
Mohammedanism was never so keen or strong on the
part of any missionary as has been the attack from
those inside Islam. If you will read the report of the
Mecca Conference, when forty Moslems met together
in secret conclave to point out the causes of decay
in their religion and listed —
them and more
fifty
defects in this religion of their Prophet — and published
the list as a document to scatter over the Moslem
world, you will no longer accuse any missionary
of dealing harshly with this tissue of falsehoods
9
130 THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE
buttressed by some great truths which we call Islam.
If Islam reformed is Islam no longer, then what will
take the place of the old traditions ? When the shriek
of the locomotive is heard at Mecca, will Arabia sleep on
in its patriarchal sleep ? Will the nomads beat their
swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-
hooks, when modern irrigation transforms the desert
into a garden ? Will Mohammedanism with its ideals
prevail, or Christianity ? Will polygamy or mono-
gamy ? Will a free press or a press that is throttled ?
Will the Constitution or the Koran be the law of
Western Asia ? Will there be more Adanas or will
there be more proclamations of Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity ? Will the ideal of character be Mohammed
or Christ ? For, believe me, in the final issue in the
last analysis, the struggle now going on in Western
Asia in hearts, in homes, in parliaments, in the press,
is the struggle between two great personalities.

I wish I might call upon any Moslem mullah to

whom I could speak the Arabic tongue and ask him one
question and let his answers convince you. I will
ask the question, and any missionary will tell you that
this Moslem mullah would answer " Yes." I will
ask my Moslem friend whether the words that I now
quote are not every one of them true as regards the
Prophet Mohammed, according to Moslem teaching :

" Who is the first-born of all creation. For in him

were all thmgs created, in the heavens and upon the
earth, things visible and things invisible, whether
thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
All things have been created through him and unto
him, and in him all things consist, and he is the head
of the body of the church of Islam, who is the beginning
ing,the fu'st-born ; that in all things Mohammed
might have the pre-eminence." That is good orthodox
 IN WESTERN ASIA 131

Mohammedanism. I can match every statement

taken from the Apostle Paul in Mohammedan tradi-
tion I can match every statement in a single Moham-
;

medan hymn called " The Poem of the Mantle,"

in which they say, ''
All glory and praise be to
Mohammed, the glory of history, the first-born of all
creatures." But you do not believe that. Hear
the words of Isaiah " Jehovah, that is My name,
:

and My glory will I not give to another, nor My praise

to graven images." That is the issue in Western Asia.
And if that issue means a struggle, and a struggle to
the end, then you and I must accept that issue or prove
disloyal to Him whom we call our King, " in whom
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily " —
not in Mohammed. In Him are hid all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. He is the ideal of
character, not Mohammed. Thou, O Christ, art all
they want. Do you believe it ? Will you give Christ
to them ? That is the issue of the conflict.

III. And what is the hope of victory ? The

victory not hanging in the balance. It is no
is

question of a final issue. It is merely a question

whether it shall be now or shall be long deferred.
God has thrown open wide the doors, and shown us
men inside the camp who are prepared to surrender
the keys of the whole situation. He has unmuzzled
the press, and given us, not as a promise or a prophecy,
—
but as newspaper history " Be of good cheer, I
have overcome Persia, I have overcome Turkey, I
have overcome Arabia." Where is our courage, that
we hang back ? Fear sees giants, but faith sees only
God. I never deny the struggle, but gain faith from
that wonderful parable of Jesus Christ when I think
of the Moslem world and of Arabia " When a strong
:
132 THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE
man, fullyarmed, guardeth his palace, his goods are
at peace ;but when a stronger than he shall come,
he taketh from him all the armour in which he trusted
and divideth his spoil." To-day has this Scripture
been fulfilled before our very eyes. This day there
are glorious opportunities for every man and woman
who volunteers for Western Asia. Every one of the
mission stations is fearfully undermanned, and calls
loudly for reinforcements. Educational, industrial,
medical opportunities abound everywhere throughout
Western Asia. Doors of opportunity are open in
every one of the great cities to prepare not only the
teachers of to-morrow, but the statesmen to guide
the ship of state over the stormy seas of social and
religious unrest.
And look beyond. In every unoccupied part of
the field there is such unique opportunity as never
has been since the days of the apostles ; and there
are glorious impossibilities in these unoccupied fields.
There is the greater part of Russian Asia, there are
four provinces in Arabia, there is one province in
Persia without a single missionary. It is easy for us
to sing as soldiers of the Cross, " Like a mighty army
moves the Church of God." It does not move. It
hugs the trenches, and out there you are leaving
single workers to die alone. Hear their cry. Hear
their prayer :

" More than half beaten, but fearless,

Facing the storm and the night
Breathless and reeling, but tearless,
Here in the lull of the fight,
I who bow not but before Thee,
God of the fighting Clan,
Lifting my fists I implore Thee,
Give me the heart of a man I
 ; —

IN WESTERN ASIA 133

What though I live with the winners,

Or perish with those who fall

Only the cowards are sinners,

Fighting the fight is all.
—
Strong is my foe he advances !

Snapt is my blade, O Lord !

See the proud banners and lances !

"
Oh spare me this stub of a sword !

That the cry that goes up from your missionaries,

is

lonely soldierswho have waited long for reinforce-

ments with hope deferred, but with hearts on fire.
Thank God also for the inspiration of the pioneers
who died not having received the promise. No part
of the world has a richer heritage of predecessors.
Upon whom has their mantle fallen ? Who will
smite the Jordan and see it part asunder ? Where is
the Lord God of Henry Martyn and Keith Falconer ;

the God of Parsons and Fiske, of Goodell and Dwight,

of Hamlin, Van Dyck, and Bishop French ? He can
do it if He will.
In the impending struggle throughout all Western
Asia, the clash of mediaeval with modern thought, of
barbarism against civilisation, of the Koran against
the Bible, of Christ against Mohammed, what part
shall this our generation play ? No field in the
world calls for a more dauntless faith and more fear-
less manhood than these lands of Western Asia. But
love is strong as death love laughs at locksmiths,
;

and there are no closed doors for the Gospel of the

living Christ. It is now or never for self-sacrificing
obedience.
Far above the fight is our Captain, and every
missionary to the Moslem world turns to that nine-
teenth chapter of the Book of Revelation. I believe
God gave it to us for this struggle in Western Asia
134 THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE
the last portrait of our Saviour Jesus Christ. " I
saw heaven opened, and I saw a white horse, and he
that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and
in righteousness he doth judge and make war." And
the armies of Heaven followed him, until the end of
the struggle is complete and final victory for the Son
of God.
More than twenty years ago I reached Arabia for the
first time, and walked beyond the wall of Jiddah to

the great gate that leads out to Mecca. I did not

know much Arabic, but I could spell out the words
over the gate, and they were these :
" Ya Fattah "
(O thou who openest). Is not that gate a symbol, not
only of Mecca with its closed doors, but of every
difficulty, of every glorious impossibility ? I thought
then and I think now of our Saviour Jesus Christ,
" On whose shoulders are the keys of the house of
David, who openeth and no man shutteth, who
shutteth and no man openeth." To His Kingdom
there are no frontiers ; in His Kingdom there are no
passports ; in His Kingdom there is absolute liberty.
He is Lord of all. Will you accept His challenge and
go?
Above all, think of the inspiration of His life in
Western Asia. If God so loved the world. He loved it
as a unit ; but if Jesus Christ is the Son of Man,
He loves Western Asia. His manger and His Cross
stood there. In Western Asia His blood was spilled.
In Western Asia He walked the hills. There His
tears fell for Jerusalem. There His eye still rests.
Thither He will come again. It was in Western Asia
that He said, " All authority is given unto Me " ;

and although for thirteen centuries His royal rights

have been disputed by a usurper, they have never been
abrogated. Shall we give Western Asia to Him, or
 IN WESTERN ASIA 135

shall Western Asia remain the Empire of Mohammed ?

" There is no
Shall Bethlehem hear five times a day
Mohammed God's apostle " ? and
god but God, and is

shall not a single one of us dare go, if God will, to

Mecca itself, the very stronghold of Islam, and preach

the Gospel of the great King ?
 CHAPTER VIII

THE CLOCK, THE CALENDAR, AND

THE KORAN

137
 " Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, Who
hast made
of one blood all nations, and hast promised that many
shall come from the East and sit down with Abraham in
Thy Kingdom We pray for Thy two hundred million
:

prodigal children in Moslem lands who are still afar off,

that they may be brought nigh by the blood of Christ.
Look upon them in pity because they are ignorant of Thy
truth. Take away their pride of intellect and blindness
of heart, and reveal to them the surpassing beauty and
power of Thy Son Jesus Christ. Convince them of their
sin in rejecting the atonement of the only Saviour. Give
moral courage to those who love Thee, that they may
boldly confess Thy name. Hasten the day of perfect
freedom in Turkey, Arabia, Persia, and Afghanistan.
Make Thy people wilhng in this new day of opportunity
in China, India, and Egypt. Send forth reapers where
the harvest is ripe, and faithful ploughmen to break
furrows in lands still neglected. May the pagan tribes
of Africa and Malaysia not fall a prey to Islam, but be
won for Christ. Bless the ministry of heahng in every
hospital, and the ministry of love at every mission
station. May all Moslem children in mission schools be
led to Christ and accept Him as their personal Saviour.
Strengthen converts, restore backsliders, and give all
those who labour among Mohammedans the tenderness of
Christ. So that bruised reeds may become pillars of
His Church, and smoking flaxwicks burning and shining
lights. Make bare Thine arm, O God, and show Thy
power. All our expectation is from Thee. Father, the
hour has come ; glorify Thy Son in the Mohammedan
world, and fulfil through Him the prayer of Abraham Thy
friend, Oh, that Ishmael might live before Thee.' For
'

Jesus' sake. Amen."

138
 CHAPTER VIII

THE CLOCK, THE CALENDAR, AND

THE KORAN
The religion which Mohammed founded bears
everywhere the imprint of his life and character. He
was not only the prophet but the prophecy of Islam.
This is true not only as regards matters of faith and
ritual, but also of many things which at first sight
would seem to have no connection with either.
The connection of the three words in the title may
seem merely fortuitous or alliterative to the reader :

to the Moslem their connection is perfectly evident,

because the clock and the calendar are set back and
regulated by the book of the Prophet. The Moslem
calendar, with its twelve lunar months and its two
great feast days, is fixed according to the laws of the
Koran and orthodox tradition, based upon the practice
of Mohammed himself. The fast month of Ramadhan,
for example, is so called from the Arabic root which
means to hum, and before the days of Islam this
month, in accordance with its name, always fell in
the heat of summer. Because of the change in the
calendar, and because Mohammed abolished the
intercalary months, the fast occurs eleven days earlier
each year and travels all round the seasons. Although
the ancient Arabian year was composed of twelve
lunar months, the Arabs about the year 412 intro-
139
140 THE CLOCK, THE CALENDAR,
duced a system of intercalation whereby one month
additional was inserted every three years. Mohammed
abolished this scientific practice, and we read in the
Koran (Surah ix. 36, 37) " Verily, the number of
:

months with God is twelve months in God's Book,

on the day when He created the heavens and the
earth ; of these are four that are sacred ; that is the
subsisting religion."
By this one verse of the Koran, which is unchanged
and irrevocable, the whole Moslem world is practically
bound fast to the lunar calendar. Beidhawi and
other Moslem commentators try to explain these
verses in such a way as to hide the fact that the
Arabs in the " Time of Ignorance " were far more
scientific in calendar than were Mohammed
their
himself or the Arabs who followed his leading. In the
Commentary of Mohammed Hussem Nisabori, printed
in themargin of the thirty volume Commentary by
Et-Tabari, we find, however, the true explanation.
After giving the usual explanations, which do not
explain, he says :

" There however, another explanation of this verse.

is,

The meaning of nasi is the adding of a month to certain

years so that the lunar year will be equivalent to the

solar ; for the lunar year of twelve months consists of
354 days and a fifth or sixth of a day, as we know from
the science of astronomy and the observations of as-
tronomers. But the solar year, which is equivalent to
the return of the sun from any fixed point in the firma-
ment to the same position, consists of 365 days and nearly
a fourth of a day. Therefore the lunar year is less than the
solar year by ten days, twenty-one and one-fifth hours,
nearly, and by reason of this difference the lunar months
change from season to season so that, for example,
;

the month of pilgrimage will sometimes occur in winter,

 AND THE KORAN 141

sometimes in summer, or in the spring or autumn. In

the Time of Ignorance,' they were not pleased when the
'

pilgrimage occurred in an unsuitable time for their

merchandise. Therefore they arranged for a leap year
with an additional month, so that the hajj should always
occur in the autumn ; so they increased the nineteen
lunar years by seven lunar months, so that it became
nineteen solar years, and in the following year they added
a month. Then, again, in the fifth year ; then in the
seventh, the tenth, the thirteenth, the sixteenth, the
eighteenth year, etc. They learned this method from
the Jews and the Christians, who also follow it on account
of their feasts. And the extra month was called Nasi.''

Nisabori goes on to give a tradition according

to which Mohammed himself abrogated this practice
when he made his last pilgrimage to Mecca and
established the ritual of the hajj.
The origin of the lunar calendar is, therefore,
based not only on the Koran text but on tradition.
The inconvenience of this reckoning, however, is
being increasingly felt, and more and more the solar
year and the dates of the Greek calendar are being
used by Moslems. We may read, for example, on
the title-pages of all the leading Cairo and Con-
stantinople dailies, even those published by Moslems,
Wednesday, the 28th of Safar 1331, and on the
opposite side of the page, 5th February 1913. To
convert a Moslem date into one of our own era is
not altogether a simple matter. " To express the
Mohammedan date," says Dr. Forbes, " in years and
decimals of a year ; multiply by -970,225 ; to the
product add 621,54 and the sum will be the precise
period of the Christian era." According to Murray,
" If it is desired to find the year of the Hegira which
comes in a given year of the Christian era, it is
142 THE CLOCK, THE CALENDAR,
sufficient to subtract 621 from the year given and
to multiply the remainder by 1-0307 " while,
;

according to Hughes' Dictionary of Islam, if one

desires to find the precise Christian date correspond-
ing to any given year of Islam, the following rule
obtains :

" From the given number of Musalman years, deduct

three per cent., and to the remainder add the number
621,54 ; the sum is the period of the Christian era at
which the given current Musalman year ends. This
simple rule is founded on the fact that 100 lunar years
are very nearly equal to ninety-seven solar years, there
being only eight days of excess in the former period ;

hence to the result found, as just stated, it will be requisite

to add eight days as a correction for every century."

A writer in the Egypt Nationalist organ, Es Sha'b^

who signs himself Al Zarkawy, proposes to modify
the lunar year in a thoroughly Mohammedan fashion
and call it the Hegira solar year. He professes to
know from Moslem tradition that the date on which
the Prophet emigrated from Mecca to Medina was
Friday the twelfth of Rabi'a i., corresponding to
22nd September 622 a.d. It was seventeen years
after that date, according to this writer, in the
Omar, that the year in which Mohammed
caliphate of
went to Medina was taken as the beginning of the
Mohammedan era the first Muharram of that year
;

622 being Thursday, 15th July. The writer proposes

that, as the lunar calendar is inexact for business
purposes and the Koran requires it for religious
purposes, the Moslem world should introduce a
Hegira solar date, so that periodical events will not
change from year to year, although the feasts, etc.,
which are based on the appearance of the moon,
 AND THE KORAN 143

will be fixed as heretofore by the lunar calendar.

He also finds a strange and providential coincidence
in the fact that the day on which the Hegira date
began, namely, 22nd September 622, was the first
day of autumn, when day and night are twelve hours
each This date should, therefore, be taken for
!

the beginning of the era and of the calendar. The

writer proposes that the names of the months should
be those of the signs of the zodiac, the Ram, the
Bull, the Twins, the Lion, etc. The number of
days in the first six months will be thirty each, and
in the second six months thirty-one. The sixth
month, however, of the second series, namely the
last month in the year, will have twenty-nine days
for three years, and thirty days every fourth year.
Al Zarkawy seriously submits this proposition to
the public, whose criticism he invites, and with
faith in his own proposition dates the article the
23rd of the month of Capricorn, 1291 of the Hegira
solar which corresponds to the 5th of the
year,
month Hegira lunar year 1330.
of Safir of the
To make confusion worse confounded as regards
the Moslem calendar, we must remember also that
the date of the Mohammedan months at present,
in nearly every part of the Moslem world, is fixed
not by the almanac or calendar prepared beforehand,
but depends upon the actual observation of the
new moon by competent witnesses. This is especially
new moon which appears at the beginning
true of the
and end of the month of fasting. According to
Moslem tradition, based upon the practice of the
Prophet, it is necessary for these witnesses to appear
before the Kadhi, or local judge. The result is,
with the uncertainty of weather, and frequently the
unreliability of the witnesses, that towns in Arabia
144 THE CLOCK, THE CALENDAR,
only a few miles apart will begin and end the month
on a different day. In Turkey and in Egypt, as
well as in India, Moslems are beginning to follow
the printed calendar, but among the orthodox the
practice is considered decidedly doubtful. One of
the leading papers in Alexandria recently contained
a notice by the head of the Moslem religious fraternity
calling for men of keen vision and faithful character
who would be on the look-out for the appearance
of the new moon, so that the observation of the
fact and the feast days of Islam might be accurately
fixed and not be dependent upon hearsay !

Before the advent of Mohammed, the Arabs al-

ready possessed considerable knowledge of practical
astronomy. The Bedouins on their night journeys,
having no other guide than the moon and the
brightest stars, made observations and crude astro-
nomical deductions. It was not, however, till the
second century of the Hegira that the scientific
study of astronomy began under the influence of
India. Moslem astronomers accepted all the funda-
mental features of the Ptolemaic system of the
universe, together with its errors. In the fourth
century a.h. the possibility of the earth's revolution
was discussed, but in the following centuries and
among orthodox Mohammedans to-day its immo-
bility is Only Western education,
generally accepted.
as in Egypt, Turkey, and Persia, has changed
opinion. In El Azhar the astronomy taught is still
Ptolemaic. According to C. A. Nallino, the Arabs
outstripped their predecessors,Greeks, " in
the
mathematical astronomy, in the number and quality
of their instruments and the technique of their
observations." It is, therefore, the more remarkable
that the solar calendar was not adopted long since
 AND THE KORAN 145

in Moslem lands. The last great Moslem astronomer

was Ulug Beg of Samarkand (a.d. 1449). '' With
him the scientific study of astronomy ceased through-
out the Islamic world ; henceforth we only meet
with authors of elementary manuals, compilers of
almanacs, etc. The real astronomer has disappeared,
and in his place we find only the muwakkit of the
mosques."
The present names of the Moslem months are
different from those in use before Mohammed's time.
The first month of the year is called Muharram,
and is so called because both under the pagan Arabs
and in the time of Mohammed it was held unlawful
to go to war in this month. The first ten days of
it are observed in commemoration of the martyrdom

of Al Hussein, and the tenth day is the fast of

'Ashur'a. Safar (yellow) was so named because it
occurred at a time when the leaves bore a yellow
tint. It is the most unlucky month in the year,
for in it Adam was turned out of Paradise and
Mohammed was taken ill. Rabija al-Awal and
Rabi^a-uth-Thani signify the first and second spring
months and used to occur at the beginning of the
year in springtime. Jamad-al-Awal and Jamad-ath-
Thani, the fifth and sixth months, were, according
to Caussin de Perceval, so named because the earth
then became hard and dry (jamad) through scarcity
of rain. The seventh month, Rajab, signifies honoured.
It was a sacred month during the " Time of Ignor-
ance " when war was not permitted. Sha'ban is
called the Prophet's month. The old significance
of the name means to separate; for in this month,
we are told, the Arab tribes separated in search of
water. On the 15th day of this month occurs the
celebrated " Night of Recording," upon which God
10
146 THE CLOCK, THE CALENDAR,
is said to register all the actions of mankind which
they are to perform during the coming year.
Mohammed enjoined his followers to keep awake
throughout the whole of this night, and repeat one
hundred prayers. This ninth month is called
Shawwal, because of some obscure reference to
camels' tails and Bedouin life. The name signifies
a tail. On the first of this month occurs the Moslem
feast of the " Breaking of the Fast" called 'Id-ul-
Fitr. The last two months in the year are called
Dhu-al-Ka^da and Dhu-al-Hajj. The former signifies
the month of resting or truce, in which the ancient
Arabs were always engaged in peaceful operations
the latter, the month of the pilgrimage. During
this month the pilgrims visit Mecca. A visit at any
other time does not in any way have the merits of
a pilgrimage. On the tenth day of the month is the
great Moslem feast of sacrifice, ^Id-ul-Azha.
One can see from this summary that at least three
of the months in the calendar are closely linked
to religious practice and Moslem tradition, and that
while Islam stands this part of the calendar cannot
be changed. Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje has recently
shown that the lunar calendar even controls in some
measure the number of pilgrims from Malaysia to
Mecca. According to Moslem belief the Hajj al Akbar,
or Greater Hajj, which has special religious merit,
only occurs when the great day of the pilgrimage
(the 19th), or Dhu al Hajj, falls on Friday, which
is also the Moslem day of public worship.
This superstition in regard to lucky days, and the
desire to be present at Arafat on a Friday, obtains
great credence among the Malays, but as the date
of the month depends on actual observation at Mecca,
there can be no certainty.
 AND THE KORAN 147

Prince Leone Caetani has shown in his recent work,

Annali dell' Islam, that the exact date of Mohammed's

^1 ,-=r>tfc

IX^'
TV TV
*:-iD rr rr
148 THE CLOCK, THE CALENDAR,
the Caliph Omar made the first of Muharram corre-
spond with Thursday, 15th July 622 a.d. Caetani
devotes some twenty pages to a discussion of this
difficult subject, and gives comparative tables for
every day in the Moslem calendar from the year 1 a.h.
to correspond with our own. (Vol. i. pp. 344-361.)
The illustration here given of a leaf from a Moslem
calendar published in Cairo shows the practical diffi-
culties of the situation in this capital city. On either
side of the word for Tuesday, the third day of the
week, this calendar gives the year of the Hegira and
that of " The Birth." Then follow in large letters
the ordinary Moslem and Christian date, the 21st
of EahV a-uih-Thayii and April. Below is the record
of an event, namely, a victory of the Egyptian Army
in the Sudan, on the corresponding date of the year
1306, On either side of this chronological note
occur other dates, viz. :the 27th of Barmuda 1628
(Coptic), and the 27th of Maart 1328 (Ottoman
financial year), the 27th of Adar 2223 (Greek), and
the 22nd of Nisan 5672 (Hebrew). Underneath we
have given, both in Arabic and in European time,
the five periods of prayer, and the rising and setting
of the sun and moon. In addition to the periods of
prayer are added the actual time of sunrise and of
high noon, for the Moslem noon, when the muezzin
calls for prayer, differs from high noon by two
minutes. On this particular day, according to
Moslem time, the former is at five hours thirty-nine
minutes, and the latter at five hours thirty-seven
minutes. On each leaf of the calendar a short
quotation from the traditions is given. Here it
reads :
" It is a part of righteousness to befriend
the friend of your father."
Turning from the Moslem calendar to the Moslem
 AND THE KORAN 149

clock, we find here also that the mediaeval legislation

of theProphet and the power of tradition are supreme.
Before clocks and watches were invented, Moslems
divided the day and the night according to the prayer
ritual, and this division still prevails among the
common people everywhere. The periods of prayer
are five, as is well known. Daybreak, just after
high noon, between high noon and sunset, sunset,
and finally when the night closes in. These prayer
periods are known respectively as Fijr, Zuhr, ^Asr,
Maghrib, and 'Asha\ Although the general duty
of prayer is enjoined in the Koran, there is not a
single passage where five periods of prayer are
mentioned (cf. Surah xxx. 17, xi. 116, xx. 130, xvii.
80). The first passage is the most definite, and reads :

" Celebrated be the praises of God when you are in

the evening and when you are in the morning, for
to Him belongs praise in the heavens and the earth,
and at the evening, and when you are at noon."
The commentators are agreed that five prayers a
day are not mentioned. The stated periods, as
well as all the ritual of prayer, is therefore based upon
tradition. They were possibly borrowed from the
practice of the Oriental Church, as is the case of so
much else in the public prayer ritual of Islam. Basil ^
of Cappadocia, according to Dr. Hughes, speaks
of five hours as suitable for prayer, namely, the
morning, the third hour, the sixth, the ninth, and the
evening. Mohammed, however, changed the times of
prayer to suit the Arabian climate, his family arrange-
ments (see the traditions), and the life of the Bedouin
^ R. Strothmann, on the contrary, believes the periods were
borrowed from Zoroastrianism. Cf. his Kultus der Zaiditen, p. 19.
He bases his conclusions on Goldziher's investigation, Revue d.
Hist. d. Rel., 1901, p. 15.
150 THE CLOCK, THE CALENDAR,
tribes, to the great inconvenience of Moslems under
other skies and in the bustle and turmoil of modern
city life.

Clocks and watches are found nearly everywhere

to-day in the Moslem world. In Egypt, India, Algeria,
and Malaysia most Moslems use Western time because
of the influence of European governments. In Persia,
Turkey, Arabia, Morocco, Afghanistan, and the rest
of the Moslem world generally, clocks and watches
are still regulated every day at sunset, which must
be twelve o'clock exactly by Moslem time every day
in the year. One can imagine how not only ordinary
clocks, but costly timepieces are abused by being
setback or forward every day at sunset but as long
;

as the muezzin's cry rings from the minarets, the

time of the day for the orthodox believer will be
regulated by his call, observatories to the contrary
notwithstanding.
Popularly speaking, the chief use of a clock or a
watch, in any case, is to know the exact time for
prayer and just as an ordinary pocket compass is
;

known b)^ the " Mecca pointer " (Kibla)

name of
all over Western and Central Asia, because it has
been found useful to indicate the direction of Mecca
to the travelling pilgrim, so the hands on the clock
are real prayer-pointers. At the beginning of Ramad-
han, for example, there is often a brisk and in-
creasing trade in timepieces of every description, in
order that the hours of fasting and the hours of
feasting may be promptly known. High noon,
according to Mohammendan reckoning, may be
anywhere from forty minutes past four to fifty
minutes past six, in this latitude (30 degrees north)
but an interesting rule to remember is this, that
the time of noon, according to Mohammedan watches
 ;

AND THE KORAN 151

and clocks on any particular day, subtracted from

twelve, gives the apparent time of sunset according
to Western reckoning.
This connection and confusion of the clock, the
calendar, and the Koran bring about the result that
the only time reckoning on which Christians, Moslems,
and Jews agree in the Orient, is that of the days of
the week. These are numbered and called by their
numbers, save Friday and Saturday, which are
known as the " day of assembling," and the '* day
of the Sabbath." Among the days of the week,
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are
esteemed auspicious and lucky, while the other days
are considered unlucky. According to tradition
(Mishkat 24. 1), God created the earth on Saturday,
the hills on Sunday, the trees on Monday, all un-
pleasant things on Tuesday, the light on Wednesday,
the beasts on Thursday, and Adam, who was the
last of creation, was created about the time of after-
noon prayers on Friday.
Friday is the day specially appointed for public
worship throughout the whole Moslem world. Ac-
cording to tradition delivered by Mohammed, *' It
is the day on which the sun rises ; the day on which

Adam was taken into Paradise and taken out of it

the day on which he repented and on which he died.
It will also be the day of Resurrection." Although
this day is sacred for special prayer among Moslems,
it is neither in the traditions nor in the Koran con-

sidered a day of incumbent rest. Only in recent

years, and with the rise of Pan-Islamism, have
Mohammedans begun to observe the day more vigor-
ously and attempted to make it a substitute for the
Christian Sabbath in its character and in their
demands as regards government regulations and
152 CLOCK, CALENDAR, AND KORAN
privileges, as at the recent Egyptian Moslem Con-
gress.^ The revival Islam on these and other
of
lines will doubtless end in attempts to revise the
calendar and the division of the hours. But for
the present, next to that of banking and the taking
of interest (both forbidden in the Koran), there is
no more urgent, practical question than that of
the Clock, the Calendar, and the Koran.
1 Cf Kjnriakos Mikhail, Copts and Moslems under British Control,
.

pp. 28-31 and p. 70.

 CHAPTER IX
TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN

16S
 CHAPTER IX
TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN

Dr. D. S. MARGOLIOUTH recently called atten-

tion to a noteworthy fact, namely, that Islam in
theory offers no facilities to those outside of its pale
for the study of its character before they enter.
*'
A
man must enrol himself as a member fu'st," he writes,
" and then only may he learn what his obligations
are. The Koran may not be sold to Unbelievers ;
soldiers are advised not to take it with them into
hostile territory for fear the Unbeliever should get
hold of it and many a copy bears upon it a warning
;

to Unbelievers not to touch. Pious grammarians

have refused to teach grammar to Jews or Christians,
because the rules were apt to be illustrated by
quotations from the sacred volume."
In how high a degree the Arabic language is to
Moslems a wholly sacred language, not to be lightly
regarded nor taught to unbelievers, one may learn
from the commentaries on Surah Yusef, the first
verse. " Those are the signs of the perspicuous
Book. Verily we have revealed it, an Arabic Koran.
Haply ye may understand." Et-Tabari, commenting
on this verse, says :
" God Most High caused this
noted Book to come down an Arabic Koran to the
Arabs, for their tongue and speech is Arabic. We,
therefore, revealed this Book in their language that
155
156 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN
they might be wise and fully understand." The
Arabic Koran is to-day the one sacred text-book in
all Moslem schools in Turkey, Afghanistan, Java,
Sumatra, Russia, and China, as well as in those lands
where Arabic is the mother tongue.
Yet to three-fourths of the Moslem world Arabic is
a dead language for Islam spread even more rapidly
;

than did the language of the Koran, and in conse-

quence the Moslem world of to-day is polyglot. The
chief literary languages of the Moslem world next to
Arabic are Persian, Turkish, Urdu, and Bengali. In
all of these, and in other languages, there is a large

—
Moslem religious literature dogmatic, mystic, and
controversial. Yet the question whether the Koran
itself might be translated into other languages has
always been contested by the orthodox party. It is
true that Mohammedans have themselves prepared
a number of translations, or running comments on
the sacred text, as interlinear notes, but such copies
of the Koran are expensive and rare. An interesting
correspondence was carried on in the columns of the
Orient and Occident ^ a few years ago between Sheikh
Mohammed Hasanein El Ghamrawy, a student at
Oxford, and the editors, in regard to this question.
The former laid down the chief reasons why the
Koran was not translated into foreign languages by
Moslems in the earlier days, and, secondly, what had
been the motives that led to its translation into
Persian, Urdu, and Turkish in recent times. He
speaks of the translations of the Koran as having
been adopted rather as a preventive measure than to
propagate the faith. It was intended, he says, " to
keep the religion of Islam from losing its hold on
countries where Arabic is little known." Islam has
* Orient and Occident, Cairo, February 1907.
 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN 157

never had its Pentecostal gift of tongues. Before

our Lord Jesus Christ gave the Great Commission,
the Old Testament had already been translated into
Greek, and to-day the list of the Bible Societies
includes versions in four hundred and fifty-six tongues :

the complete Bible in a hundred and twelve languages,

the New Testament in a hundred and eleven more,
and at least one book of Scripture in two hundred
and thirty -three other languages. ^ This list includes
every language, and even every important dialect
spoken in the Moslem world. The Bible, in contrast
to the Koran, has this unique quality, that it can be
rendered into all the languages of mankind without
losing its majesty, beauty, and spiritual power. The
secret lies in the subject-matter of the Scriptures.

" The Bible belongs to those elemental things ^like —

the sky and the wind and the sea, like bread and wine,
like the kisses of little children and tears shed beside the
—
grave which can never grow stale or obsolete or out of
date, because they are the common heritage of mankind.
This Book goes down to the root of our bitterest needs,
our darkest sorrows." ^

The difficulty with the Koran is that it is in a sense

untranslatable. imitate its rhyme and rhythm is
To
impossible. Its beauty is altogether in its style, and,
therefore, necessarily artificial. For the sake of the
rhyme unnecessary repetitions are frequently made,
which interrupt the sense of the passage and some-
times even appear ridiculous in a translation. " The

^ Translations of the Bible, by Bemhard Pick, Ph.D., New

York. American Bible Society. 1913. This volume contains a
carefully compiled bibliography of 653 versions of the Bible, or parts
of the Bible, which have been made since the invention of printing.
* Report of British and Foreign Bible Society, 191 3-1 4.
158 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN
language of the Koran," says Stanley Lane-Poole,
" has the ring of poetry, though no part of it complies
with the demands of Arab metre. The sentences are
short and full of half-restrained energy, yet with a
musical cadence. The thought is often only half
expressed one feels the speaker has essayed a thing
;

beyond words, and has suddenly discovered the im-

potence of language and broken off with the sentence
unfinished. There is the fascination of true poetry
about these earliest surahs as we read them we
;

understand the enthusiasm of the Prophet's followers,

though we cannot fully realise the beauty and the
power, inasmuch as we cannot hear them hurled forth
with Mohammed's fiery eloquence. From first to
last the Koran is essentially a book to be heard,
not read." And elsewhere the same author says :

" These early speeches of the Koran are short and

impassioned. They are pitched too high to be long
sustained. We feel that we have to do with a poet,
as well as a preacher, and that his poetry costs him
too much to be spun out. The words are those of
a man whose whole heart is in his subject, and they
carry with them even now the impression of the
burning vehemence with which they were hurled
1
forth."
It is this artificial character of the book which has
baffled the skill of translators, and no translation
will ever satisfy those who can read the original
for did not Mohammed himself say, " I love the Arabs
for three reasons:because I am an Arabian, because
the Koran is Arabic, and because the language of the
people of Paradise is Arabic too." A story was
recently current among Moslems at Peshawar that
George Sale on his death-bed declared himself a
1 Cf. Islam, 1903, p. 16.
 —

TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN 159

Mohammedan, and asked forgiveness for having

put forward such an incorrect translation of the
Koran as he had made, and desired that all copies
should be burned (Perhaps our Indian friends
!

were offended by his statement in the Preface to the

Reader " The
: Protestants alone are able to attack
the Koran with success, and for them I trust Pro-
vidence has reserved the glory of its overthrow.")
In attempting to give as complete a list as possible
of the translations of the Koran, we will deal first
—
with those in the languages of Europe in nearly
—
every case the work of non-Moslems and then with
Oriental versions by Moslems and missionaries.

I. Translations into the Languages

OF Europe
The first translation of the Koran was due to the
missionary spiritPetrus Venerabilis, abbot of
of
Clugny (died 1157 a.d.). He proposed the transla-
tion of the Koran into Latin, and the task was accom-
plished by an Englishman, Robert of Retina, and a
German, Hermann of Dal mat ia. Although the work
was completed in 1143, it remained hidden for nearly
four hundred years, till it was published at Basle in
1543 by Theodore Bibliander. This version was
afterwards rendered into Italian, German, and
Dutch. A second Latin translation of the Koran
was made by Father Louis Maracci in 1698 and
published at Padua, together with the original text,
explanatory notes, and refutations. Concerning this
translation Sale says "It is, generally speaking,
:

very exact, but adheres to the Arabic idiom too

literally to be easily understood." The notes, he
adds, are valuable, but the refutations " unsatis-
160 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN
factory and sometimes impertinent." Later editions
of Bibliander's text appeared in 1550, and 1721
(Leipzig). An Arabic-Latin Koran was also pub-
lished at Leipzig in 1768 by Justus Fredericus Froriep,
and another at Amsterdam in 1646.
Andrew Du Ryer, who had been French Consul in
Egypt and had a considerable knowledge of both the
Turkish and Arabic languages, first translated the
Koran into French. This was printed at Paris in
1647. The version is, however, inaccurate, and
contains frequent transpositions, omissions, and even
additions (Sale). Later and better French transla-
tions have followed :by Savary in 1783, and Kasi-
mirski (Paris, 1st edition 1840, 2nd edition 1841,
3rd edition 1857). Both of these versions have been
frequently reprinted in popular form. Another
French version is that by G. Pauthier (Paris, 1852).
As far as I have been able to learn, there is no
translation of the Koran into Danish or Norwegian.
A Swedish translation, however, was made by C. J.
Tornberg in 1874, but is said to be very inaccurate.
J. T. Nordling wrote a prize essay for Upsala Uni-
versity on the Swedish translation in 1876.
A translation of one Surah, El Mi'raj, was made
into Spanish in the thirteenth century at the request
of Alphonso X., by his physician, Don Ibrahim, and
a French rendering of this translation was made by
Bonaventura de Seve. I have not heard of a com-
plete translation into Spanish, nor so far been able to
trace a translation of the Koran into Greek, although
the Greeks have been in closest touch with their
Moslem neighbours for many centuries.
Early Hebrew translations are not unknown. We
learn from the Jewish Encyclopedia that fragments
of these translations are found in a Bodleian MS.
 ^£Xl,)^-, JA-^K^ty^'A i^^.j^^fA^^i,
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^:v

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i/t-i/.i)* IR^. ^JJuVT, i ^4;^vt,iJt;^W^

^'^Mb^wimxunimmti i<-*V^
^^^ >-*J'/ff-'' (/'''•^^'•'^v^'" "
•'•-"
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r<>' ,^ fji ^i/U'-r, ^ i^/'-r,-=^-'i^yj-'
'4- '-'Irrif u<' I'UO:-^.
t:^-:^r i/>' '^'t'-r' Jjc/lS'Ui^Y-

>r->>L-'^-i: >~v.t^A^«V'c.'l^^''^- '^^tVt/^i^'^,> '.'/>-.- ^VT^ C'v-^C' '/'"•'/^r'ti' t'

^f ^.'Jk^j (^?/i^Ja-f'J?t;ic,'v/>^t>'>=^'«^'^>.s^.Vf</)^*^,;^^'^u'<wJ/:

^msM^Msm^ IPW^:
^^i^vt^t C-"-? ^Lfti^WlTfiTTZST^

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ii'''^^-^'
^^.^/-'xi-t:.

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/o>P*^jif'r- ^Mih^^uK^CC'^^ wmP'^'^j:-^''^' Jifroisyy-^' 7^'

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A Page from a Polyglot Koran : Arabic— Persian— Urdu

 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN 161

(No. 1221) in a bookseller's list a volume in Hebrew

;

is mentioned containing the Torah, the Targum, and

the Koran. A translation from Latin into Hebrew
was made in the seventeenth century by Jacob b.
Israel ha Levi, Rabbi of Zante (died 1634). In
modern times a translation was made into Hebrew by
Hermann Reckendorf, and printed at Leipzig in 1857.
The first German translation was made from the
Latin. Other translations were made by Schweigger
from the Italian version, at Niirnberg in 1616, and by
Frederick Megerlin (Frankfurt, 1772). Sale's English
version was translated into German by Theo. Arnold,
and published at Lemgo (Germany) in 1746. The
best known translations in German, however, are
those by Boysen (1773), revised and corrected by
G. Wahl in 1828, and the most recent one by Ullmann
(1853), which has passed through many editions.
But, according to Noldeke, none of the German trans-
lations are equal to those which we have in English.
The Dutch translation. Be Arabische Al-
first

coran, was
from Schweigger's version, and was
printed at Hamburg in 1641. A later one was made
by J. H. Glasemaker from Du Ryer's version (and is
still more inaccurate), and was published at Leyden

in 1658, and six later editions. The copy I possess

is dated 1734, " Zijnde de zevende en laatste druk."
Another translation is that by Dr. Keyser, Professor
of Mohammedan Law at Delft, published at Haarlem
in 1860.
A Russian version appeared at St. Petersburg
(Petrograd) in 1776.
An Italian version, " Alcorano di Macometto,
was made by Andr. Arrivabene at Venice in 1547,
but is very incorrect, as it is from the Latin version of
Robert Retenensis (Bibliander). The most recent
II
162 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN
version in Italian is a diglot Koran by Aquilio Fracassi,
Professor in the Royal Technical School of Milano
(1914). The preface gives an account of earlier trans-
lations, and is followed by a brief summary of the
chapters and an explanation of their titles.
As early as the fifteenth century Johannes
Andreas, a native of Xativa in the kingdom of
Valencia, who from a Mohammedan doctor became a
Christian priest, translated not only the Koran, but
also its glosses and the six books of the Sunna, from
Arabic into the Arragonian tongue, at the command
of Martin Garcia, bishop of Barcelona and Inquisitor
of Arragon.i it is interesting to note this as perhaps
the earliest version by a convert we doubt Sale's
;

statement regarding the Sunna !

Finally, we may mention a polyglot edition of the

Koran by the savant Andrea
(Tetrapla), prepared
Acolutho, of Bernstadt, printed at Berlin in ITOl, in
folio. This gives the Koran in Arabic, Persian,
Turkish, and Latin. The book is very rare.
Before we speak of the various English versions,
which most concern our readers, mention must
yet be made of a version undertaken in Esperanto
by Khalid Sheldrake, of which specimens have
appeared in the Islamic Review.^ He states that
Islam and Esperanto have a common ideal in
view; that each strives for the breaking down of
the " unnatural barriers of colour, creed, and caste."
We give below the translation of the 112th Surah
and of the 1st in Esperanto :

" Diru ke Allaho estas la Sola Dio

:

La eterna Dio
Li ne havas idojn, nek estas ido
Kaj nenio en la mondo similas al Li."
1 Sale's Koran, p.^vii.
' London, July 1914-
 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN 163
" Pro la nomo de Dio indulgema and malsevera,
la
Laudo estu majstro de la mondoj
al Dio, la
Plena de kompato, Rego en la tago de la jugo
Al vi servu ni, kaj al vi ni pregu
Konduku nin en la gusta vojo,
En la vojo de tiuj, al kiuj vi afablas
Ne de tiuj kiu koleras kontrau via volo
Ne de tiuj kiuj eraras."
The English Koran was Alexander Ross' trans-
first
lation of Du Ryer's French version (1648-1688). He
was utterly unacquainted with Arabic, and not a
thorough French scholar ; therefore his translation
is faulty in the extreme.
Sale's well-known work first appeared in 1734, has
passed through many editions, and is the most widely
known of all English versions. He himself wrote :

" Though I have freely censured the former trans-

lations of the Koran, I would not, therefore, be
suspected of a design to make my own pass as free
from faults I am very sensible it is not and I make
; ;

no doubt that the few who are able to discern them,

and know the difficulty of the undertaking, will give
me fair quarter." Whatever faults may have been
found in Sale's translation, his Preliminary Discourse
will always stand as one of the most valuable con-
tributions to the study of Islam. It has been trans-
lated into Arabic in recent years under the title
Makalat jVl Islam and is eagerly read by Moslems
y

themselves. Sale's translation is extremely para-

phrastic, but the fact that the additional matter in
italics is, in nearly every case, added from the Com-
mentary of El-Beidhawi, makes it the more valuable
to the reader. This is the only complete English
translation with explanatory footnotes, without which
the Koran is scarcely intelligible.
164 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN
In 1861 a new translation was made by the Rev.
J. M. Rod well. In this the Surahs or chapters are
arranged chronologically. Dr. Margoliouth char-
acterises this rendering as one of the best yet pro-
duced. " Not the least among its recommendations
is, perhaps, that it is scholarly without being pedantic
— ^that is to say, that it aims at correctness without
sacrificing the right effect of the whole to over-
insistence on small details." But this version also
has many inaccuracies, especially in the use of tenses
and particles.
Edward Henry Palmer's translation appeared in
1880 in the series, Sacred Boohs of the East. He
considers Sale's translation scholarly, his notes
invaluable, but says that the style of the language
employed " differs widely from the nervous energy
and rugged simplicity of the original." Although
Rod well's version approaches nearer to the Arabic,
Palmer states that in this also " there is too much
assumption of the literary style." In his own
translation he has attempted to render into English
the rude, fierce eloquence of the Bedouin Arabs, and
has succeeded, I believe, almost to the same degree
as Doughty in his Arabia Deserta, Where rugged
or commonplace expressions occur in the Arabic,
they are rendered into similar English sometimes;

the literal rendering may even shock the reader as

it did those who first heard the message. For
example, in the chapter of Abraham, ver. 19, Sale
and Rodwell have softened down the inelegant text,
but Palmer gives it fearlessly :

" Behind such a one is hell, and he shall be given to

drink liquid pus He shall try to swallow it, but cannot
!

gulp it down."
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A Page from the Arabic-Javanese Koran published at Batavia

 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN 165

In addition to these the Bihliotheca Orientalis

mentions an Arabic Koran Hthographed at Seram-
pore in 1833, with an English translation on the
margin.
We also have two English translations by Moslems,
not to speak of a new translation which is promised
by the editor of the Islamic Review. In 1905 the
Holy Koran, translated by Dr. Mohammed Abdul
Hakim Khan, with short notes, appeared from the
press. This was printed in England. In 1911 Ash-
gar & Company at Allahabad published the Arabic
text with English translation, arranged chrono-
logically, by Mirza Abu'l Fazl. In the admirable
abstract of the contents of the Koran, the author
introduces his readers to the principles of textual
criticism. The chronological order adopted differs
from that of Muir, Rodwell, and Jalal-ud-Din, al-
though most nearly approaching the last-named.
The English translation is vigorous, independent, and
although sometimes crude and too literal, will perhaps
on this very account prove useful to students of the
Arabic text. The following are examples of such
literalisms which offend good taste, but which give
the Arabic original :
" For you is a lesson in the
cattle ;we give you to drink of what is in their
bellies " ;
" We will brand him on the snout " or,
;

where the angels came to Abraham :

" And there
came before them his wife with exclamations, and
'"
she beat her face and said : Old and barren me
'
!

But this is not a blemish in the translation, unless it

be a blemish in the original, and the translation of
some of the earlier Surahs, such as The Night, The
Sun, and The Pen, are wonderfully well done. There
are instances, however, where the author has shown
his bias by a translation which is inaccurate, and,
166 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN
therefore, In the translation of two
misleading.
parallel one referring to the death of John
verses,
the Baptist and the other to that of Jesus Christ
(Surah xix. 15 and 34), the same Arabic verb and
tense is in the one ease translated by the past and
in the other by the future, to uphold the Moslem
theory that Jesus Christ did not die on the cross,
but will die after His second return " And peace
:

upon him the day he was born, and the day he died,
and the day when he shall be raised up alive."
" And peace upon me the day I was born, and the
day / shall die, and the day I shall be raised up alive."
To sum up the facts in regard to the English trans-
lations, the reader has the choice of no less than eight
versions of the Mohammedan Bible, four of them by
Moslems.
The latest and most elaborate attempt at an English
translation is that by the " Anjuman - i - Taraqqi
Islam " at Qadian, of which specimen pages have
just appeared from the Addison Press, Madras. The
Arabic text in beautiful script appears at the top of
the quarto page, followed by careful transliteration
and a translation. The work apparently is being
done by the collaboration of educated Moslems of
the Qadiana sect in the Punjab. The commentary
in English takes up more than three-fourths of the
page, and is thoroughly modern in its attitude but ;

it is marred by hopelessly sectarian character.

its
The preface to the work throws much light on the
whole question of Koran translation, as viewed by
Moslems of the liberal school
" It goes without saying that an English translation of
the Holy Quran with copious explanatory notes and ex-
haustive comments is one of the crying needs of the time.
This is an age of religious research. Everybody is desirous
 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN 167

of having the first-rate information about the great

religions of the world. And the need for such information
is greater in the case of Islam than in the case of any-

other religion. No other religion has been so cruelly

misrepresented as that of the Holy Quran. . Besides
. .

answering the objections of the hostile critics we intend

to present to the readers of all creeds and nationalities
a true picture of Islam, which alone of all religions can
solve the greatest problems of the age by its universality,
grandeur, simplicity, and practicality.
"It is with these objects in view that we have under-
taken this translation of the Holy Quran. And nothing
could serve this purpose better than such a reliable trans-
lation with necessary comments adapted to convey the
true sense of the Holy Book and to remove the mis-
understandings under which many of the people are
labouring, thanks to the misrepresentations of the
Christian writers on Islam. Indeed, there are already
a number of Enghsh translations, but they are mostly
by Christian writers, who besides being insufficiently
acquainted with Arabic, could not totally free themselves
from religious bias, and many of their notes and pre-
liminary discourses are calculated to mislead the reader
rather than enlighten him."

For the comparison of lour of these English trans-

lations of the Koran we give below in parallel columns
translations of the Chapter of the Forenoon (XCIII.),
according to the versions of Sale, Palmer, Rodwell,
and that of the Indian Moslem, Abu'l Fazl.
 168 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN
SALE. PALMER. RODWELL. ABU'LFAZL.
By the bright- By the fore- By the noon- By the noonday
ness of the noon ! And the day brightness brightness. And
morning, and by night when it And by the by the night,
the night when darkens Thy
! night when it when it darkens.
it groweth dark Lord has not darkeneth Thy ! Thy Lord hath
thy Lord hath forsaken thee, Lord hath not not forsaken
not forsaken nor hated thee forsaken thee, thee, neither is
thee, neither and surely the neither hath he he displeased.
doth he hate hereafter is bet- been displeased. And surely the
thee. Verily the ter for thee than And surely the Hereafter shall
life to come shall the former and ; Future shall be be better for thee
be better for in the end thy better for thee than the former;
thee than this Lord will give than the Past, And in the end
present life and : thee, and thou and in the end thy Lord will
thy Lord shall shalt be well shall thy Lord give to thee, and
give thee a re- pleased ! Did be bounteous to thou shalt be
ward wherewith He not find thee thee and thou well pleased.
thou shalt be an orphan, and be satisfied. Did Did He not find
well pleased. Did give thee shel- he not find thee thee an orphan,
He not find thee ter ? and find an orphan and and give thee
an orphan, and thee erring, and gave thee a a home ? And
hath he not ta- guide thee ? and home ? And found the [sic]
ken care of thee ? find thee poor found thee err- erring, and
And did he not with a family, ing and guided guided thee ?
find thee wan- and nourish thee. And found And found thee
dering in error, thee ? But as for thee needy and needy, and en-
and hath he not the orphan op- enriched thee. riched thee ?

guided thee into press him not As to the or- Then, as for the
the truth ? And and as for the phan, therefore, orphan, oppress
did he not find beggar drive wrong him not not him and as
;

thee needy, and him not away ;

And as to him for him who
hath he not and as for the that asketh of asks, chide him
enriched thee ? favour of thy thee, chide him not away. And
Wherefore op- Lord, discourse not away ; And as for the
press not the thereof. as for the favour of thy
orphan neither; favours of thy Lord, tell it
repulse the beg- Lord, tell them abroad.
gar but declare
; abroad.
the goodness of
thy Lord.

There is no doubt that the chief charm of the

Koran, from a literary standpoint, is its musical
jingle and cadence. This an English translation
cannot reproduce. Yet attempts have been made
by Bichard Burton and others to acquaint English
readers with this element of poetry in Mohammed's
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A Page from Rev. W. Goldsack's Bengali Translation of the Koran,
WITH Notes
Published by the C.L.S.I.
 —

TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN 169

revelation. The following version of the Surah

already given, appeared in an article in the Edinburgh
Review for July 1866, and although it may not equal
the Arabic, it is, to say the least, more interesting
than any of the ordinary prose versions :

" I swear by the splendour of light

And by the silence of night
That the Lord shall never forsake thee
Nor in His hatred take thee ;

Truly for thee shall be winning

Better than all beginning.
Soon shall the Lord console thee, grief no longer
control thee.
And fear no longer cajole thee.
Thou went an orphan boy, yet the Lord found room
thy head,
for
When thy feet went astray, were they not to the right
path led ?
Did He not find thee poor, yet riches around thee
spread ?
Then on the orphan boy, let thy proud foot never tread,
And never turn away the beggar who asks for bread.
But of the Lord's bounty ever let praise be sung and
said."

II. Versions in Oriental Languages ^

One of the earliest versions of the Koran for the

use of Moslems was the translation Urdu
made into
by the learned Sheikh, Abd-ul-Kadir Ibn-i-Shah
Wali Ullah, of Delhi, in 1790. This has appeared in
several editions, lithographed, with the Urdu text
interlinear with the original. ^ An Arabic-Persian
interlinear in two volumes was printed at Calcutta

Cf. Jean Gay, BibliograpUe des Ouvrages relatifs d VAfrique et

1

cL V Arable, Paris, 1875 Brunet, Manuel du Libraire (art.

;

" Mahomet")
J. Th.
;
Zenker, Bibliotheca Orientalis, Leipzig. 1861.
2 An edition in two volumes was printed at Hugly in 1248 (1829).
 170 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN
in 1831 ; Brunei also mentions a lithographed Persian
interlinear translation (Isphan, n.d.). The latest
edition a polyglot Koran in folio, lithographed
is

in two colours at Delhi by the Farooki Press, 1315

A.H., and entitled Koran Majid, Terjumat Thalatha.
The introduction is in Urdu, and the interlinear
text gives first the Arabic, followed by a Persian
translation, an Urdu free translation, and an Urdu
literal translation. The Persian translation is by
Shah Rafi'-ud-Din. In addition to the text a running
commentary is given on the margin, both in Urdu
and in Persian. In Persian we have other editions
of the Koran with explanatory notes on the text,
or attempts at literal versions. A
scholarly trans-
lation of the Koran into Urdu was also made by the
late Rev. Dr. Imad-ud-Din, of Amritsar, India. This
was the first translation to be published in Roman
Urdu characters, and through the Christian Mission
press at Allahabad it has been widely circulated
throughout India.
Rev. Dr. Ahmad Shah, S.P.G. missionary at Hamir-
pur, U.P., has recently given us the Koran in Hindi
translation from the original Arabic. The language
is said to be idiomatic, and the paragraphs are
arranged according to the thought of the text.
It is not generally known that the Malay version
of Beidhawi's Commentary on the Koran contains
an interlinear translation, sentence by sentence,
with the Arabic text. Two or three editions of this
commentary have been published, and it is sold
throughout the Dutch East Indies.
According to Hughes, a translation has also been
made into Pushtu, and another writer speaks of one
in Gujerati. I have not been able to secure informa-
tion, however, in regard to these versions.
 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN 171

From the Terjuman (quoted the Revue du

in
Monde Musulman, iv. 634) we that " Les
learn :

Musulmans d'Adjari, aux environs de Batoum, et

des regions avoisinantes, ne parlent et ne com-
prennent que la langue grouse {sic\. Pour faciliter
leur instruction religieuse, le Coran a 6t6 traduit
r6cemment dans leur langue ; I'auteur de cette tra-
duction se nomme Mir Yanichouyli." One would
like to know more accurately concerning this version
for so small a population.
Some of these translations, however, especially the
earlier ones, are not, correctly speaking, translations
of the text ; rather they consist of a commentary
in the vernacular on the Arabic text, which some-
times in transliterated. A Chinese Commentary
on the Koran is an example. In the Revue du Monde
Musulman (vol. iv. p. 540) a full account of such a
commentary is given by M. F. Farjenel and M. L.
Bouvat. The work is in octavo, but gives neither
date nor author's name. It is entitled King han
Tchou-kiai heueting (The Sacred Book explained in
Chinese, and clearly divided into Sections).

" The Chinese phonetic rendering, in this part of the

book, is indicated after the Arabic text, and the Chinese
explanation follows. It is noteworthy that the Arabic
text itself is not translated, the Faithful doubtless being
supposed to understand it. The notes in Chinese which
accompany each Arabic phrase form an annotated
explanation of the prayer or of the text, written in
colloquial language. All the rest, after the Fatiha, is
composed entirely of verses of the Koran, likewise trans-
lated into the language of the common people."

To give the reader an idea of what such a trans-

lation means, we give below the comment on the
 172 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN
words " King of the Day of Judgment," in the first
Surah:
Maliki yaumVd-din. (In Arabic character.)
Ma li kee yao minn ting. (In Chinese character.)
" This expression has twelve Arabic characters.
With
the thirty preceding characters, this makes forty-two.
On the basis of these forty-two characters Allah has
created forty-two kinds of diseases of the human heart.
To every man who, during prayer, recites these words
with true devotion, Allah will grant the cure of these
forty-two moral illnesses."

The word " Amin " (Chinese : A mt nai) is thus

explained :

" This word has four sacred characters which

designate
four saints :^Zz/ stands for Adam ; Mim for Mohammed,
the apostle of God ; Ya for Yahya (John) and Nun for
;

Noah. Those who recite these characters accurately

will receive the honours and dignity pertaining to
these
four saints, on the Day of the Resurrection."

A translation of the Koran in Javanese appeared in

1913 from the Semarang-Drukkery en Boekhandel,
Batavia. It is issued in parts of about a hundred
pages. Theprint and text are exceptionally good (see
facsimile); the footnotes in Javanese are textual and
not explanatory. This translation w^as made by Mr.
Ngarpah, who calls himself " Servant of the Sultan of
Turkey." He was once a Roman Catholic convert,
and then turned back to Islam. The Javanese
students at El Azhar were greatly interested in this
translation w^hen I showed it to them. An earlier
translation in Javanese character is mentioned by
^
Brill.
,^ ^ /?, ,t ^ -f*. « @:

'/u < A>;'

/ /

A Specimen Page of Chinese Koran Commentary

 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN 173

In 1908 the Rev. William Goldsack, a missionary of

the Australian Baptist Society, undertook the trans-
lation of the Koran into Bengali. It was a bold but
strategic venture on literary lines, and has already
had great effect among intelligent Moslems. The
Koran, printed in this fashion (see facsimile), with
Christian comment and the explanation of difficult
passages, can well be made a schoolmaster to lead
Moslems to Christ. One may hope that this method
will find imitation in other mission fields and other
languages. Efforts in this direction are sure to meet
with opposition, as was the case with Turkish versions.
In the days of Abdul Hamid a translation of the
Koran into Turkish would have been an impossibility,
owing to Moslem prejudice, yet during his reign
copies of the Arabic Koran, with Turkish commentary
in the margin, were freely published. A beautiful
edition of such a Koran was printed at the Bokharia
Press, Constantinople, a.h. 1320. After the de-
claration of the Constitution, the translation of the
Koran intoTurkish was begun simultaneously by
different writers. It aroused not a little stir in
Moslem circles, and the undertaking was opposed by
those of the old school. The earliest translation
that appeared was entitled Terjumat el Koran,
by Ibrahim Hilmi, and was printed at Stamboul
about two years ago. Another translation appeared
in the Turkish bi-monthly, Islam Majmu^asi, edited
by Halim Thabit. The translator signed himself
Kh. N. So far only thirteen numbers of this journal
have appeared. The Director of the Khedival
Library at Cairo, who showed me the magazine, ex-
pressed his opinion that the enterprise had been
stopped by the Turkish Government, and feared
that all copies of the paper so far issued would be
 174 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN
confiscated and destroyed. Ahmed Effendi Aghaieff
in the Jeune Turc, advocates these translations
as a
necessary religious reform, a sign of the
times, and
as the only way to reach the masses
with the truths of
Islam. He wrote :

"We must begin this (translation) at once, and show

the people that it is possible to
reach the authentic
toundations of our religion. First in
rank of these is the
Koran. Till now the ordinary Turk read
this, committed
It to memory, said his
prayers and had his communion
with God, absolutely without understanding
the sense and
content of what he read or prayed.
Naturally his readino-s
and prayers made no such impression on
his heart and
soul as we should expect from the
reading of a holy book
and the recitation of a prayer. Reading
and prayer were
both mechanical here was one of the
; principal causes of
the impotence of religion as an
educational force, and this
obstacle must be removed.
"It is this thought that has led to the
translation of
the Koran into Turkish ; and the
remarkable thing, and
that which shows how ripe the time
is for this enterprise
IS that the translation has
been begun in quarters utterlv
at variance with each other in
their tendencies. An
entirely new religious eraopening in Turkey. We can
is
already foresee that it will be big with
beneficent results
for the country and the country is so ready for such
;

work that the protests against the translation

have been
remarkably feeble and have not even
attracted ^general
attention."

The hope expressed in this editorial, however

was
not realised. Neither of these translations
have so
far been completed, the
Sheikh-ul-Islam himself
having forbidden all translations of the
sacred Arabic
text into Turkish. Even an appeal to the Grand
Vizier, we are told, met with no
response. There is
 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN 175

no doubt, however, that after the war those who

have begun this translation will complete it. The
spirit in which it was undertaken is well indicated by
Ibrahim Hilmi's preface, from which we translate
two paragraphs as they appeared in the Aegyptische
Nachrichten (Cairo) in a review of the work :

" To confer a favour upon my countrymen, I have

decided to translate the noble contents of the Holy
Koran into simple and smooth Turkish. It is true that
earlier Turkish Commentaries on the Koran, or Korans
with explanatory notes, have appeared, but all these
works were published in obscure and classical style, and
did not give the meaning of the text clearly, so our
Moslem brethren received little benefit from them. In
my youth I learned the whole Koran by heart and became
a Hafiz, Even now I can recite the Koran with the right
intonations, but nevertheless I did not understand hardly
a single phrase ; and this is the case with hundreds of
thousands among the Moslems. They have spent their
youth in learning the proper recital of the Koran, have
even learned it by heart, but of the meaning of the Holy
Book they understand nothing. The foundations of our
faith areunknown to them.
" Truly the Koran did not descend from heaven merely
as a masterpiece of beautiful Arabic eloquence. Non-
Arabic speaking nations have rightly expressed the
desire to know what the book contains. Everyone
cannot learn sufficient Arabic to understand the Koran,
nor have they time to wade through twenty volumes of
Commentaries. Since I have for a long time laboured
in my native country with patriotic zeal for its intellectual
and social reformation, I have now the special wish
to give a version of the Koran in the language of the
people. The translators have done their best to help
all the readers, especially the youth at school, to a right
understanding of the sacred text, and have, therefore,
176 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN
used simple language. not misjudge my
The reader will
religious object and my good intention
in this work.
Even when the Turk reads his Koran in Turkish he will
not abandon the use of the original text and the com-
mentaries. May God bless my undertaking and this new
translation."

To sum up the result of our investigation. The

Koran has been translated into twelve European
languages, and, not counting the polyglot editions,
we have in these languages thirty-four versions (no
less than eight in the English language alone). In
Oriental languages we have been able to learn of
some ten versions, and in the ease of one or two of
these the information seems doubtful. When we
remember that this work of translation has, with a
few exceptions, been the work of Western scholars,
Orientalists, and missionaries, the contrast between
the Arabic Koran and the Bible, the Book for all
nations, is strikingly evident. And from the mis-
sionary standpoint we have nothing to fear from
modern Koran translations rather may we not hope
;

that the contrast between the Bible and the Koran

will be evident to all readers when they compare
them in their vernacular ? As long as orthodox
Islam, however, retains its grip on the strategic
centres of the Moslem world, it may be doubted
whether the translations of the Koran made for
Moslems by their own leaders will have any wide
circulation. At Constantinople and Cairo the leaders
still seem bound to discourage any translation of

their Sacred Book.^ We are told that at Lahore a

^ Al Manar, vol. xvii. part 2, p. 160 (against a Turkish
Cf .

version) and xvii. part 10, p. 794 (protesting against a new

;

English version by Kamal-ud-Din, editor of the Islamic Review)

.
 TRANSLATIONS OF THE KORAN 177
well-known Moslem lawyer was recently speaking to
Punjab on matters connected
his co-religionists in the
with Islam, and protested against this mistaken
policy. " The reason why Christians succeed is
because wherever they go they have the Bible and
say their prayers in their mother-tongue ; whereas
we have wrapped up our religion in an Arabic dress.
We should give the people the Koran and let them
say their prayers in their own language." The only
answer he received was, " Thou art thyself an un-
believer to say such things."

12
 CHAPTER X
THE DYING FORCES OF ISLAM

179
 " We
need only refer to Hali, the first and foremost
in the shining heaven of song, to see the picture of
Mohammedan society painted in its naked, hideous de-
formity. His Musaddus is a doleful tale of the vice
and immorality, the selfishness, self-seeking, and hypo-
crisy which are corrupting Mohammedan society through
and through. It is, if I may say so, the epitaph, the
funeral oration over our community in India. His verses
express the authentic cry of the human heart sad, —
weary, depressed, at things as they are." Essays, S.
Khuda Bukhsh (an Indian Moslem).
" Man
is the absolute master and woman the slave.

She the object of his sensual pleasures, a toy, as it were,

is

with which he plays, whenever and however he pleases.

Knowledge is his ; ignorance is hers. The firmament
and the lights are his ; darkness and the dungeon are
hers. His is to command ; hers is to blindly obey.
His is everything that is, and she is an insignificant part
of that everything." Kasim Ameen Bey (a Moslem
Jurist in Egypt).

180
 CHAPTER X
THE DYING FORCES OF ISLAM
A YOUNG sheikh, Mohammed el 'Attar, for some
years a
teacher in El Azhar University and a
voluminous writer of pamphlets, has recently issued
a small booklet under the title. Where is Islam ? An —
Essay setting forth the Present Condition of Moslems,
and Morally. In this pam-
Socially, Intellectually,
phlet of only thirty-two pages we have a cry from
the heart of a Moslem of the old school, despairing
of reform and watching with regret the decaying
forces at work in Islam. It is not a book of con-
troversy against Christians, but is addressed to
Moslems by one of themselves. It is a call for reform,
if reform is yet possible. It is a cry of despair, for
in the words of the author, " There is no true and
living Islam left in the world." We translate ver-
batim some of the most striking portions of this
treatise, which lays bare the very heart of Islam and
shows us what goes on in the minds of the leaders in
El Azhar itself, and in Cairo, the intellectual capital
of Islam.

" Praise be to God and thanksgiving, with the highest

praise and most hearty thanks. I have not written this
littlebook to criticise my
brother Moslems or to wound
their consciences by recording the disgraceful practices
which have crept into our religion, but I have prepared
181
182 THE DYING FORCES OF ISLAM
it as a homily to stir up the hearts of the faithful, and
my trust is in God . . heart is there, O Most
. What
Glorious God, that is not terrified at the present condi-
tion of Islam, and what eye is there that does not weep
for it ? I searched for Islam in Mecca, the most honour-
able city, where some of the verses of the Koran came
down as a revelation to men and a clear guidance, but I
saw nothing there save corruption and error and shame
and woe. I found there wine and adultery and wicked-
ness and what-not. Obscenity has multiplied and all
propriety ceased in the land of Mecca, the mother of
Islam. O Land of Mecca, thou art too pure that thou
"
shouldst be thus defiled !

to show that most of those who go

He then goes on
on pilgrimage do not go in the right spirit, but many
of them spend money which they have wrung from the
poor by usury and expect thus to gain merit with
God.
" Yet I was not so sorry for these deluded people as
I was for the inhabitants of Mecca itself those who
;

dwell for ever near the House of God, but pay no atten-
tion to the warnings of God, living on in their savagery
and barbaric customs, ignorant as cattle, and further
away from the true road.
" I searched for Islam in Medina, the Illustrious, but
found only miserable people complaining of nakedness
and hunger. So I stood and spoke to them in kindness
and without anger O ye despairing, hungry and
;
'

miserable Moslems I weep for your blood instead of

!

tears, for by God m}^ heart is filled with sadness at your

condition. Seek death if you are freemen if not, you
;

are in an evil case.

" I sought for Islam under the government of the
Sublime Porte and the Ottoman race, and I found only
divisions and parties with names and degrees without
number, and no doubt the names and the degrees are
 THE DYING FORCES OF ISLAM 183

only degrees of vanity and lying. Nor is the Lord

ignorant of what they do. God has made their career
a mockery to those that mock and a laughing-stock to
those that deride. By God, if I were not an Arab, I
would flee away from your religion to escape from these
people whose souls have become inhuman and whose
faces have become ugly and knavish. And is not God
mighty and the Avenger ? This is the company which
have manifested hatred and enmity the one to the other,
so that there is no longer peace between the father and
the son, nor between brothers, nor between rulers and
the ruled. They are of those without understanding."

Here follows a lament for the Turkish defeat, the

the Turkish Govern-
loss of Adrianople, the state of
ment, and the destruction of the Califate under
Ottoman rule.

" I searched for Islam in Europe, and I returned to

my native land smiling with pleasure at what I saw there.
. . There I found men who loved their fellows and loved
.

goodness for its own sake. There I saw people who were
—
kind to their poor and how few were the hungry and
the miserable. Peace be to you, O Europe, as long as
the sun shines.
" I sought for Islam in India, but no sooner had I
reached Madras than my heart was disturbed and over-
whelmed with sorrow ; and for what reason do you
suppose ? As soon as I came to this land of unbelievers
I picked up their books translated into the Tamil language,
in which the Moslems recorded the life of the Seyyid
Abdul Kadir el Jilani, whom they regard as a god to be
worshipped. Would that they only mentioned him as a
prophet or disciple, but they give him the attributes of
deity. For example, they call him Lord of heaven and
earth the One who helps and hinders, the One who has
;

the control of the universe ; the One who knows the

184 THE DYING FORCES OF ISLAM
secrets of the creation the One who raises the dead
;

and heals the bHnd and the lepers the One who forgives
;

sins and takes away calamity, etc. etc. When they

visit places built in his memory they say, O Thou most
excellent fountain of eternity, O Lord Abdul Kadir el
Jilani. . What sane man would thus take titles and
. .

attributes which are only proper in the case of God, and

apply them to one of His creatures ? Woe be to my
heart at such a state of Islam. By God, death is better
than life for such Moslems, and they deserve punishment
in this world and the world to come.
" I sought for Islam in the Azhar University, built
upon injustice and hatred and tyranny and oppression,
and I found its people consisting of two parties leaders :

and teachers ; and disciples. As for the leaders and

teachers, they are the ones who manifest enmity and
hatred and oppression, and there is none among them
with justice or equity. They make a great show of Islam
before the common people, and God knows how much
hypocrisy there is in many of them."

He then speaks of the faults of the teachers, address-

ing them with he is one of
his counsel, saying that
their number, but that does not excuse him from
speaking frankly of the conditions that now obtain
among the learned. The pupils receive still stronger
admonition, and at the end of the paragraph he says
there is no true and living Islam left.

" I sought for Islam in the mosques, and I saw that

the most of those who prayed there stole the sandals
of their co-worshippers, and I said in my heart. Where
are the Moslems to-day ? Yea, where is Islam ?
" I sought for Islam in the school of the teachers
Dar el 'Aloom.'' (He refers to the new school for the
training of Moslem missionaries in Old Cairo, and goes
on to indicate that this school for the training of pro-
 ;

THE DYING FORCES OF ISLAM 185

pagandists spends its energies in disputes regarding

grammatical niceties and quibbles about Arabic syntax.)
" So I said, Leave them alone with their Arabic, and I
departed laughing, and they were laughing too.
" I sought for Islam in the law school, and I saw there
a sheikh of the most learned of his kind lecturing on
fiqh, I said to him. What is your judgment regarding
the washing of the head before prayer ? Must it be done
wholly or only in part ? And then I was amazed to see
the teacher blush in his ignorance, unable to answer
and so I turned away from him, saying. Here is a company
of those who teach, without knowledge, and profess to
understand, without understanding.
" I sought for Islam in the dwellings of the rich, but
I found wine upon their tables, and I heard them singing
songs in praise of the joys of this life. . . .

" I sought for Islam in the hearts of the Sufis and the
followers of the Way (mystics), and I hoped against
' '

hope that I would find it there. But here also it was

lost and in decay. I found them taking hashish and
drugs, and all their supposed worship is full of deceit and
fraud. Nor is God ignorant of what they do."

The writer closes his long indictment by saying :

" I searched for Islam throughout the whole world, from

east to west and from north to south nor did I find it.
;

Where shall I find it ? Shall I find it among those who

"
are not Moslems ?

He then lapses into poetry, apostrophising the

European culture of Cairo as a centre of worldliness
and sin, —and in this judgment we all agree. On
the other hand, he praises the West for its progress
in art and
literature and says (p. 21) that although
;

Islam is dying and among Moslems there is nothing

but backbiting and slander, truth, kindness, and
 186 THE DYING FORCES OF ISLAM
covenants still hold among Christians. Some of
the evils of which he accuses his co-religionists are
so gross as to be mitranslatable, and he is specially
grieved at the corruption of the Arabic tongue by
the introduction of foreign words.
The last two pages of the pamphlet are addressed
to his critics. He knows his writing will not be
reviewed with favour, as the exposure of hypocrites
always means their hatred, but he asserts that the
high-minded among them know that he is speaking
the truth ; and that, therefore, those who are
sincere will accept his warning. A
humorous touch
is given by the author's request that El Azhar
kindly repay him £l50 sterling, which he spent
there in vain He also says that as there will be
!

few favourable reviews of his treatise, he furnishes

the reader with a review of it by a late Sheikh of
El Azhar, Mohammed Abdu, saying that this reached
him by wireless telegraphy from Paradise Mo- !

hammed Abdu telegram corroborates the

in his
judgment of the author and praises him for his
audacity.
It appears that this is only the first part of this
terrible arraignment, and that the second will shortly
come from the press. When a consulting physician
has carefully diagnosed a patient who is suspected
to be suffering from the deadly germ of tuberculosis,
and the irrevocable verdict has been given that the
disease has advanced so far as to be incurable, one
may say that he is a dying man. The forces of
death are already at work, and it is only a matter
of time when they will do their worst. Or when the
species of fungi known as dry-rot begins to penetrate
oak timber, the process of destruction cannot be easily
arrested. If Mohammed el 'Attar is not a mere
 THE DYING FORCES OF ISLAM 187

pessimist, but, as we a true prophet from

believe,
the midst of his brethren, then Islam is already
doomed. Its vital forces have been sapped, and
moral and spiritual collapse are as inevitable as was
the case in the Moslem world of politics.
 CHAPTER XI
ARABIC LITERATURE AND ITS
EVANGELISATION
'
This, I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream :

There spread a cloud of dust along a plain

And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.
A craven hung along the battle's edge,
And thought, ' Had I a sword of keener steel,
That blue blade that the King's son bears, but this
Blunt thing ! He snapt and flung it from his hand,
'

And lowering crept away and left the field.

Then came the King's son, wounded, sore bestead,
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
Hilt buried in the dry and trodden sand.
And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout
Lifted afresh, he hewed his enemy down.
And saved a great cause that heroic day."
E. R. Sill.

lao
 CHAPTER XI
ARABIC LITERATURE AND ITS
EVANGELISATION
One of the Arab philosophers, at once a zoologist,
a philosopher, and biographer of the Arabian prophet,
whose name was Ed Damiry, and who lived about
four or five hundred years after Mohammed's death,
said that " Verily the wisdom of God came down on
—
three on the hand of the Chinese, on the brain of
the Franks, and on the tongue of the Arabs."
The present awakening of China will doubtless
prove that not only in the past, but also in the present,
the Chinese are above all nations clever in handicraft.
It is interesting to believe that the Arabs, even in the
Middle Ages, realised the inventive genius of the
West ; and no one who has ever studied the Arabic
language, or even their literature as far as it has
been translated, can doubt that the language of the
Arabs, which they call " the language of the angels,"
is, of all living languages, perhaps, the most delicate

in structure, immense in vocabulary, and of great

possibility for the expression of every form of thought.
No one doubts the importance of this living speech.

I. Eodent, spread, and world-wide influence of the

Arabic language. —The Arabic language became the
chief vehicle for carrying on and carrying outside the
bounds of Arabia the Moslem religion. The Bible
191
192 ARABIC LITERATURE
tells us, " In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God," and that " the Word became
flesh and dwelt among us." In another sense the
word of Mohammed, incorporated in his book, has
gone on the wings of the wind with Arab propa-
gandism, until to-day the Koran is perhaps the most
widely read of any book in the world save the Bible.
I think it is correct to say, as was mentioned be-
fore on page 103 with reference to a typewriter firm,
that the Arabic character is used more widely than
any other character used by the human race. The
Chinese character is used by more people, vastly
more, but the Arabic character has spread, through
the Mohammedan religion, over much w^der area,
until in every part of the great world of Islam those
who know the Arabic character can at least read the
signs of the street or the tickets in the railway trains.
To begin with, the whole of North Africa has adopted
the Arabic character. From Rio de Oro and Morocco,
through Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Egypt, in all the day
schools, higher schools, on the street, and wherever
there are people who read and write, they use the
same character that is used in the Koran. The
Arabic character has also been carried through a
large part of Central Africa by the Hausas, and
through a large part of Eastern Africa by the Swa-
hilis and the Arabs of Zanzibar. Long before Living-
stone crossed the Dark Continent the Arabs had
already named the chief lands of Africa, visited the
great lakes, and discovered the greater part of the
continent. The same is true of the Far Eastern
world. In the Philippine Islands and Malaysia the
books used by the Moslems, numbering 35,000,000
souls, are mostly in the Arabic tongue or in the
Arabic script. The same is true of the great strip of
 AND ITS EVANGELISATION 193
country from far Western China, through Northern
India, Afghanistan, Eastern Turkestan, the whole of
Persia, Turkey in Asia, and Arabia. Islam has
carried its alphabet, the sacred alphabet of the
Koran, throughout the whole of the Moslem
world.
The Arabic speech has even extended through its
and Moslem emigrants to the New World.
literature
In South America there are nearly 160,000 Moham-
medans, while in Brazil alone there are seven Arabic
newspapers.
The Mohammedan religion has also carried its
grammar, its vocabulary, through a greater part of
the Oriental and Occidental world. Even in the
English language we have no less than threescore
words that are Arabic, which came by way of the
Crusaders or through Spain into the English diction-
ary and linger there. Every time we buy a magazine,
use a sofa, or study algebra, we pay tribute to the
Arabic tongue, because all these are Arabic words.
There are fifty other words just as common which
could be mentioned. But most of all, the Arabic
language is bound up with the religion of Islam. To-
day there are no less than forty or fifty million people
whose spoken tongue is the language of Arabic, and
over 200,000,000 people who pray no prayer to God,
who have no religious expression for the thoughts
of their soul, save as winged with the language of
Mohammed.
The cry of the muezzin is the challenge of Islam
to the Church of Jesus Christ. In all these lands,
from Canton in the extreme east, and through
Western China, in the Malay Archipelago, and as
far west as Morocco or Sierra Leone, as far south as
Cape Town, and as far north as Tobolsk, Siberia,
13
194 ARABIC LITERATURE
you may hear every day the call to prayer in Arabic,
and the prayer from Mohammed's book, " In the name
"
of God, the merciful, the compassionate !

Nor has the Arabic language ceased to spread

through the world. extending not only in
Its use is

Africa, but even in China, and we may speak of a

revival of Arabic in nearly every Moslem land. It is
in the deepest sense of the word a living speech.
What stronger proof could we have for this than
the activity of the Mohammedan press in centres
like Cairo, Beirut, and Constantinople ?

II. the Evangelisation of Arabic.

Need for On the —
other hand, Arabic literature has, by the very fact of
its being Moslem, become to-day the greatest and
strongest retrograde force for civilisation and social
progress in the world.
It has been said that " the book, the religion,
and the sword Islam have done more to retard the
of
progress of civilisation than any other forces in the
world." Islam has lost its sword. The Moslem world
is under Christian government or western influence

practically everywhere. But the power of Islam

still remains in its book, in the propagating force of
this religion through its literature. I believe that
the old Arabic literature is both socially and morally
and spiritually to-day the greatest retrograde force
in the world.
For the springs of this literature are not waters
of life that make everything blossom and bloom
with their flow. The water that goes forth from
the springs of Arabic literature and of Islam is bitter
water, a Dead Sea of thought. It is, alas true !

that the desert is the garden of Allah, but the

desert is not the garden of Jehovah. Where Jehovah
 —

AND ITS EVANGELISATION 195

walks is Paradise, and where Allah walks there is

the desert.
Arabic Moslem literature is anti- Christian, impure,
full of intolerance and fanaticism toward western
ideas, and wholly inadequate to meet the intellectual
and moral needs of humanity.
Take, for example, the social and political effect of
Arabic literature. The literature of Islam is out and
out, of course, Mohammedan, and is based on the
Arabic mediaeval conception of social life and progress.
I think it was Lord Cromer who said in his book on
Egypt that " reformed Islam is Islam no longer,"
because the real Islam is based on three principles
the principle of intolerance, the principle of the degra-
dation of womanhood, and therefore the ruin of the
home life, and the principle of the unchangeableness of
civil law. Now, these three principles are absolutely
antagonistic to the march of modern civilisation.
In regard to womanhood, there are a small number
of Mohammedans who advocate monogamy and
deprecate polygamy, but there is not a single Moslem
in Cairo or Calcutta who can write a book in favour
of the rights of womanhood without directly indict-
ing the life of the prophet and attacking the Koran.
So these two things are incompatible, and it is simply
impossible to reform Islam without impugning
Mohammed himself and his sacred institutions.
Again, Mohammedan literature stands for intolerance.
You can find intolerance in nearly every Moslem book
you pick up, whether story-book or poem or philo-
sophy or religion. It is woven into their literature
and life.
Mohammedan literatureis also morally unfit to

elevate the world. Let us take two or three examples

familiar to us all. The Arabic tales of The Thousand
196 ARABIC LITERATURE
and One Nights is used among us as a book for

children. It a book of rather interesting stories

is

in the expurgated form in which we know it, but as

it circulates in the Moslem world it corrupts morals,

degrades home life, and the better class of Moslems to-

day would not like to be seen reading the book. Take
the greatest book in the Arabic world, the Koran
itself. " The Koran," as a Moslem in Morocco said,
" contains beautiful moral precepts, but they are hard
to follow. When I read the New Testament some one
seems to be drawing me to Himself." There is the
greatest difference in the world between the Arabic
Bible and the Arabic Koran, the Arabs themselves
being witnesses. If placed side by side with the
Bible, Mohammed's book will show immediately its
inferiority. remember an Arab, who came to one
I
of our missionaries in Arabia and said, " I love your
Bible, but," he said, " the Arabic Bible is not as
poetic, its form is not as elevating, its eloquence is
not as great as is the eloquence and the poetry of
Mohammed's book, the Koran." And the missionary,
quick as a flash, said, " When the caravan is crossing
the desert and the travellers are dying for thirst, do
they ask for rose-water ? " It is God's Word alone
that satisfies the thirsty soul.
And there is a sad dearth of literature for children.
The Koran is not a book for children in any sense of
the word. Its style is obscure even to adult Arabs,
and except for a few Old Testament stories and some
references to Jesus Christ, told in garbled form, there
is nothing in it to attract children. Pictures and
music, although increasingly winning their way
among Moslem children, must do so over against re-
ligious prohibition according to the letter of the law.
The contents of a children's primer on religion, by
 ;

AND ITS EVANGELISATION 197

Sheikh Mohammed Amin al Kurdi, which has had an

enormous circulation Egypt, Malaysia, and North
in
Africa, will indicate what a Moslem child is taught
it is typical of this sort of literature. In the intro-
duction the author says that his book is intended for
primary schools and for boys and girls at home. The
first part of the book defines God, His unity and

His attributes, speaks of Mohammed, the doctrine of

angels and the Koran, and says that the Gospel now
in the hands of Christians has been utterly corrupted
and is untrustworthy. The second part of the book
might well be entitled, " What a boy and girl ought
not to know." No further proof surely is needed that
this literature needs to be purified and superseded.

III. What is being done to meet this need? The —

Beirut Press, established by an American mission, has
had a splendid record of achievement. Besides the
Arabic Bible prepared for Moslem readers all over
the world, scores of books, scientific, moral, and
religious, have been published by them, and have
had a wide circulation. But this press has always
been handicapped because of the Turkish Govern-
ment. Even under the new Constitution, they are
unable to print freely the kind of literature needed
for the present opportunity.
The Nile Mission press was established to co-
operate with the Mission press at Beirut, and to
supplement its work of Bible printing and extend it
on a much larger scale, especially by tracts and leaflets
suited for Mohammedans.
Wemust capture the Arabic literature for Jesus
Christ and use it to carry His message everywhere,
as Mohammed once used it to carry his religion.
This is not impossible.
198 ARABIC LITERATURE
We have in the story of missions.
illustrations
When the great missionary, came to Northern
Ulfilas,
Europe and put the Bible in the language of the
people, he captured it for Jesus Christ. When
Luther put the Bible into the Old German tongue,
the tongue of the common people which men despised,
he created the German language ; and when Tyndale
and Coverdale gave the Bible to England they not
only perpetuated the faith of the Bible, but made
it penetrate and permeate the English language.

And so I believe that when Dr. Vandyke and Eli

Smith ended their work of faith and labour of love
and patience of hope, translating page by page and
verse by verse the Bible into the Arabic tongue
when the completed Bible came from the press in
Beirut, they ushered in an era far more importance
than any dynasty or any change in governments in
the Moslem world, because they gave to fifty million
people the Word of God in a matchless transla-
tion. There is a proverb current at Damascus, or
which used to be current there, given by Hartmann
in an article he wrote on Islam and the Arabic
speech, " Verily, the Arabic language will never be
Christianised."
This proverb is a challenge, and in this task we
have had the splendid co-operation of the New York
Committee. For this purpose the Nile Mission press
employs its colporteurs and sent out in 1914-15,
mostly by direct sales, 103,262 books and tracts to
every part of the Moslem world, making Cairo a distri-
buting centre for the Gospel message in all Moslem
lands.
The Nile Mission press stands at the great strategic
centre of Islam, Cairo, " the victorious." If you go
into its narrow streets, among the bookshop crowds.
 AND ITS EVANGELISATION 199

you have only to stand there for a few hours to see

that the real capital of Islam is Cairo. Here are men
from Nigeria, Morocco, Java, Singapore, Hunan in
West China, from Mecca, Medina, Teheran, Stamboul,
from Bokhara, from every part of the Moslem world.
What do they come for ? To lay in a stock of Moham-
medan literature and to carry it to the utmost confines
of the Moslem world.
Could you find a better centre, a more efficient
method, and a more strategic time for this work
«ithan God has given us to-day ? Carey's watchword
|should be ours, " Attempt great things for God ;

^expect great things from God."

 CHAPTER XII

THE FULNESS OF TIME IN THE

MOSLEM WORLD

201
 "The passing of the whole of North Africa under
European government; the rapid extension of settled
administration, of modern education and trade the in- ;

evitable breakdown of the Moslem defences as a conse-

quence ; the favourable change in the attitude of govern-
ments ; and the decided and increasing success of our
work in all its branches as revealed in the reports and

—
the statistics all emphasize that here, now, is the
. . .

acceptable time ''—Report, Methodist Episcopal Mission,

!

1913.

" I AM more than ever convinced that the fulness of

time has come for the Mohammedan people." A Mis- —
sionary in Central China.

202
 CHAPTER XII

THE FULNESS OF TIME IN THE

MOSLEM WORLD

The greatest missionary problem next to that of

the evangelisation of China, with its four hundred
millions, is that of the Moslem world. In Africa,
the destiny of a continent is at stake; the grave
peril of Moslem aggression and the supreme urgency
for missionary occupation cannot be overstated.
And yet Africa contains less than one-fourth of
the total Moslem world population. In India alone
there are twenty million more Moslems than in all
Africa. In Asia, Islam had its birth, and to the great
pilgrim centres of Western Asia, Mecca, Medina,
and Kerbela, hundreds of thousands come every
year from every part of the Moslem world. A
quadrennial convention is not more truly repre-
sentative of the North American colleges and uni-
versitiesthan the annual pilgrimage at Mecca is of
Islam. Five outstanding facts voice the present-
day call of the Moslem world to Christendom; in
we may truly say that the fulness of
five particulars
the time has now come for the evangelisation of these
—
millions the fulness of the time for the Son of God
to redeem them that are still under the law and
bondage of Islam, that they might receive the adoption
203
204 THE FULNESS OF TIME
of sons — ^the fulness of time to send forth His Spirit
in their hearts, crying, " Abba, Father."

I. For the first time in history the whole of Christen-

dom faces the wholeMoslem world in its unity. The —
Crusades were the conflict of European Christianity
against the Turks in Western Asia ; but the crusaders,
and the Turks alike, were ignorant of the spread of
Islam in Malaysia and Africa, while they vainly
fought with carnal weapons for the possession of
Jerusalem. From the days of Henry Martyn until
recent years, the Moslem world was neglected in
missionary councils and in the missionary enterprise.
To-day this problem holds a foremost place. Not
only at the special conferences of Cairo and Lucknow,
but at the Edinburgh World Conference, the unity
of this problem and its urgency were unmistakably
emphasised and laid as a common responsibility
upon the Churches of Christendom.
The secular press and
colonial governments are
now Islam is a world power, and
fully conscious that
are compelled by present-day events and move-
ments to give serious study to the subject. During
the past five years more books on Islam have appeared
in Europe than in any previous decade. The New
Encyclopedia of Islam, Prince Caetani's exhaustive
studies on the early history of Islam, in twelve octavo
volumes, the French, German, Russian, and English
monthly or quarterly reviews of the world of Islam
all these are indications that there is a new conscious-
ness of the grave importance of this subject and its
relation to the progress of humanity.
And the unity of the problem is felt by Moslems
themselves as never before. Their press in Cairo,
 IN THE MOSLEM WORLD 205

Calcutta, and Constantinople records, with the

rapidity and the sensitiveness (sometimes without
the accuracy) of a seismograph, every tremor or
earthquake of disaster in the whole Moslem
world.
" The Balkan War," said the Comrade of Calcutta,
"has laid bare before the Mussulmans the great
secular problems of their faith. They have begun
to perceive, for the first time after many centuries,
with perfect clearness that Islam is not a mere

terminological expression representing diverse com-

munities with lives apart, but a living force of spiritual

and social cohesion binding all Moslems in an indis-

soluble unity of hope, purpose, duty, and endeavour.
The brotherhood of Islam has ever been a funda-
mental basis of its creed, but the Indian Moslems had
never felt its vital strength as keenly as they feel it
to-day. The sufferings of the parts have revived
in the whole its sense of organic unity."
This sense of organic unity in distress ^these
—
—
disappointed hopes of Pan-Islamism are they not a
challenge to our deepest sympathies and a call for
the outpouring of love and service to the brotherhood
of Islam ?
When Major Finley, the Governor of the Moro
Islands, had an audience with the Sheikh ul Islam
at Constantinople last year, the Moslems of the
Philippine Islands offered public prayer for him that
their petition might be accepted by the caliph of all
true The leading Moslem magazine in
believers.
Cairo, El-Manar, has subscribers in Morocco and
South Africa, in China and Australia, in Russia and
Java. On the island of Mauritius a weekly Pan-
Islamic paper is published in French and English,
206 THE FULNESS OF TIME
and the Moslem press of India reviews every im-
portant missionary publication of Europe and
America. They brought out serially an " expur-
gated " edition of my Arabia, the Cradle of Islam, and
reviewed at length Dr. Herrick's Christian and
Moslem. All secrecy, all clandestine approach, all
subterfuge are things of the past. For better or
for worse the Moslem world faces the Christian
world, and Christendom faces Islam in the open.
—
We know and they know that we know. They
—
know and we ought to know that they know.

II. We know the true proportions of Islam. —

The
Moslem world is nearer to us and is better known
than it ever was known before. " The shrinkage of
the earth," said Lord Curzon at the annual meeting
of the Royal Geographical Society, " and the control
of the forces of nature by the organised skill of man
has not since the days of the Tudors made a greater
advance in a single decade than during the last ten
years." The enormous expansion of foreign trade
with Egypt, East Africa, and the lands of the Nearer
East has brought them to our very doors. Russian
railways from the north and British from the south
meet on the border of Afghanistan. Pilgrims to
Mecca now take tickets from Damascus to Medina
on the Hedjaz Railway, linked up with the Baghdad
line, which will soon be overland eastward, and the
railways surveyed in Persia. Although we have not got
a complete census, statistics regarding Islam are no
longer mere guess-work or wild exaggerations. Pro-
fessor Westermann of Berlin has prepared a careful
statistical survey for Africa, and estimates the total
number of Mohammedans in the Dark Continent at
 .

IN THE MOSLEM WORLD 207

only forty-two millions. For the rest of the world

the following statistics may be given with confidence,
and recall to our minds the great numbers and the
wide distribution of Moslem population :

India .
208 THE FULNESS OF TIME
that no less than 1500 Moslem marriages are cele-
brated annually. In Madagascar, Islam is spreading ;

in Abyssinia it is winning over thousands of nominal

Christians ; and in Japan it is attempting propa-
gandism in modern lines through the press.
This wider and deeper knowledge of the spread
and the character of Islam has raised the important
question of the fundamental distinction between the
animistic, half-heathen Moslems of Central Africa
and Malaysia, and those of the traditional orthodox
type. The former number at least fifty millions, are
everywhere accessible, and responsive to a much
greater degree than are those in the old Arabic-
speaking Moslem lands. And besides these millions
who live and move on the border-marshes between
Islam and Paganism, we face to-day a new kind of
Moslem. In Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, India, and
Persia there are educated Moslems of the New School,
who have utterly abandoned faith in traditional
—
Islam ^who are fast drifting toward agnosticism and
open infidelity. Those who know the situation, be-
lieve. These can already be counted by the millions
— millions stumbling over the precipice from the
twilight of Islam into midnight and death. The
fact of this increased and more accurate knowledge
of the problem is a God-given responsibility. By
putting each of us face to face with the facts He lays
on us the responsibility. '' If thou forbear to deliver
them that are drawn into death and those that are
ready to be slain ; if thou sayest. Behold we knew

it not; doth not He that pondereth the heart con-

sider it ? And He that keepeth thy soul doth not He
know it ? And shall not He render to every man
"
according to his works ?
 IN THE MOSLEM WORLD 209

III. The present ^political crisis in the Moslem

world shows that the fulness of time has come. The —
events of the past year in the political world have
made so deep an impression upon Mohammedans
that they no longer fail to see the close relation
between the political collapse of the Turkish Empire
and the social disintegration of the Moslem world in
general. The past years have witnessed a series of
events without parallel in the history of Islam. The
occupation of Morocco, the loss of Tripoli, the parti-
tion of Persia, and the disastrous defeat of Turkey
by the Balkan Allies have followed each other with
startling rapidity. The Moslem press of India, of the
Near East, and of Egypt has been openly discussing
not only such questions as the reason for Turkish de-
cline and defeat, but the more practical one of what
will happen after Turkey breaks up, and a new map
of Western Asia will have to be drawn, as well as
one of South-Eastern Europe. Pan-Islamism, from a
political standpoint, is dead. The one country where
Islam has held imperial power, and to which the rest
of the Moslem world looked as the seat of authority,
openly confesses its defeat not only on the field of
battle, but in the field of diplomacy and statecraft.
Shrunken in size, shorn of all its outlying provinces,
distrusted by its Arab population, divided in its
councils,and bankrupt in its finances, constitutional
Turkey has become a monument to the failure and
collapse of Moslem rule. Since the beginning of
the war with Italy, we are told that Turkey has lost
637,950 square miles in area of territory and 7,440,000
subjects.
The prestige of Islam as a Church State is gone.
No independent Moslem State now exists in Africa.
14
210 THE FULNESS OF TIME
Everywhere in the Dark Continent the forces of
Western civilisation are dominant, and Morocco and
Tripoli may now look forward to economic and
social progress of the same character as we wit-
ness in Egypt. A Moslem writer in the Hindustan
Review, speaking of the result of the Balkan War,
said :

" The defeat of Turkey in the Balkans came as a great

surprise to the whole world, like the defeat of Russia by
Japan a few years ago. But it was more than a surprise
to the Mohammedan world ; it was a crushing blow, a
staggering revelation. And because Turkey was regarded
as the sole surviving power of Islam, its only hope of
glory, this revelation of its weakness was accompanied
with all the bitterness of a present disappointment and
the uncertainty of a gloomy future. It was such a
grievous shock that it unnerved the whole Mohammedan
world."

In Asiatic Turkey the old struggle of the Arab

against the Turk, and of the Old Turk against the
New Turk, is full of unforeseen possibilities. In the
province of Hassa last year, all the Turkish officials
were turned out by the Arabs, and the Turkish Army
quietly told to leave and ship to Busrah. In the
Baghdad and Busrah vilayets the struggle for Home
Rule has become so vigorous that at times the Arabs
attempt to dictate the policy of the Turkish Govern-
ment over the wires to Constantinople. Decentralisa-
tion the watchword, and unless wiser councils
is

prevail with the Committee of Union and Progress,

these movements for self-government in the various
Turkish provinces threaten the disruption of the
empire from within. There are rumours of a Triple
Alliance in Arabia between the Sherif of Mecca, the
 IN THE MOSLEM WORLD 211

ruler of Nejd, and Ibn Saood, the most powerful

prince of the interior.The province of Yemen is
again in rebellion, and even the best friends of
Turkey can see no future for her save the gradual
partition of the provinces between the Powers.
Already in the newspaper dispatches, diplomatic
secrets are leaking out, and not only the man on
the street in London, but in Beirut and Damascus,
is discussing the future spheres of influence of
Germany, England, France, and Russia in Asiatic
Turkey.
A similar crisis can be observed in other lands.
Persia,under its new Constitution and with its high
hopes for liberty, equality, and fraternity, was not
" strangled," as Mr. Shuster has indicated in his
book, by Russian occupation on the north and
British influence in the south, alone. Persian con-
stitutional government died at its birth because the
Persians themselves are unfit for self-government.
The Times of London, in a leading article, speaking
of Persiaunder the heading, " The Death-bed of an
Ancient Kingdom," said :

" Could some later Gibbon give form and cohesion to

its masses of authentic details, he might draw a picture
which would certainly have no present parallel anywhere
in the world, not even in China. It is impossible to close
its perusal without a deep impression of the utter hope-
lessness of the Persian situation. The child Shah, the
absentee Regent, the helpless Cabinet which resigns once
a week, the Treasmrer-General, wringing his hands in
agonised appeal for money to fill an empty treasury, are
only the more conspicuous figures upon a sea of dismal
anarchy."

The Russian occupation of the north, the British

212 THE FULNESS OF TIME
pacification of the south, and the posible control
even of the neutral zone by these Powers, will usher
in a new day of liberty and progress for Persia. The
American missionaries welcome Russian rule in pre-
ference to Persian anarchy.
India and Malaysia, with over 100,000,000 Moham-
medans under a Christian emperor and a Christian
queen, enjoy the blessings of civilised government.
Here there is every freedom for missionary effort and
enterprise. An open door to one-half of the Moslem
world 1 Only in Afghanistan is there still a con-
siderable number of Mohammedans under direct
Moslem rule, and even here the Young Afghan Party
has come forward with a programme of constitutional
reform and progress. They favour Western educa-
tion, and may perhaps themselves unbar the gates
of this great closed land.
The results of this universal political collapse as
regards Moslem are deep and far-reaching.
rule
Because Islam a Church State the occupation of
is

Moslem lands and their control by Western govern-

ments affects the whole criminal law and whole
sections of the civil law, and compels the readjust-
ment of the religious rights and privileges of the
Koran, with its mediaeval legislation, to new conditions
and the demands of civilised colonial governments.
There was a time when European colonial govern-
ments, terror-stricken by ear of Pan-Islamism,
favoured Islam or compromised Christianity in their
attempts to meet this crisis. This is still the case in
some parts of Africa. But a change for the better is
already evident. The Dutch Colonial Government
is now following a new policy, favouring the work of

missions and opposing the further spread of Islam

 IN THE MOSLEM WORLD 213

throughout Malaysia. At the German Colonial

Congress in 1910 the Moslem peril in East Africa was
fearlessly discussed, and a strong resolution adopted,
and although we have quoted it in a previous chapter
we venture to think that it may not be inappropriate
to repeat it here.

" Since the progress of Islam in our colonies is accom-

panied by grave perils, this Colonial Congress recommends
a thorough study of Moslem propagandism. The Congress
is thoroughly convinced that everything which favours

the progress of Islam and hinders the progress of Chris-

tianity, should be avoided, and especially commends
the cultural efforts of missionary education and hospital
work to the support of the Colonial Government. We
also recognise in the Moslem peril an urgent challenge
to German Christianity to occupy the regions threatened
by Islam with missionary effort " (Report, p. 62).

It is remarkable that this result followed a pre-

sentation ofthe subject by Inspector Axenfeld,
representing Protestant missions ; Dr. Hansen,
representing the Roman Catholics ; and Professor
Becker, one of the keenest students of Islam from
a secular standpoint. Surely if the Colonial Con-
gress was so gravely impressed by the present
situation in Africa, its appeal should find a response
among the students of Great Britain, America, and
the Continent.
As a reaction, and in some cases as a revolt, in
the present political crisis, we note two counter-
movements that of Mahdism and of Pan-Islamic
:

Nationalism. Andre Servier has shown that these

two movements are mutually hostile, and are both
hopeless as regards their ideals. The one is
214 THE FULNESS OF TIME
strongest in the West and among the uneducated
masses of North Africa. Their hope for the rise
of a Mahdi, who shall restore the lost empire of
Islam, is based upon eschatological ideas, and from
time to time produces political unrest, as we have
seen in the Sahara, at Khartoum, and, more
recently, in Somaliland. These hopes are kindled
by the dervish orders, especially the Sennusi.
Pan-Islamic Nationalism, on the contrary, has its
centres in Calcutta, Constantinople, and Cairo. It is
strongest in the eastern part of the Moslem world, and
has its followers among those who have received a
Western education. Over against these two move-
ments it is the task of Christianity to point out that
the real Mahdi, who can satisfy all our spiritual hopes,
is none other than Jesus Christ, and to proclaim to

the Moslem masses the hope of His return. The

Second Advent is a doctrine which has a real place
in the theology of Islam as well as in Christianity.
It has not yet come to its own. We should present
it, apart from any pet theory, in its living reality as

revealed to us in the Gospel. In the same way,

Christianity and Christian education are the only
hope for a real Nationalism. The development of
character in the school of Jesus Christ is the only
guarantee of liberty, equality, and fraternity, as well
as of self-government, for the nations of the Nearer
East. Who will carry this evangel to them ?

IV. The social and intellectual crisis in the Moslem

—
world is a present-day call. The impact of the West,
through trade, governments, and education, has
utterly changed old social standards, practices, and
ideals. In this, missionary education has had the
 IN THE MOSLEM WORLD 215

largest influence. The daily life of an educated

Moslem in Constantinople or Cairo affords a vivid
illustration. Here stands our friend Mohammed
Effendi, clad in Western costume, with a good know-
ledge of French or of English, in touch with the
best and the worst of Western literature and culture,
ambitious to take his place in the march of progress,
and yet at every step confronted by the question.
Which shall —
the old religion or the new
I choose
civilisation ? Whenhe takes his purse from his
pocket, ten to one the question has already been
decided against tradition, that hog's leather is not
polluting. But shall he put his money out at interest,
which is forbidden by the Koran ? Shall he keep
hiswatch true to Western time, or set it at sunset as
all pious Moslems have done since watches were
invented ? Shall he follow the Western calendar or
that of Arabia ? Shall he risk religious contamina-
tion by taking his food in a Greek restaurant, where
lard is used ? How shall he find the true Kibla
towards which to make his prostrations on an ocean-
steamer or in a railway carriage zigzagging from
Cairo to Alexandria ? The question of ceremonial
washing before prayer is greatly complicated when
the ordinary ritual cannot be fulfilled because of
Western boots and shoes. Many ordinary medicines
cannot be taken without offence to Moslem law,
because they contain alcohol. His amusements and
artistic tastes also run counter to the best traditions
of the Moslem religion. It is still an open question
among Mohammedans whether sculpture and photo-
graphy are allowable, and whether the gramophone
and the theatre are permissible amusements ; and
when our friend yields in all these particulars to the
216 THE FULNESS OF TIME
impact of the West, those who are true to the old
ideals do not hesitate to call him a kaffir, that is,
unbeliever. And as regards the Old Islam, their
accusation is just.
The New Islam is therefore anxious to incorporate
all the progress and ideals of Western civilisation by
a reinterpretation of the Koran. They attempt to
prove that Islam was not propagated by the sword,
that slavery was only a temporary institution, and
that polygamy was not permitted by the Prophet
—
Mohammed in tact, that he himself was not really
a polygamist. These feats of exegesis would be
ridiculous, if they were not pathetic. All educated
Moslems are abandoning the traditions and taking
refuge in the Koran for a final stand against Chris-
tianity, if it be possible. The character of the Prophet
is becoming a stumbling-block to all earnest thinkers,

and there are hundreds of thousands of Moham-

medans whose social and moral ideals are higher
than those of Mohammed himself. Could there be a
stronger call than this for us to present to them the
reality of the living Christ, Who is at once the ideal
of character and its creator its author and its
;

finisher ?
Popular education, both under government super-
vision and through the effort and example of Christian
missions, as well as the enormous influence of the
Moslem press, are spreading these new ideas every-
where. Great popular movements like the Sharikat
Islam in Java, or the Moslem League of India, are
also indications of this new spirit. The former
movement began in Java only in 1908 and has
already held a congress where thirty thousand people
were present. In some respects it seems to be a
 Pilgrims at Mecca
In the valley of Mina, stoning the devil-pillar.
 IN THE MOSLEM WORLD 217

successor of the Boedi Oetama, a young Javanese

movement for self-government and nationalism, but
it is on a still larger scale and appears more religious
in character.
A missionary writes :

" the future of the movement will be no one can

What
say, but it is certain that within the past year greater
changes have come into the minds of the Javanese than
in the past twenty-five years. We stand before a new
epoch. Will it be favourable for the spread of the Kingdom
of Jesus Christ ? It is a call to persevering prayer that
Java in its present awakening may not only desire educa-
tion and true nationalism, but also that salvation which
is only in Jesus Christ our Lord."

V. The present-day spiritual crisis in Islam is a

call to evangelism. —
No thinking Moslem can face the
present world situation of Islam without realising
that from the side of politics and education the very
foundations of Islam are in danger. But in addition
to this the old Islam is becoming conscious of its
spiritualbankruptcy. The International Review of
Missions has had a series of articles on the "Vital
Forces of Christianity and Islam." The Moslems in
Cairo and in Calcutta are printing articles on the
dying forces at work in their religion. Mr. S. Khuda
Bakhsh, an enlightened Moslem of India, says of his
experiences at Mecca :

" To-day the mullahs of Mecca mount a pulpit and

air their erudition that is, their knowledge of the tradi-
;

tions, as they interpret them according to their respective

schools, and end with a few wandering, lifeless sentences
incondemnation of all heretics, in contempt of this life,
and in praise of the world to come. A philosopher would
 218 THE FULNESS OF TIME
consider their sermons ridiculous. . . . The wonder is
that the faithful can be found to obey the behests of these
tradition-ridden miracle-mongers, who do nothing to
lessen the breach between the sects, but leave the more
enlightened laymen to lead the way to reunion. My
Meccan experiences prove this, that the faith of the
priest is stagnant from the want of the breath of reason.
In its decadence Islam is priest-begotten and priest-
ridden."

Everywhere Moslems are bemoaning the fact that

the day of opportunity is lost, that their religion is
on the decline, and that its ideals are not high enough
to bear comparison with those of Christianity. We
have already quoted at length (p. 181 ff.) from the
booklet under the title, Where is Islam ?~An Essay
setting forth the Present Condition of Moslems, Socially,
Intellectually, and Morally.
A
similar cry from the heart of the old school was
recently heard in an Arabic journal published at
Zanzibar

" The Christian Powers of the West have made

a
determined attack upon the East with cavalry and
infantry and ironclads and their political organisations.
The pillars of the East are tottering, its thrones are being
destroyed, its power is being shattered, and its supremacy
is being obliterated. The Moslem world is divided against
itself, and every one is busied with his own private
interests. Brother no longer listens to the cry of brother.
. .The missionaries are strengthening themselves in
.

their attack upon the Moslem faith, not being satisfied

with gaining possession of the Moslem kingdoms and their
states. What has befallen the Moslem world from their
poisonous breath is due to the divisions of the Moslem
world, their mutual hatred, and the divisions in their
 IN THE MOSLEM WORLD 219

kingdoms. In this way they have lost the whole world ;

and their sickness is incurable."

It is for us to tell them that there is balm in

Gilead, and that the Great Physician, Jesus Christ,

can heal the open sore of the world !

The advocates of the New Islam are our allies in all

questions of social reform and in the raising of new
ethical standards. Ameer Ali and Khuda
Men like
Bakhsh of India, the late Kasim Amin Bey in
Egypt, and Gasprinsky in Russia, are all of them
engaged in adjusting the old Islam to the standards
of the Sermon on the Mount. There is a new attitude
towards Christianity and the Bible everywhere among
all classes. Instead of arrogance and fanaticism, a
willingness to hear and to investigate. If the Moslem
problem is, as a missionary in Turkey stated, " To get
the proudest man in the world to take the thing he
hates from the hand of the man whom he despises," we
already see its solution at every mission station. The
increase of Bible sales in Arabia, amounting to over
7000 in one year the freedom for public preaching
;

in Persia, in bazaars, and even in mosques the over- ;

crowding of Christian hospitals in Turkey the many ;

public baptisms in Egypt and in India, are they not —

all tangible proofs of a new day of opportunity and
promise ? Direct work for Moslems is possible
nearly everywhere. During the past year the Gospel
has been preached in places which were formerly
considered dangerous and inaccessible Jiddah, the —
port of Mecca; Yenbo, the port of Medina; and
Meshed and Kerbela, the great Persian centres of

pilgrimage.
A native Christian physician in the Turkish Army
has already witnessed for Christ in Medina, where
220 THE FULNESS OF TIME
Christians are forbidden entrance. Is not all this
prophetic of the day when

" Uplifted are the gates of brass

;

The bars of iron yield

To let the King of Glory pass ;

The cross hath won the field " ?

The fields to-day are white unto the harvest. There

was a time of patient preparation and of hope de-
—
ferred which maketh the heart sick the days of
the pioneers, who wearily dragged the ploughshare
of God breaking fallow ground and barren rock.
They translated the Scriptures, opened schools, and
built hospitals. That was the time of waiting, of
patient opportunism, and of indirect methods of
approach. To-day all has changed. From India,
Persia, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Arabia, we hear
that direct work for Moslems by the tactful presenta-
tion of the living Christ is not only possible, but
fruitful beyond all expectations. We may truly say
that the Moslems to-day are hungering for the
Gospel, and in some places eager to hear the claims of
Jesus Christ. In Morocco there is open-air preaching
to Moslems without disturbance. In Cairo and other
cities of Egypt crowded evangelistic services are held
every week, addressed by converted Moslems and by
missionaries. Last winter the numbers that came
to the American Mission from El Azhar University
to hear the Gospel fearlessly proclaimed by a former
Moslem were so great that hundreds were turned
away at the doors and the police were compelled to
clear the streets. Yet the crowd was good-natured,
and we only regret there was no auditorium large
enough to hold them. Who would have thought
 IN THE MOSLEM WORLD 221

that such public mass meetings for students from

El Azhar University to hear the Gospel could be
advertised in the Moslem press ? Yet this has been
the case in Cairo. One Moslem paper in Tanta even
went so far as to report the main argument of my
address on " Christianity the Final Religion," for its
readers. There was a time when we spoke of sweet
first-fruits in Moslem lands. To-day we witness whole
sheaves gathered for the coming harvest. In Java
there are over 24,000 converts from Islam, and more
than three hundred baptisms every year. In Sumatra
the missionaries speak of the arrest of Islam in its
progress among the pagan tribes, and point to the
miracle of God's grace among the Battaks. From
Bengal we hear of large numbers gathered into the
Christian Church. " In nearly every district," writes
John Takle in Bengal, " there are to be found Moslem
converts, and in one district —Nadia— ^there is a
Christian community, at least five thousand of whom
are either converts or descendants of converts from
the Mohammedan faith." An experienced missionary
from Central China summed up the situation in
that marvellous land of unprecedented opportunities
in these words " / am more than ever convinced that
:

the fulness of time has come for the Mohammedan

peopled
The Moslems of China have founded an educational
union with headquarters at Nanking and at Peking.
They are publishing a magazine in Arabic and
Mandarin. There is a revival of Arabic study in
every province of China, and now is the time to pre-
pare and distribute Arabic Christian literature for
China's millions who have no higher ideals than
those of the Arabian prophet. Who will become
222 THE FULNESS OF TIME
the apostle to the Moslems of China and lift up the
banner that fell from the grasp of William W. Borden,
who gave his all and laid down his life in Cairo ?
From Bulgaria and Albania, from Bengal and from
the Punjab, news reaches us of the beginnings of
what may become mass movements towards Chris-
tianity from Islam. We are living in a day of new
possibilities. We are the heirs of the ages, the
possessors of the accumulated energies of yet un-
answered prayers of the stored-up dynamic of faith,
tears, and blood in the Moslem world. The glorious
company of the early Moslem apostles Raymond —
Lull, Henry Martyn, Keith Falconer, Bishop French ;

the noble army of recent martyrs Dr. Thoms of —

Arabia, Dr. Payne of Cairo, Dr. Pennell on the
borders of Afghanistan, William Borden looking out
—
to the horizon of China all these have laboured and
we are entered into their labours. " The good seed,"
said Jesus Christ, " are the children of the Kingdom."
" Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and
die , it abideth alone ; but if bringeth forth
it die, it

much fruit." Who themselves this

will consecrate
day for the evangelisation of the Moslem world ?
Who will put his life into the hand of God for this
sowing ?
The present situation is an imperative call for
hundreds of specially trained workers in every mission
area, and for men and women with the spirit of the
pioneer to enter the unoccupied fields and become
the good seed of God for the future harvest. Others
are needed to take the place of those who have fallen
at the front, to lift their fallen standards, to complete
their unfinished task, to be baptized in their spirit,
baptized for the dead. When we think of men like
 ! ;

IN THE MOSLEM WORLD 223

Dr. Thorns of Arabia, Dr. Payne of Cairo, Dr.

Pennell of India, and William Borden, who laid
down his life for China in Cairo, we say with Bishop
Moule :

" O Eastern lover from the West

Thou hast outsoared these prisoning bars
Thy memory, on thy Master's breast,
Uplifts us like the beckoning stars.
We follow on where thou hast led ;
Baptize us, Saviour, for the dead."
 CHAPTER XIII

THE STUMBLING-BLOCK OF THE CROSS

15
 " The apostles never separated reconciliation in any
age from the Cross and blood of Jesus Christ. If ever we
do that (and many are doing it to-day) we throw the New
Testament overboard. The bane of so much that claims
to be more spiritual religion at the present day is that it
simply jettisons the New Testament, and with it historic
Christianity. The extreme critics, people that live upon
monism and immanence, rationalist religion and spiritual
impressionism, are people who are deliberately throwing
overboard the New Testament as a whole, deeply as they
—
prize it in parts." Principal P. T. Forsyth.

226
 CHAPTER XIII

THE STUMBLING-BLOCK OF THE CROSS*

It was the deliberate judgment of Dr. James Denney
when he wrote on the place and interpretation in the
New Testament of the '' Death of Christ," some years
ago, that the Atonement did not have the place
assigned to it, either in modern preaching or in
theology, which it has in the New Testament, and
that the proportion given to it in average current
Christianity was not that of the apostles in their
preaching. Those who have carefully read his book
must admit that the importance of the death of
Christ to Christian theology and life cannot be
exaggerated. Throughout the entire New Testa-
ment the Cross dominates everything. It interprets
everything, and it puts all things in their true relations
to each other. The death of Christ is the central
truth in the New Testament, and therefore, as Denney
remarks, " both for the propagation and for the
scientific construction of the Christian religion, the
death of Christ is of supreme importance." How
is this fact related to the Moslem problem ? Is the
death of Christ and His atoning work our supreme
message ? Ought it to be our first message ?
The fundamental difference between Islam and
Christianity is the absence in the former of the
^ Greek, cKavdaKov: cf. Gal. v. n and i Cor. i. 33, R.V.
227
228 THE STUMBLING-BLOCK
doctrine of the Cross. The Cross of Christ is the
missing link in the Moslem's creed, and not only in
the Koran and in the early traditions, but in the
practical experience of every missionary, especially
in lands that are wholly Moslem, nothing seems to
stand out more prominently than Islam's hatred of
the Cross. The Koran gives Jesus Christ a high
place among the prophets, and confers on Him names
1
and titles which, if rightly interpreted, would place
Him above them all, and yet it does so only by
denying His death and His atonement. Modern
Islam differs in no respect from orthodox Islam in
this particular and although the followers of the
;

new Islam may speak in the highest terms of Jesus

I
Christ as regards His character. His miracles, and
His influence on history, they occupy the orthodox
position in this respect ; nor do they find a place in
their doctrine of salvation for Christ's atonement.
A recent writer, and a missionary of long experience
in Persia, goes so far as to say that there is
" not a
single important fact in the life, person^ and work of
our Saviour which is not ignored, perverted, or
denied by Islam." Their chief denial, however, is
of His death. There are three passages in the
Koran which seem to indicate that Christ did
die :

" But they (the Jews) were crafty, and God was crafty,
for God is the best of crafty ones When God said, O
!
'

Jesus I will
! make thee die and take thee up again to
me, and will clear thee of those who misbelieve, and will
make those who follow thee above those who misbelieve,
at the day of judgment, then to me is your return. I
will decide between you concerning that wherein ye
disagree. And as for those who misbelieve, I will punish
them with grievous punishment in this world and the
 OF THE CROSS 229

next, and they shall have none to help them.' But as

for those who believe and do what is right. He wiU pay
them their reward, for God loves not the unjust " (Surah
iii. 47-50).
" And peace upon me the day I was born, and the
day I die, and the day I shall be raised up alive " (Surah
xix. 34).
" And I was a witness against them so long as I was
amongst them, but when Thou didst cause me to die,
Thou wert the Watcher over them, for Thou art witness
over all " (Surah v. 117).

These texts certainly seem to teach that Jesus died.

Yet, in spite of them, Moslems everywhere quote
the other verse when they deal with Christians,
whom they accuse of misbelief :

" And for their misbelief, and for their saying about
Mary a mighty calumny, and for their saying, Verily, '

we have killed the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, the

apostle of God.' But they did not kill him and
. . .

THEY DID NOT CRUCIFY HIM, BUT A SIMILITUDE WAS MADE

FOR THEM. And verily, those who differ about him are
in doubt concerning him they have no knowledge;

concerning him, but only follow an opinion. They did

not kill him, for sure Nay, God raised him up unto
!

Himself " (Surah iv. 155, 156).

In the traditions which have come down to us from

the Prophet himself (or which have been invented by
followers and attributed to Mohammed i), this denial
of the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross is elaborated.
As apparently the death of Jesus Christ was both
affirmed and denied in the Koran, to unify its teach-
ing the only possible way of escape was to affirm
1 Goldziher. Mohammedanische Studien, vol. ii.
230 THE STUMBLING-BLOCK
that although He died for a few hours or days, He
was not crucified. We read in Moslem tradition :
^

''
And they spat upon Him and put thorns upon Him ;

and they erected the wood to crucify Him upon it.

And when they came to crucify Him upon the tree, the
earth was darkened, and God sent angels, and they
descended between them and between Jesus and God ;

cast the likeness of Jesus upon him who had betrayed

Him, and whose name was Judas. And they crucified
him in His stead, and they thought that they had crucified
Jesus. Then God made Jesus to die for three hours, and
then raised Him up to heaven and this is the meaning
;

of the Koran verse Verily, I will cause Thee to die,

:
'

and raise Thee unto Me, and purify Thee above those who
"
misbelieve.'

In addition to Moslem commentators teach

this,
that when Christ comes again the second time He
will die, emphasising, as it were, the frailty of His
human nature, which even after His return from
glory, and His death for a few hours before His
ascension, is still subject to death, in this also flatly
contradicting all the teaching of the New Testament
that He died for sin once, and death hath no more
''

dominion over Him."

Not only do Moslems deny the historical fact of
the Crucifixion, but from the days of Mohammed
himself until now, they have shown a strange and
strong antipathy, and even a repugnance, to the very
sign of the Cross. It is related by El Waqidi that
Mohammed had such repugnance to the very form
of the Cross that he broke everything brought into
his house with that figure upon it. This may have
been mere superstition, or, as Muir remarks, " It may,
^ For these traditions and their sources, cf . The Moslem Christ,
pp. 78-112.
 OF THE CROSS 231

on the other hand, have been symbolical of his

^
extreme aversion to the doctrine of the Crucifixion."
According to Abu Hurairah, the Prophet said : " I
swear by heaven it is near when Jesus the Son of
Mary will descend from heaven upon you people, a
just King, and he will break the cross and kill the
swine." In certain books of Moslem law it is ex-
pressly laid down under the head of theft, that if a
cross or crucifix is stolen from a church, the usual
punishment for theft is not incurred ; although, if

it be stolen from a private dwelling it is a theft.

It is well known to readers of the daily press that

Turkey and Egypt have never been willing to have
Red Cross Societies under the International Hague
Convention regulations, but have organised Red
Crescent Societies instead. A more recent incident
illustrating Moslem hatred for the Cross comes to us
from the Sudan, in connection with the postal service.
The United Empire says :
" In the early days, the stamps of the Sudan bore a
watermark which for many months passed unnoticed by
their users. But one day a Mohammedan, in an idle
moment, held one of them up to the light, and discovered
to his dismay that this watermark bore an obvious
resemblance to a Maltese cross. Now, to a devout
Moslem, any suspicion of veneration to the Cross of the
Christians not only distasteful, it is absolutely for-
is

bidden. here for months the Moslem scribes of the

And
Sudan had been placing their Hps, or at least their tongues,
to its hidden design unknowingly. It may seem a small
thing to some people but the world knows what a doleful
;

page of history has been written merely because some

cartridges were greased and in the Sudan the authorities
;

acted with discretion. They changed the watermark.

1 Muir's Mohammed, vol. iii. p. 6i.
232 THE STUMBLING-BLOCK
Thus to philatelists a Sudan stamp watermarked with
a design bearing a resemblance to a Maltese cross, is a
rather valuable discovery."

It is true that educated Moslems are becoming

ashamed of this repugnance to the symbol of the
Cross, and try to explain away certain of the early
traditions or present-day practices. In a supposed
interview with a newspaper correspondent, Sheikh
Rashid Ridha, of Cairo, utterly denies the story
related by Charles Doughty regarding Arab boys
who are taught to defile the Cross, drawn in the
desert sand.^ But the story is true. No one man
has so closely examined and so carefully reported
popular Islam as it exists in Arabia to-day as this
prince among explorers. Here are his words :

" In the evening I had wandered to an oasis side

;

there a flock of the village children soon assembling with

swords and bats, followed my heels, hooting, O Nasrany ' !

O Nasrany " and braving about the kaffir and cutting

!

crosses in the sand before me, they spitefully defiled

them, shouting a villainous carol. This behaviour in
. . .

the children was some sign of the elders' meaning from

whom doubtless they had heard their villainous rhyming."
The Armenian massacres afforded other terrible
instances of this fanatic hatred of the Cross, the
details of which can never be published. It is true,
on the other hand, as Mr. Leeder states, that in the
Sahara and Tunisia the Cross is used as a tattoo mark
and in the decoration of weapons, etc. This use of
the Cross, however, in certain parts of the Moslem
world is due either to the fact that it has continued
in use by tribes which were once Christian, or that
the symbol is of sinister import. The Tuaregs of the
^ See S. H. Leeder, Veiled Mysteries of Egypt, pp. 323, 324.
 OF THE CROSS 233

Sahara, as well as the Kabyles of North Africa, were

undoubtedly once Christian.^ And as regards the
latter explanation, abundant proof exists in such
works as those of El Buni on Magic, Talismans, and
Amulets. Near the Bab el Fatooh in Cairo, Moslem
women to-day buy silver amulets specially made for
them, consisting of a rude image of the Christ on the
Cross, and on the back are verses from the Koran !

It is well known that these are worn not to honour

the Christ or the Cross, but with the intention of
driving out demons by the use of a sign which is itself
considered demonic !

Not only is the symbol of the Cross a stumbling-

block to the Moslem mind, but the doctrine of the
Cross is an offence. A number of books and pamph-
lets that have recently appeared show this antipathy.
Halil Halid in his book. The Crescent versus the
Cross, shows how far even the educated Moslem carries
this opposition. He is an Honorary M.A. of Cam-
bridge and a Licentiate of the Institute of Law in
Constantinople, and writes :

" Islam also holds different views on the death of

Christ. Whether historically correct or not, it does not
admit the possibility of the crucifixion of Christ. It
advances the theory that some one else must have been
crucified by mistake in His place, as it cannot reconcile
His lofty position with the alleged form of His death, a
form which, to the Moslem mind, only befits criminals.
To the Moslem mind it is not only sacrilegious but also
illogical at once to deify Him and make Him suffer such
a death. The Christian explanation that Christ suffered
'

that painful death for our sins fails to satisfy the critics
'

of the non-Christian world. It is doubtless convenient

for many Christians to regard the passages of their
^ Hans Visscher, Across the Sahara, p. i68.
234 THE STUMBLING-BLOCK
Scriptures concerning the crucifixion as an insurance
policy, and to conduct themselves in a manner which is
hardly pious, feeling sure that they are safe against
hell-fire because Christ suffered for their sins. Mussul-
man critics say what fanciful notions these Christians
'

entertain on this subject They not only state that the

!

One, whom they are to worship, died such a death, but

also make a mournful picture out of their notion of
crucifixion, representing it by the fine arts a picture —
which is neither realistic nor aesthetic' "

Many of the most on Christianity

bitter attacks
by the Moslem press in have been
recent years
similarly directed against the Cross and its teaching.
In a book recently published at Beirut by Mohammed
Tahir et Tannir, entitled Pagan Elements in the
Christian Religion, the author draws a parallel be-
tween Krishna and Christ, and even illustrates by
crude woodcuts Krishna's death and the death of
Christ on the Cross, the one with a crown of glory,
the other with a crown of thorns The book tries I

to prove that all Christian teaching regarding the

Crucifixion and the Atonement is not based on
historical fact, but was borrowed piecemeal from
heathenism. Mohammed Tewfiq Sidqi in a book
just published, entitled Bin Allah, attacks the
Christian faith both as regards itsdocuments and its
dogma, using the arguments of modern destructive
criticism,without being aware apparently that it is a
two-edged sword which would play havoc with the
Koran and the traditions if its edge were once tried.
In the introduction he states that Christ is in no
sense an atonement for sin, and that ideas of sacrifice
and atonement are only remnants of heathenism.
He attempts to prove that none of the prophecies of
the Old Testament, especially not those found in
 ;

OF THE CROSS 235

Isa. liii., Ps. xxii., and Zech. xii. 13, refer in any-
way to Christ or His death on the Cross.
It is interesting to notice, however, how more and
more the advocates of Islam and the opponents of
Christianity among Moslems are becoming thoroughly
aware that the doctrine of the Cross is the Gibraltar
of the Christian faith, the centre and pivot of
Christian theology, and the very foundation of the
Christian hope. In the last number of a monthly
review, published by Seyyid Mohammed Rashid
Ridha, El Manar, twelve pages are devoted to a
rather candid inquiry regarding the crucifixion of
Christ, and in the very introduction of his subject
the learned author says that " the belief in the
Crucifixion is the foundation of the Christian religion
if it were not for its doctrine of the Cross and re-

demption, which are the root of the Christian religion,

they would not spend time in calling upon men to
accept and embrace it." The writer then goes on to
state that he has gathered the significance of this
doctrine and the sum of its teaching by attendance
at public meetings and by reading the books of
Christians, and he sets before his Moslem readers this
summary :

" Adam, when he transgressed God Most High by

eating from the forbidden tree, became a sinner and all
his descendants with him, and therefore worthy of punish-
ment in the world to come and of everlasting destruction.
In consequence all his posterity were reckoned as sinners,
and worthy also of punishment. And so all his posterity
were guilty of Adam's sin. Now since God Most High
had the attributes of both justice and mercy, a difficulty
(far be it from God Most High to be in difficulty !) occurred
to Him because of Adam's transgression namely, that
;

if He should punish Adam for his sin, this would be opposed

236 THE STUMBLING-BLOCK
to His mercy, and He would not be merciful And if He !

did not punish Adam, it would be opposed to His justice,

and He would not be just As if, since the disobedience
!

of Adam, God spent His time in thinking out a plan by

which He could combine His justice and His mercy!
Now He did not arrive at it until about 1912 years ago
(God forbid God forbid !), and the plan was that His
!

Son Most High, who is God Himself, should tabernacle,

in the womb of a woman from among the sons of Adam,
and be conceived by her and born from her, and become
her child ; a perfect man since He was her son, and
perfect God since He was
the Son of God, for the Son of
God, they say, and He was free also from all the
is God ;

sin and the transgression of the sons of Adam. Then

after He had lived a short time with men, eating what
they ate and drinking what they drank, and enjoying what
they enjoyed, and suffering as they suffered. He was over-
powered by His enemies, who tried to kill Him by a
shameful death, namely, the death on the cross, which is
cursed in the Holy Book. And so He bore the curse and
the cross for the redemption of humanity and their
salvation from their sins, as John said in his first Epistle
'And He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for
our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.'
(Far be it from God the Lord of glory to be so
"
described !)

We can see from this literal translation of a brief

portion of the article in question how fully Moslems
to-day are aware that the fundamental difference
between Islam and Christianity lies in the doctrine
of the Cross.
Following this exposition of the teaching of
Christians, the article summarises the objections to
it as follows :

1. It is opposed to reason.
2. It is opposed to theism. How can God, Who is
 OF THE CROSS 237

omnipresent and everlasting, degrade Himself by-

dwelling in a virgin's womb ?
3. It is opposed to God's knowledge for the plan
;

of salvation if such—it is was an —

after-thought.
4. It is opposed to both the mercy and justice of
God to His mercy, because He allowed Christ to
;

suffer, being innocent, without delivering Him and ;

to His justice, in allowing those who crucified Him

to do it unpunished.
5. It leads to impiety, because if this is the way of
salvation, then no matter how wicked a man is he
finds deliverance through the Cross, and will never
be punished for his sins.

6. unnecessary. We have never heard it

It is

stated by any reasonable person, or those who are

learned in law, that the attribute of justice is abro-
gated by the pardon of a criminal ; on the contrary,
it isconsidered a virtue to pardon an offender. Why
should not God do so ?
From the above it is easy to judge that the modern
standpoint of Islam is not only opposed to the
historical fact of the Crucifixion, but to the historical
interpretation of that fact in Christian theology.
The question here arises how can we account for
Mohammed's repugnance to the Crucifixion ? Was
it that he desired to defend the reputation of Jesus,

the greatest prophet before him, from the stain which

he considered was cast upon it by the Jews, who
boasted that they had slain Him ? (Surah iv. 156).
It may have been that to Mohammed's mind there
was something abhorrent in the idea of a prophet
being left to the mercy of his foes, especially in the
ease of one of the greater prophets. The Koran
makes much of how God wrought deliverance for
Noah, Abraham, Lot, and others, even by a miracle.
238 THE STUMBLING-BLOCK
It may have been that Mohammed, therefore, borrow-
ing an idea of certain Christian sects, believed and
taught that Christ was not crucified. The Basilidians,
we are told, held that the person crucified was Simon
of Cyrene ; the Cyrentians and Carpocratians, that
it was one of Jesus' followers while the Persian
;

heretic Mani taught that it was the prince of darkness

himself.^ Perhaps there was nothing to prevent
Mohammed from adopting this view, as he was but
imperfectly acquainted with the real doctrines of
Christianity. We say perhaps, because another
view is put forward by Koelle in his philosophical
study on the historical position of Mohammedanism.^
He writes :

" Mohammed, from his low, earthly standing-point,

could neither apprehend the unique excellence of the
character of Christ, nor the real nature of His all-sufficient
and all-comprehending salvation.
" Not want of opportunity, but want of sympathy and
compatibility, kept him aloof from the religion of Christ.
His first wife introduced him to her Christian cousin
one of his later wives had embraced Christianity in
Abyssinia, and the most favoured of his concubines was a
Christian damsel from the Copts of Egypt. He was
acquainted with ascetic monks, and had dealings with
learned Bishops of the Orthodox Church."

Again, Mohammed was not ignorant of the supreme

importance of the doctrine of the Atonement. Accord-
ing to a well-known tradition, he said :

" I saw my Lord in the most beautiful form, and He

said unto me, '
O Mohammed, knowest thou on what
subject the highest angels contend ? '
I answered, '
Yes,
* Cf. Rice, Crusaders of the Twentieth Century, p. 252.
2 Mohammed and Mohammedanism, book iii. pp. 310, 334, 471.
 ;

OF THE CROSS 239

O my Lord, on the subject of atonement, that is to say,

on the services and degrees which are the cause of the
atonement of sins.' Thereupon the word was addressed
to me, What is atonement ? I answered, Atonement
' ' '

is the remaining in the house of prayer after the service

has been performed the going to the meetings on foot

;

and the taking an ablution when trials and troubles be-

fall : whoever does these things will live and die well,
and be as pure from sin as if he had just been born of his
"
mother.'

Other traditions relate how Mohammed explained

some of the pagan sacrifices, such as El 'Akeeka and
the sacrifices at Mecca, as in a certain sense atoning
for sin. So the doctrine of substitution could
not in itself have been repugnant to him (Mishkat
xviii. 3).
Whatever the explanation may be, the fact remains
that Islam from its origin until our own day has been
an enemy of the Cross of Christ, and has ever made the
Crucifixion a cause of stumbling. This position, once
taken by orthodox Islam, has been held throughout
the centuries. The historical fact of Christ's Cruci-
fixion, with to Christianity, has always
all it signifies

been flatly contradicted. Only among the Shiah

sect in Persia do we have a remarkable illustration
of the doctrine of the Atonement and of substitution
forcing a way for itself into Islam. The Aryan
mind was never content with the barren monotheistic
idea of the Semite Arabs. In Persia, the doctrine
of an incarnation, of intercessors, and of salvation
by atonement, found eager acceptance at an early
date. Those who have witnessed the Miracle Play
of Hasan and Hussein, commemorative of the events
at Kerbela, will realise how large a place this death
occupies in their life and thought as a propitiation
240 THE STUMBLING-BLOCK
for sin. At the close of the Miracle Play the following
words are put into the mouth of Mohammed
" The key of paradise is in Hussein's hand. He is
the mediator for all. Go thou and deliver from the
flames everyone who has in his lifetime shed but a single
tear for thee everyone who has in any way helped thee
: ;

everyone who has performed a pilgrimage to thy shrine

or mourned for thee. Bear each and all to paradise." ^

In presenting this doctrine of the Atonement, there-

fore, to Moslems of the Shiah sect, the story of
Kerbela can be used to interpret that of Calvary,
and finds a response. At the Cairo Missionary Con-
ference the Rev. S. G. Wilson, of Tabriz, gave this
testimony :

" When we are setting forth the story of the Cross to

Persians, they often reply, In like manner the blood of
'

Imam Hussein avails for us as an offering to God.' This

condition of belief prepares them to hear and understand
the Christian doctrine of the Atonement. It can be
presented to them as to a Christian audience."

But how is it in regard to orthodox Islam ? Should

we emphasise this doctrine of the Crucifixion where it
is bitterly opposed and vigorously disputed ? Would
it not be the part of worldly wisdom and of missionary

strategy to keep the Cross and the Atonement (as

well as the doctrine of the Trinity) well in the back-
ground, and present to Moslems the life of Christ
rather than His death as the theme of our Gospel ?
Shall we not follow the discretion (or was it the fear ?)
of the Sudan authorities in the matter of the postage
stamps, and remove even the watermark of the Cross
^ Sir Lewis Pelly, The Miracle Play of Hasan and Husain, vol. ii.

PP- 343-348 ;
Matt. Arnold, Essays in Criticism, vol. i. p. 264.
 OF THE CROSS 241

from our preaching, lest we offend our Moslem

brethren ? Let the Apostle Paul give us the answer,
that apostle who taught " that no man should put a
stumbling-block in his brother's way or an occasion
of falling " ; and who made it a principle of his
if meat causeth my brother to stumble, I
''
life that,

will eat no flesh for evermore, that I cause not my

brother to stumble." His reply would be in the
words he wrote to the disputers of this world " Christ
:

crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto

the Greeks foolishness."
Paul knew that the Cross was a stumbling-block,
and the doctrine of the Cross foolishness to Jew and
Gentile, and yet he deliberately, emphatically, per-
sistently, everywhere made his mission and his
message the Cross. As we think of the millions in
Moslem lands to whom our hearts go out in sym-
—
pathy ^their ignorance, their sinfulness, their utter
—
need of the Saviour ^those other words of the apostle
find new meaning :
" For many walk of whom I
have told you often, and now tell you even weeping,
that they are the enemies of the Cross of Christ."
Let us never on that account consider them our
enemies, but prove to them that we are their friends
by showing not by our creed only, but by our lives,
the power of the Cross and its glory. We must meet
this earliest and latest challenge of our Moslem
opponents not by compromises and concessions, nor
by the cowardice of silence, but by boldly proclaiming
that the very heart of our religion, its centre and its
cynosure, its pivot and power, is the atonement
wrought by Christ on the Cross. We must show
them that the Cross is the highest expression of the
very Spirit of Christ that, as Andrew Murray says,
;

" the Cross is His chief characteristic ; that which

i6
242 STUMBLING-BLOCK OF CROSS
distinguishes Him from all in heaven and on earth
that which gives Him His glory as Mediator on the
throne through eternity." If faithfully, fearlessly,
sympathetically we preach Christ Crucified, He can
make the stumbling-block of the Cross a stepping-
stone for the Moslems into His kingdom.
There is no other way into that Kingdom than the
way of the Cross. Only by the preaching of the
Cross can we expect among Moslems conviction of
sin, true repentance, and faith in the merits of
Another. The Cross, and the Cross alone, can break
down their pride and self -righteousness, and lay bare
all hypocrisy and self-deception. More than this ;
the Cross will win their love if rightly preached. The
Cross is the very antithesis of the spirit of Islam,
because it is the spirit of Christianity. This issue
must be made clear at the very outset, for it is
wrapped up in every other truth of the Christian
religion. Our conclusion, therefore, can find no
better expression than in the words of Denney :

" We may begin as wisely as we please with those

who have a prejudice against it, or whose conscience is
asleep, or who have much to learn both about Christ and
about themselves before they will consent to look at such
a Gospel, to say nothing of abandoning themselves to it
but if we do not begin with something which is essentially
related to the Atonement, presupposing it or presupposed
by it or involved in it, something which leads inevitably,
though it may be by an indirect and unsuspected route,
to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world,
we have not begun to preach the Gospel at all.'' ^
1 Denney, The Death of Christ, p. 302.
 CHAPTER XIV
THE PRESENT ATTITUDE OF EDUCATED
MOSLEMS TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST AND
THE SCRIPTURES

248
 CHAPTER XIV
THE PRESENT ATTITUDE OF EDUCATED
MOSLEMS TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST AND
THE SCRIPTURES
JtERHAPS it estimate to say that from
is a fair
two to four the total Moslem world
millions of
population have so far adopted Western education
and broken away from the old Islamic standards of
orthodox tradition that they should be classified as
" New School Moslems." These are found especi-
ally in India, Egypt, Turkey, Algiers, and Persia.
Not all of them have adopted Western civilisation,
but Western educational methods and ideals have
compelled them to restate their own beliefs or doubts,
and to modify their social and moral standards to
such an extent that they have clearly separated
themselves from the masses.
Although Moslem education still divides itself
along Western and Eastern lines, the methods and
ideals of the West are pushing their way everywhere.
Colonial expansion and commercial exploitation in
Africa as well as in the Mohammedan lands of Asia
by the marking out of spheres of influence, the
building of the railways, the growing influence of
the Moslem press, the competition as well as the
—
example of the mission schools all these tend to
accelerate this movement for higher education.
245
246 ATTITUDE OF MOSLEMS
A new type of leadership has appeared in all
Moslem lands, from Morocco to Java. They are the
scouts in advance, whom the bulk of the community
will follow with more or less hesitation in the future.
They are formulating public opinion, advocating
reforms, and preaching the power and possibility of a
revived Islam. It is our purpose to show what is
the present attitude of these Moslem leaders towards
our Saviour Jesus Christ and the Scriptures. This
will necessarily involve also their attitude towards
Christianity and the work of Moslems.
First of all we must note that the educated Moslem
of to-day has supreme confidence in himself, and
therefore pride is his religion, and a hope, in spite of
all political disastersor racial and social disadvantages,
that Islam will yet triumph.
Mr. S. Khuda Bukhsh, in his remarkable book.
Essays, Indian and Islamic, recently published,
says :
" Islam possesses an inherent force and vitality which
nothing can weaken or destroy. It carries within it
germs of progress and development, and has great powers
of adaptability to changing circumstances. There is
nothing in its teachings which conflicts with or militates
against modern civilisation, and the moment Muslims
realise this truth their future will be assured and their
greatness only a question of time. Modern Islam, with its
hierarchy of priesthood, gross fanaticism, appalling ignor-
ance and superstitious practices, is, indeed, a discredit
to the Islam of the Prophet Mohammed. Instead of
unity, we have Islam torn into factions, instead of culture
we have indifference to learning, instead of liberal-minded
toleration we have gross bigotry. But this intellectual
darkness must necessarily be followed by intellectual
dawn, and we trust that it is not now far distant or too
long in coming " (pp. 23, 24).
 ' —

TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST 247

The educated Moslem is able to diagnose the world
of Islam and sees clearly that it is sick nigh unto
death. No writer has ever written more frankly
concerning the ignorance, superstition, degradation,
and social evils of the Moslem world than has Mr.
Khuda Bukhsh in his Essays.
" Look at the state of affairs a little deeper," he
writes. " What must we say of a society which
transforms licentiousness into elegant fraility, and
treachery and falsehood into pardonable finesse ?
Should we not combat, with all our might, these
social evils which are sapping the very life and
vitality out of our community ? Are these not
problems calling for attention and solution ? I am
drawing up (I am only too keenly aware of it) a
severe indictment against my own community, but
we need have no delicacy any longer if we are to
proceed onward. We want no palliatives, but the
—
surgeon's knife to cut the cancer social cancer
away."
And all these evils which he mentions he tells us
are the direct, or indirect, outcome " of our defective
family life, where liberty is indistinguishable from
licence, and healthy vigilance from meaningless
'
conventionalism.
Moslem children, he tells us, are brought up " in a
poisonous atmosphere." " Polygamy is destructive,
alike of domestic peace and social purity."
In India the state of Islam is so sad that the Hindu
excels the Mohammedan " in thrift and self-control,
in capacity for work, in family devotion, in temper-
ance, and in sacrifice for education."
His conclusion is that among Moslems " religion
has now become a solemn farce stripped of spiritual
truth and steeped in barren tradition and practice,"
248 ATTITUDE OF MOSLEMS
and that " the very foundations of our belief and
conduct need to be reconstructed." ^
We have quoted at length from this writer because
he is not alone. The Moslem press in Calcutta,
Teheran, Cairo, Baghdad, Constantinople, and Algiers
has given similar testimony. Kasim Amin Bey in
his plea for the emancipation of the womanhood of
Egypt was followed by Mansour Fahmy in his
recent book on the condition of women in Islam.
Gasprinsky is attempting from Russia to reform
Moslem education in India and in Persia.
The backward state of the Moslem world and its
present degradation is to the educated Moslem a
cause of sorrow and a source of constant pain. Abdul
Kareem Moondji, of the Supreme Court, Singapore,
wrote to the Spectator (May 2nd, 1914) as follows :

"... If Moslems choose to confine themselves only to

lip profession of their religion, with resulting disintegra-
tion, decadence and stagnancy, the fault as well as the
blame is theirs, and should by no means be cast upon
their faith. If Islam as practised by Moslems does indeed
seem hidebound, deficient in progress, this characteristic.
Sir, is one that has been assumed and adopted, not
inherent in, nor native to it. Except in India, Islam has
not yet come into touch with Protestantism, with its
attendant freedom from dogmatic trammels. Its anta-
gonists and neighbours have been either the Roman
Catholic form of worship or the Greek one, and the evils
in Islam are but the evils in these two other faiths which it
has assimilated and absorbed. To assert that the religion
of the Koran is inelastic, adverse to progress, would be to
deny, to shut one's eyes voluntarily to the state of Islam
during its first infancy and adolescence. To what was
due the past greatness of Islam but to the progressive,
reformative, and assimilative spirit that distinguished
1 Pp. 215, 216, 228, 235.
 TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST 249

that religion ? You, Sir, and such as you, should least

of all other men be prone to lend your pen to the stock
objections to Islam that form the windy paraphernalia
of narrow-minded Christian clergymen, fortified by their
fanatic folly."

We may well sympathise with the educated Moslem

of to-day. The impact of the West through trade,
governments, and education, has utterly changed old
social standards, practices, and ideals. The old
Islam is No one can arrest the pro-
disintegrating.
cess. And they are aware of it.
The new Islam is anxious to incorporate all the
progress and ideals of Western civilisation by a
reinterpretation of the Koran. Some even attempt
to prove that Islam was not propagated by the
sword, that slavery was only a temporary institution,
and that polygamy was not permitted by the Prophet
—
Mahommed in fact, that he himself was not really
a polygamist. These feats of exegesis would be
ridiculous if they were not pathetic. All educated
Moslems are abandoning the traditions and taking
refuge in the Koran for a final stand against Chris-
tianity if it be possible. We may thank God that
the character of the Prophet is becoming a stumbling-
block to all earnest thinkers, and there are hundreds
of thousands of Mohammedans whose social and
moral ideals are higher than those of Mohammed
himself. Could there be a stronger call than this for
us to present to them the reality of the living Christ,
-Who is at once the ideal of character, and its creator,
"its author, and its finisher?
Popular education, both under Government super-
vision and through the effort and example of Christian
missions, as well as the enormous influence of the
 250 ATTITUDE OF MOSLEMS
Moslem press, is spreading these new ideas every-
where.
As quoted before, a missionary in Java writes :

" What the future of the movement towards popular

government will be no one can say, but it is certain that
within the past year greater changes have come into
the minds of the Javanese than in the past twenty-five
3^ears. We stand before a new epoch. Will it be favour-
able for the spread of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ ?
It is a call to persevering prayer that Java in its present
awakening may not only desire education and true
nationalism, but also that salvation which is only in Jesus
Christ our Lord."

There is no doubt that in social reform, policy,

education, and all the ideals of democracy, educated
Moslems are our allies and not our enemies. They
are as anxious as are the missionaries for the uplifting
and enlightenment of the masses, although their efforts
are spasmodic. They are not unconscious of the
need for this uplifting and enlightenment. Most of
them are ardent admirers of much that they consider
the best in W^estern civilisation. But, alas too few !

of their number
are ready for a life of self-denying
service to help others reach the goal which they
admire.
The nationalist journal Es-Sha'ah recently had a
series of articles by the President of the Mohammedan
Association for the Revival of Islam in Egypt. His
contention was that the Koran contained all the
principles of modern civilisation and progress that ;

modern science has borrowed much from the Koran,

and that in this book we have foretold modem
discoveries in embryology, natural history, and
sociology.
 TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST 251

But the fundamental question always remains. It

is the crux of the Moslem problem—not what they
think of Western civilisation, or of its representatives,
but what they think of Jesus Christ, and how they
regard the Bible and Christianity.
In presenting the subject we quote at some length
from the Moslem press and from recent books by
educated Moslems, mindful of the words spoken to
Gideon: "Thou shalt hear what they say, and
afterward shall thine hands be strengthened to go
down unto the host."
Educated Moslems are fully aware of the impending
conflict between Christianity and Islam, and of
the
issues at stake. In speaking of the results of mis-
sionary preaching under the heading of '' Islam and
its Enemies," a Cairo newspaper, Es-Sha'ab,
wrote :
"proof of the extent of preaching in the mission
A
schools is the fact that you cannot find two Moslem
children one of whom is taught in a Moslem school and the
other in a Christian school, but you see them quarrelling
in the street on such a question as this Who is the
:

greatest, the Messiah or Mohammed ? and very probably

both of them are the sons of one pious Moslem. The
other day while I was reclining in my house I heard a
quarrel in the street between a boy and a girl. A negro
servant was helping the boy in his argument. The boy
was crying ' Christ is not greater than Mohammed,'
but the girl replied, ' Teacher told us that Christ was
greater than Mohammed and all other creatures, for He
saved men from their sins.' When they came to me, I
made clear to the girl that her brother was in the right
and she in the wrong."

There are some who hope for compromise and

reconciliation. Presiding at a lecture on " The
Gospel of Islam," delivered by Zari Sarfaraz Hussein,
252 ATTITUDE OF MOSLEMS
of Delhi, in London, the Hon. Syed Ameer Ali said
that for more than forty years he had been trying to
bring about an understanding between Christianity
and Islam, and he believed that to some extent he
had removed the false impressions in the West re-
garding the latter religion. He saw no reason why
Christianity and Islam should not work together in
the elevation of the human world they worshipped
;

the same God, had the same traditions and ideals,

and did not differ in their moral standards !

But the majority of educated Moslems know their

own religion better, and know at least the funda-
mental teachings of Christianity ; they therefore
have little sympathy with efforts at compromise.
The Review of Religions (Qadian) put the issue
clearly in stating that

" Islam and Christianity lie at the parting of the

ways, Islam being the very antithesis of Christianity,
and deprecates the fact that here and there attempts are
being made in India to show that the Holy Koran supports
the alleged claims of Jesus of Nazareth to Godhood.
Chapters and verses are quoted from Moslem books by
some of the misguided and ignorant Christian mission-
aries to show that Islam represents Jesus as the highest
embodiment of human excellence. Some of them even
go to the length of declaring that the Holy Koran lends
itself to the deifying of Jesus. . . The Christian mis-
.

sionaries have been misled by the Mohammedan reverence

for Jesus into the notion that Islam represents Jesus as
being superior to the rest of mankind. It is true that they
have been regarding him as one of the prophets of God,
who come at times to regenerate the world, and who in
that capacity deserve our utmost reverence. But to
expect from the Moslems anything more than this would be
to ignore their feelings and sentiments altogether."
 TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST 253
" Of course," said the Comrade of Calcutta in an
editorial, "there is no neutrality between the two,
at least not between the Unity of Islam and the
Trinity of the Nicene Creed. No Mussulman could
indeed wish for neutrality. One or the other must
conquer, and the Mussulman is sure in his mind
which it is going to be."
The more Moslems become acquainted with
Christianity, the more they read the New Testament,
the more they will see that the issues between the
Cross and the Crescent are clearly drawn, and are too
deep and vital, both in the realm of truth and of ethics,
ever to admit of compromise.
We may therefore expect that the enormous
increase of the circulation of the Scriptures in all
Moslem lands in recent years will inevitably lead
to the keener opposition and produce hostility as
well as remove prejudice. Jesus Christ is always set
for the falling and the rising of many, and for a
sign which is spoken against.
But there is a willingness rather than an eagerness
to investigate the claims of Jesus Christ and His place
in history such as there never was before. The
Moslems themselves are choosing the Bible as their

battle-ground. For obvious reasons all educated

Moslems have abandoned their defence of the
Traditions—or are trying hard to sift them or shift
them to suit their purpose. They even prefer at
present to attack the Scriptures or re-interpret them
in favour of Islam, rather than make any appeal
to
the Koran as the very word of Allah. This is a new
phase in the present situation, and one full of promise.
The word of God is living and powerful ; it is a two-
edged sword, and those who attempt to wrest it
from Christian hands will only wound themselves.
254 ATTITUDE OF MOSLEMS
Two Moslem tracts widely circulated in Cairo this
past year are entitled, "If ye love Me, keep My
Commandments," and " A true Statement of the
Love of Christ." Both are bitterly anti-Christian,
and contain blasphemous statements ; but while
they make no reference to the Koran, or quotations
from it, they are full of Bible proof texts. The latter
closes with the entire beautiful parable of the House
built on the Rock (Matt. vii. 24-27), while on the
title-page are the words, " Jesus the Nazarene, Who
was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God
and all the people." Whatever may be the other
effects of this kind of polemic, it undoubtedly stimu-
lates the searching of the Scriptures and rivets
attention on Jesus Christ.
Not long ago the leading Moslem paper published
at Baghdad had a long article on the injustice of
Italy's invasion of Tripoli, and the main argument
was based on all the prophecies of Messianic peace
found in the Old Testament and the commands of
Jesus to love our enemies. Recently a tramway
conductor in Alexandria, to whom I gave a Christian
leaflet, returned the favour by handing me a small
poster entitled, " The Gospel Witness to the prophet-
—
ship of Mohammed " most of it a clever perversion
of Scripture texts especially from the 16th chapter
of St. John's Gospel, the promise of the Paraclete.
While, on the one hand, there is this free and utterly
uncritical use of the Bible, educated Moslems are,
on the other hand, eager to prove by modern Western
authorities that their old contention that the text was
corrupted is supported by Christians themselves.
Mr. Halil Halid, a licentiate of the Institute of Law
at Constantinople, said in his book, The Crescent
versus the Cross (pp. 12, 13)
 TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST 255
" A study of the historical investigations made by the
unbiassed critics of Christendom will strengthen rather
than weaken the old notion of Mussalmans as to the
origin of the existing Holy Book of the Christians . . .

it certainly should not be offered to the world as the

Gospel of a true religion."

The infamous Arabic book of Mohammed Tahir

Tanir, of Beirut, on the Pagan Elements in the
Christian Religion (October 1913 and July 1914),
and the far more able work by Mohammed Tewfik
Sidki, of Cairo, entitled, El-Nazra, are both intended
to show that the foundations of the Christian religion
are not only unhistorical, but mythical. They refer
and quote from a number Western writers, some
of
of whom are without authority and others anti-
Christian.
The whole object in view in these replies or counter-
attacks always seems to be, not to search for truth,
nor to use the method of scientific or even of destruc-
tive criticism, but to find an apology for Islam at
any cost. Otherwise how, for example, could a
Cambridge graduate write :

" Islam also holds different views on the death of

Christ; whether historically correct or not, it does not
admit the possibility of the crucifixion ... it cannot
reconcile his lofty position with the alleged form of his
death, a form which to the Moslem mind only befits
criminals " (The Crescent versus the Cross, p. 17).

We might say that this changed attitude towards

the Scriptures is from that of a proud indifference
and a fanatic ignorance of their contents to an eager
desire to investigate and refute the Bible if in any
way possible, or at least to use it as a new weapon of
defence for Islam and of attack on Christianity.
256 ATTITUDE OF MOSLEMS
This apparently impossible position is the only
logical one if the Moslem would remain a Moslem.
The educated Moslem faces two great difficulties in
his comparative study of religion ;the character of
Mohammed in history according to Moslem writers,
and the witness of the Koran to the integrity and
inspiration of the Bible. He is compelled by his
religion, therefore, to believe that which, if logically
followed out to its conclusion, will undermine the
foundation of his belief.
The Comrade of Calcutta (May 30th, 1914) frankly
admitted this difficulty :

" The Christian theologian can denounce the Koran

as a fabrication and a fraud, but the Mussulman, although
he may allege interpolations in the Biblical text, is pre-
vented by his own religious belief from denying the Divine
origin of the Christian Scriptures.Similarly, a Christian
may the prophet of Islam an impostor, and an evil
call
person, but a Mussulman's religion imposes upon him
respect for the personahty and character of Jesus Christ
as a Messenger of God."

We shall see later how this difficulty regarding the

character of the Prophet and that of the Christ has
given rise to new and startling attacks on the sinless-
ness of Jesus.
This abiding witness of the Koran to the Scriptures,
the colporteur with his insistent presentation of the
printed Gospel, the daily Bible teaching in thousands
of mission schools, and not least, the place this Book
occupies in Western literature and thought, all —
join in compelling the educated Moslem to become a
Bible student.
He is also driven to study the present religious
condition of the Christian world, and to compare
 TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST 257
it favourably or unfavourably with that of the world
of Islam, often appealing to the Bible as the standard
of his new ethics to condemn the worst side of Western
civilisation. His new horizon is world-wide. With
the sensitiveness and the rapidity (sometimes without
the accuracy) of a seismograph, the Moslem press
in Constantinople and Cairo, in Algiers and Calcutta,
records every event even at the antipodes that
concerns Islam, however remotely.
The World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh
was reported at some length in the leading Moslem
paper of Cairo. Translations of missionary literature
published in New York appear in the Lahore daily
papers. Nothing that happens in Europe and
which seems to reflect on Christian civilisation
escapes the Moslem press. The feminist movement,
the Suffragette extravagances, a diplomatic dis-
closure or a speech of the German Emperor, American
divorce scandals, the social evils of Paris or of
Liverpool, all are served up to Moslem readers with
the moral " Such is Christianity, and such is the
:

programme of Christian Europe."

The information is often, we admit, inaccurate or
even grotesque in its character. The paper called
the El-Afkar, for example (Cairo, March 22nd, 1914),
had a long article by a Persian Moslem on the subject,
" The Impact of the Missionaries upon the Moslem
World," in which he gave an exaggerated account
of the strength of Protestant missions, quoting from
a French periodical that the Protestants spent unheard
of sums of gold in the spread of the Gospel. From
Canada and America a total of two and a half million
pounds yearly, exclusive of what comes from Eng-
land and Australia. He estimates the total spent on
foreign missions by Protestant missions at thirteen
17
258 ATTITUDE OF MOSLEMS
million pounds, and the total force of missionaries,
European and native, at five and a half million.
Of these " ninety-three thousand men and women are
specially set apart to engage in the distribution of
"
the Bible !

The Conference at Kikuyu held almost as large a

place in the Moslem press recently as it did in Eng-
land. Long articles indicated how educated Moslems
saw good or ill for Islam in this attempted Christian
union. One paper remarked :

" The pious fraud engineered in the Protestant meeting

at Kikuyu is too glaring to hoodwink even a superficial
eye. The Protestant sects are notoriously divided from
each other by difference of belief of the most fundamental
character. Do all Protestants even believe in the Trinity ?
Many of them are Unitarians almost like non-Christian
religions. Do they believe in one common baptism ?
Some hold that baptism is only harmless water, some that
it removes all sins, some that it should be given to children,
some that it must be reserved for people of full age. Do
all of them believe in the Communion of Saints ? Many
of them believe it in all sorts of different meanings.
Some hold that Christians on earth can pray to Christians
who are dead on behalf of other Christians expired.
Others deny this, and believe that no one here or here-
after can know or do anything whatsoever with one
another. Do they believe in ' the One Catholic Church
which they pretended at Kikuyu to be a universal article
of their unity of faith ? On the other hand, very few
' '

of them believe in One Catholic Church of any kind

whatsoever. Do they believe in the remission of sins ?
Most of them do not and those who say they do have very
;

different ideas on the subject. Must a Protestant priest

or bishop be consecrated in regular succession by previous
bishops ? Can any layman without any consecration
by bishops become a priest or minister and teach out of
 TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST 259

the Sacred Scripture. On these points, too, there is

nothing but contradiction among the Protestant de-
nominations represented at Kikuyu."

All of which shows that Christianity is not only

under but that Moslems are fully aware thai our
fire,

lack of unity is a real lack of strength.

The criticism of missions by the Moslem press does
not prevent an increasing imitation of modem mis-
sionary methods in the defence and spread of Islam.
Moslem societies are being formed throughout India
and Egypt with the avowed purpose of checking
the influence of missions, preventing attendance at
Christian meetings, and persuading converts to return
to Islam. I have before me the constitution and
by-laws of one such society founded last year, with
headquarters in Alexandria. It has officers, com-
mittees, branches, two kinds of membership (honorary
and active by the payment of at least a shilling
monthly), and an ambitious programme. The recent
efforts of Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din and his supporters
in Woking, England, " to spread Islam in Europe, or
at least refute the baseless charges brought against
Islam," are generally known through his publications.
What is not so well known is that women's missionary
societies are being formed in India to finance the
scheme (the Comrade, May 9th, 1914, p. 377).
We now turn to the heart of the problem. What
is the present attitude of educated Moslems towards
Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour ? It is twofold.
On the one hand, although this attitude is utterly
opposed to the spirit and teachings of the Koran
itself, there are bitter and blasphemous attacks on
the supernatural character of Jesus and His sinless-
ness. On the other hand, there is unexpected and
260 ATTITUDE OF MOSLEMS
outspoken testimony to His moral greatness and the
His teaching and life in transforming character.
effect of
Seyid Mohammed Rashid Ridha, the editor of El-
Manar, Mohammed Tewfik Sidki, both of Cairo,
Mohammed Tahir-ut-Tanir, of Beirut, a certain
and the authors of some
section of the press in India,
of the pamphlets published by the Mohammedan
Tract and Book Depot at Lahore, are the leading
exponents of the new hostile polemic.
Much of what has appeared in print, both in English
and Arabic, in India and in Egypt, is of such degrading
character and so utterly unworthy of educated and
honest Moslems that we are not surprised that when
it was published in Cairo the editor of El-Manar

was constrained to publish an apology after the

offence and in India it was described by the Secre-
;

tary of State as " wantonly scurrilous and offensive."

Two of the Indian newspapers in question, Ahl-
i-Hadith and Badr, were dealt with under the Press
Act in June 1914 for publishing their blasphemous
articles on the Birth of the Messiah. The latter
paper quoted from another Moslem sheet An-Najm,
a long pseudo-scientific account of the alleged natural-
ness of the virgin birth on the absurd theory (which
was fortified by a Koran text) " that Mary was a
true hermaphrodite."
The Comrade reprinted the greater part of this
offensive article (June 6th, 1914), and expressed sur-
prise at the opinion of Sir Michael O'Dwyer that " it
was calculated to bring into contempt the Christian
population of the province." Referring to the other
paper, Ahl-i-Hadith, the Comrade goes on to prove
that Moslem writers can say what they please re-
garding the character of Jesus, provided they use
as the object of their accusations and blasphemies
 ;

TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST 261

" the Jesus of the Gospel " and not the " Isa of the
Koran.'* The editor writes :

" Let us now see whether the writer in the Ahl-i-

Hadith has done anjrthing more reprehensible in dealing
with Christ's sinfulness or sinlessness according to the
law. Once more we must bear in mind that the writer
is not dealing with Jesus as the Mussulmans know and

venerate him, but with the Jesus of the Gospel.' What he

'

does is to quote texts from the Gospels and, whether one

agrees with his interpretation or not, it cannot be denied
that the texts can be interpreted in a manner which do
not do justice to so great and holy a personality. The
well-known text in Matthew, I come not to send peace
'

but a sword,' etc., can easily bear an interpretation

wholly different from that which Christians accept, and
we have no doubt that if an Indian patriot used such
expressions to-day the police would have something to
say to him, and the authorities of our colleges would
certainly hold up the man who boasted that he had come
'
to set a man against his father to public opprobrium
'

in the interests of discipline. Take Christ's abuse of the

Pharisees and Scribes as an evil and adulterous genera-
'

tion,' and a generation of vipers.' We know what the

'

Pharisees and Scribes were like in the days of Christ

but we have no Pharisees and Scribes among us now who
can count on the support of officialdom when Young'

hot-heads call them by names not half so abusive."

'

" Again, Christ accused the prophets who had

preceded him of being thieves and robbers." The
writer quotes other passages and offers a running
criticism of unequal merit, and finally cites Matt,
xix. 17 :
" And He said unto him, Why eallest thou
Me good ? There is none good but one that is —
God." So much for ''Jesus of the Gospel." But
what of Jesus as the writer believes Him to be ?
262 ATTITUDE OF MOSLEMS
Does he consider Him to be a disturber of peace and
a man given to abuse of others, an ungrateful son or
a brother without affection, the author of vain pro-
phecies and a teacher of dissembling, fond of loving
women who were not related to him, and of wine-
drinking, as, according to him, the texts cited by
him suggest ? Let us give the reply in his own
words. He concludes the peccant article with the
following

" In short, according to the decision of the Old and New

Testaments, Jesus was sinful by 'origin and according
to law. If he was sinful he cannot atone for the sins of
others, according to the Christian teachings. So Jesus
can in no way carry away the sins of all Christians.
Christian friends, give up this unbecoming and fanciful
idea of Atonement, and believe in the Holy Book, which
in a few but portentous words calls " Jesus, son of
Mary," illustrious in this world and the world to
come ' "

Another writer of this polemic school informs us

that Jesus died young, and was crucified because He
was rude to the " mother who kept awake for nights
that he might sleep, who many a time went without
meals that he might eat, and bore trouble that he
might rest in comfort." Does not the Bible say,
" Honour thy father and mother, that thy days may
be long," and does not Matthew tell us that " Jesus
said unto her, Woman, what have I to do with you ?
"
With still greater effrontery one of the pamphlets
published at Lahore speaks of the marriage at Cana
in Galilee and of other events in His life :

" Jesus also insulted his mother on this occasion, and

the apology that he was then under the influence of wine
cannot excuse him, for on another occasion (Matt. xii. 48),
 :

TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST 263

when to all appearance in a sober state, he behaved even

more rudely towards her. Another miracle wrought by
Jesus was that of cursing the fig tree. Pinched by
hunger (a hungry God was never known before the advent
of Jesus) he ran to a fig tree; but, poor hunger-bitten
God, he did not know that the time of the figs was not
'

yet.' Naturally enough he found not figs, but instead

of cursing himself, he cursed the faultless fig tree " (Mark
xi. 11-14).

Again, referring to the Gospel story of His death

" The Jews alone showed the firmness of purpose, and,
unlike the second person of the Trinity, did not swerve
a hair's breadth from the path which they had chosen,
keeping to their ground until they saw Jesus suspended
on the cross, that the eternal decree might be fulfilled.
What a pity that God could not show the same persever-
ance. Having first audaciously put himself forward to
undergo the punishment that was destined for the whole
human race, he shrank when he saw actual danger, and
at last, his heart failing him, cried out, Eli, Eli, lama
sabachthani, and prayed the Father to save him from
death on the cross."

But the author of El ^Akaid-ul-Wathaniya fi

diyanati-l-Messihiya goes to even greater length in
his hatred of the Gospel story of the Crucifixion.
So also did El-Manar on the
in its recent articles
genealogy of Jesus, His human origin. His relations
with John, His visits to Bethany, and His drunken-
ness at the Last Supper. All these accusations are
based by educated Moslems on the record of the four
Gospels as they interpret them.
The Islamic Review summed it up in these words :

" He loved women who were not related to him in any

way. John xi. 5, 20, 28, 29 :
'
Now Jesus loved Martha
264 ATTITUDE OF MOSLEMS
and her sister, and Lazarus.' He used to drink wine.
Matt. xxvi. 29 But I say unto you, I will not drink
:
'

henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when

I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.' And
he made others drink. John ii. 6-10 and Matt. xix. 17 :

'
And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good ?
—
There is none good but one that is God.' Here Jesus
confesses that he is not sinless. In short, according to
the decision of the Old and New Testaments, Jesus was
sinful by nature and according to Law. If he was sinful
he cannot atone for the sins of others, according to
the Christian teachings. So Jesus can in no way carry
away the sins of all Christians. Christian friends, give
up this unbecoming and fanciful idea of Atonement,
and believe in the Holy Book, which in a few but por-
tentous words says about Jesus, son of Mary, as illustrious
in this world and the world to come."

One is constantly reminded, when compelled to

read these blasphemous articles by those who still
call themselves Moslems, of the words of Luke in the
Gospel " And when they had blindfolded Him,
:

they struck Him on the face, and asked Him, saying,

Prophesy, who is it that smote Thee ? " " Father,
forgive them ;know not what they do."
for they
It is ato turn from all this kind of argu-
relief
ment and bitter opposition to outspoken testimony
in favour of Christ and Christianity. This is perhaps
not so common, but it is even more indicative of the

real situation. While some are ready to cry, " Away

with Him, not this man, but Mohammed," others
are hailing Christ with glad Hosannas as their ideal
of character and the hope of humanity. In both
cases educated Moslems are compelled to face the
fact of the Christ. He is becoming more and more
the centre of thought and discussion in the Moslem
 —

TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST 265

world. Bey in a small volume on

'At a Hussein
political economy and the history of civilisation in
relation to Islam (Cairo), writes :

" The Summary of Jesus' teaching was as follows :

" First, He taught the Jews, who were fanatically incHned

against the Roman Government, the fundamental differ-
ences between the Church and the State. Secondly, He
taught that their rulers and chiefs were corrupted by
love of money, and therefore taught the duty of giving
to the poor and not treasuring upon earth. Thirdly,
He saw that the poor were greatly neglected and despised,
so He naturally turned to them, mingling with them
and blessing them, and so laying the foundations of the
community life. Fourthly, He observed that envy was
rife, and so He preached in its place the principles of

gentleness and forgiveness, saying that the greatest of

all sins was to allow the sun to set upon your anger against
your brother. Fifthly, He saw that there was no fellow-
ship in service nor compassion, so He commanded to
His disciples mutual assistance and service without pay,
saying to them : Whoso compelleth thee to go one mile,
'

go with him twain.' But the most remarkable thing

which our Lord Isa commanded was universal love.
He did not cease to preach it and proclaim it so that He
even said the whole law and the prophets are fulfilled
in love, and His teaching concerning love was so strong
that He commanded men to love even their enemies and
those that harmed them and this surely is a principle
;

of life higher than all other principles, for everything is

established in love, and in love and through love every-
thing revives, and by means of love universal benevo-
lence is completed, for man's love to his brother gives
him happiness hereafter and in this world. ... All this
the well-balanced mind accepts and approves of, but the
question arises, is it possible for a man to love his enemies
"
and do good to those that hate him ?
 266 ATTITUDE OF MOSLEMS
So high are the ideals of Christ, so wonderful the
impression created by His personality and His
teaching, that it startles and awakens incredulity.
We must incarnate the teaching of our Master to
win those who ask, " Is it possible ? "
Only those who live this teaching before the eyes
Moslems can answer the questions put by this
of the
type of educated Moslem. Not by controversy and
not by argument, but by the Spirit of Love, will such
be won for the Christ whose teaching they have
already made their ideal.
Mr. G. Khuda Bukhsh, in his Essays, Indian and
Islamic, says (p. 246)

" The prophets and reformers have been and always

will be men of like passions with us, with this all-important
difference —
that in them the Divine spark was not suffered
prematurely to die away. They felt the inward message
and determined to carry it out. Socrates condemned
. . .

as a corrupter of youth, Jesus crucified as a setter forth

of strange things, Mohammed persecuted for his religious
mission .the world, however, only sees at rare
. .

—
intervals the vision the supreme beatific vision of a
Socrates, a Jesus, a Mohammed. ..."

Not only does this writer speak of Jesus in such

high terms, but he again and again quotes New
Testament language with approval

"Is it not religion which falls on dry hearts like

. . .

rain, and which whispers to self-weary moribund man,

'
Thou must be born again " ? " Sons of God,' " he writes,
'

have the wisdom of this world as well as of the next ;

the highest goal in life is to become like to God with a

pure mind, and to draw near to Him and to abide in Him "
(pp. 261, 262) and again, " The governing principles of
;

all religions is the same. In the language of the apostle

 TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST 267

James [sic] :
'
Pure religion and undefiled before God and
the Father to visit the fatherless and widows in
is this,

their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the

"
world.'
" This the burden," he says, " of all religions,
is

and this is the burden of Islam " (pp. 20, 21). How
great the distance is between the ideal Islam and the
reality, we also learn from his book. Who can read
the severe criticisms of this educated Moslem on the
popular doctrine of Allah more trenchant than—
Palgrave's famous characterisation and his plea for —
the idea of a merciful Father, without realising that
Christ's character and words have influenced all this

new teaching ?

A few years ago it was my good fortune to be at

Kerbela in Turkish Arabia and to attend the funeral
services of a Mujtahid who had died a martyr to
Moslem fanaticism. The funeral oration, given in
Arabic, was largely a panegyric in words of the New
Testament, especially taken from St. Matthew,
chaps, v.-vii. and Rom. xii.—all the Christian ideals
of virtue were ascribed to the deceased. In the
same spirit one of the nationalist daily papers in

Cairo last year translated, chapter by chapter, Samuel

Smiles' Essays on Character and on Self-Help, for
its readers.
Another Cairo paper recently had a signed article
by a leading Moslem of Shebin-El-Kom, protesting
vigorously against the methods employed by some
Moslems in buying back Christian converts he then ;

paid a very high tribute to the superior moral char-

acter of Christians as compared with Moslems (Misr,
May 14th, 1914).
shows how the old spirit of fanaticism is
All this
disappearing, and how Moslems of the better classes
268 ATTITUDE OF MOSLEMS
are proud of their new tolerance, and many of them
wilHng to see fair play in argument.
At the Moslem Anglo-Oriental Educational Con-
ference held inLucknow (December 1912) there were
many happy proofs of this new attitude toward
Christian missions. A reception was held for the
delegates by Reid Christian College and Isabella
Thoburn College, attended by two hundred Moslems.
The Chairman, Major Seyyid Hassan Bilgrami, M.D.,
made a remarkable address praising the efforts of
missionary education from the days of Carey and
Marshman. He mentioned among the finest institu-
tions for education in the whole world, the Syrian
Protestant College at Beirut, and Robert College,
Constantinople.
It is more noteworthy and indicative of this
still

new spirit tolerance and appreciation that El

of
Muayyad, the leading Moslem daily paper in Cairo and
in the Moslem world, welcomed the proposal of
a
Cairo Christian university, and prophesied a great
future for it, " although we know that the
college
willbe established in the name of evangelism and be
guided by the missionaries " {El Muayyad, June 7th,
1914).
Compare in contrast, on the other hand, the bitter
attack on Beirut College and the evil results of
Christian education that appeared in Es-Sha'ab, a
nationalist organ of Cairo, onJune 23rd, 1914.
Most educated Moslems fully understand that the
old weapons of intolerance and violence have had
their day, and that a new era of liberty and enlighten-
ment has come. When a member of the Legislative
Assembly in Egypt demanded at its first session that
the Ministry of Education should keep watch over
mission schools and prevent Christian missionaries
 TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST 269

from teaching the fundamentals of their faith to

Moslem pupils, the demand was mocked and bitterly
opposed, so that no action was taken.
Without, therefore, in any way understanding the
new anti-Christian attitude of some educated Moslems
and the Pan-Islamic efforts of others to oppose
Christian missions by every modern method of attack
or defence, it yet remains true that the whole situa-
tion is hopeful to the last degree. The light is break-
ing everywhere.
There never was so much friendliness, such willing-
ness to discuss the question at issue, such a large
attendance of Moslems at Christian schools, hospitals,
public meetings, and even preaching services as there
is to-day. true in spite of public warnings
And this is

against having dealings with Christian missionaries,

or, as recently in Turkey, systematic attempts to
boycott Christians commercially. The American
Mission in Egypt has a committee on evangelistic
work which after a careful study has just made
this report
" At no time in the history of the Mission has there
been such an urgent call for aggressive evangeHsm among
all classes. The special religious awakening among
educated Moslems in all parts of Egypt has brought upon
us the twofold burden First, how to deal with convicted
:

and converted Moslems; and second, how to meet the

antagonistic opposition of Moslem societies. This
awakening has brought about such a spirit of inquiry,
with the result that an overwhelming number of Moham-
medans are prepared to hear the Gospel and to study the
Bible, thatwe find ourselves insufficient in number and
equipment to deal successfully with the present situation."

What is true of Egypt is true, mutatis mutandis,

of Turkey, Persia, India, Algeria, and Java as abun-

270 ATTITUDE OF MOSLEMS
dant testimony and recent missionary correspondence
could show. And what does it all mean ? It means
that we should press forward with all our might
plans for immediate evangelisation of these educated
classes. They are adrift, and the Gospel alone can
give them new anchorage. They are hungry for the
friendship that does not patronise and the love that
can forgive. They have lost faith in the old Islam
and reach out to new ideals m ethics. Who can satisfy
them but Christ ? This is the missionaries' supreme
opportunity. If we can win the leaders of Moslem
thought now, Reformed Islam will be an open door
into Christianity.
 CHAPTER XV
THE MESSAGE AND THE MAN

271
 —
" And if we would read the lesson of history not only
the lesson which Islam brings, but that lesson reiterated
again and again in the histor}^ of the Christian Church
we shall find the same result. All attempts to simplify
'
the metaphysical basis of our faith in a '
unitarian
direction have, under the test of time and life, failed.
Deists and theists have come and gone. Ethics and
natural theology have claimed their own and more,
have had, for a time, their claims allowed and then have
vanished. In many ways the Christian Church has
moved ; the guidance of the Spirit has not failed it.
Its faith has seen many hypotheses, has been enfolded
in many garments. But to the seeker in the great space
that lies between Materialism and Pantheism, the presen-
tation that still expresses most adequately the mystery

behind our lives, is that in the Christian Trinity, and the

words that come nearest are those of the Nicene Creed."
Duncan Black MacDonald.

272
 CHAPTER XV
THE MESSAGE AND THE MAN
A. MISSIONARY is not only one who is sent but,
one who is sent with a message. The true missionary
must not only have a message, but he must be the
living embodiment of that message and the incarna-
tion of the truth which he teaches. Like an ambassa-
dor at a foreign court, he must not only carry creden-
tials from his own government, but he must be loyal
to that government and represent its ideals and ideas
to those to whom he goes. The knowledge and
experience of this truth make the missionary. He
stands as a witness to the truth which he possesses,
and proclaims it by his life as well as by his lips.
If the man who goes out to the Orient has no
larger and fuller message in regard to God and His
dealings with men than that already possessed by
those who ardently believe the non- Christian re-
ligions, it is perfectly evident that when he comes
in contact with those to whom he is sent the overflow
of faith will be in the wrong direction ; and it is also
clear that unless he knows by personal experience
what the Truth can do in the transformation of
his own character and in conquering his own tempta-
tions, he cannot help others. The man who believes
neither in revelation nor inspiration and meets a
Mohammedan who fully believes that God has spoken
and that we have His word as our sufficient guide to
i8
274 THE MESSAGE AND THE MAN
being made whole, is looked upon with pity because
he has no real message to give. The Hindu pundit
would be able to demonstrate both the reasonableness
and the necessity of a divine incarnation to the man
who denied that it was possible for God to appear
in the flesh, and even the Buddhist or Animist might
contribute some element of religious faith to the out-
and-out so-called " Christian agnostic."
There is some truth in all the non-Christian re-
ligions, and much good in many of them. No one is

so ready to admit this as the man who knows from his

own personal experience the full power of Christianity.
He who knows the superiority of what he possesses
is never afraid of comparisons, but the man without

conviction has no certain standard by which to test

the truth of other systems.
Christianity is the final religion, and its message
Christ Incarnate, Crucified, Risen, and Glorified
is the one thing needed to evangelise the world.

Unbelief does not trouble itself by confuting any other

religion than Christianity. We never hear of agnostics
or sceptics writing against Mohammedanism or
Buddhism with the avowed purpose of proving their
falsehood. This is a remarkable tribute to the
unique character of Christianity, and indirectly proves
that its demands are also unique. If a man accepts
Christianity, he must live according to its teachings
or be accused of hypocrisy; but in other religions
faith and morality are either loosely connected or
utterly divorced from each other. Because Chris-
tianity claims to be the absolute religion and affirms
that it is a matter of spiritual life or death whether
men accept it, opponents cannot leave it alone ; they
know Christianity will not leave them alone. It is

this unique character of the message that makes the

 THE MESSAGE AND THE MAN 275

missionary's sphere as universal as the needs of

humanity.
Christians may differ among themselves in regard
to the interpretation of the non-essentials, but in
regard to the fundamentals of the Christian faith
they are agreed. The least common denominator
of the Gospel as Paul understood it is given by him
in these words " Now I make known unto you,
:

brethren, the Gospel which I preached unto you,

which also ye received, wherein also ye stand, by which
also ye are saved I make known, I say, in what
;

words I preached it unto you, if ye hold it fast,

except ye believed in vain. For I delivered unto
you first of all that which I also received, how
that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scripturesand that He was buried, and that He
;

hath been raised on the third day according to

the Scriptures." He tells the Corinthians that this
Gospel is sufficient for their salvation. The man
who does not hold with conviction even this simple
statement of the faith surely has no message large
enough and strong enough to warrant a journey to the
antipodes. Nor will it profit him to have only an
intellectual apprehension of these truths. He must
have a vital experience of their power, or his message
will be without sincerity and without spiritual
result.
When the earnest seeker asks, " What is Christi-
anity ? " he has a right to an answer that, however
brief, shall be definite and authoritative, and no
man is qualified to attempt to answer so important
a question for the seeker after truth unless he himself
has tested in his own experience the principles of the
faith set forth in his message. The main source of
our knowledge of things spiritual is the Bible, and no
276 THE MESSAGE AND THE MAN
man can give its central message unless he believes it
true. You cannot read even the first chapter of
Mark without seeing that it proclaims the super-
human character of our faith, the deity of Jesus
Christ and the necessity for the Atonement. There
are some things which are so fundamental that to
remove them is to overthrow the whole superstructure.
The struggle is an old one. The fight has always
been against the supernatural claims of Christianity.
Those who are animated merely by the altruistic
spirit — —
the very product of Christianity even though
they have a Christian heritage in Christian lands,
want to accept the fruit, instead of realising that the
fruit depends on the root and this has always resulted
;

in a weakening faith and a curtailment or adulteration

of the Gospel.
" In apostolic days," said the Bishop of Liverpool
at the British Student Volunteer Conference in 1908,
" men advocated a Gospel without the Cross. But
St. Paul would have none of it. In the fourth century
Arius taught a Christianity without a perfectly divine
Saviour, and the Church would not have it. In the
fifteenth century the Renaissance, intoxicated by the
discovery of Greek and Roman literature, despised
the jargon of St. Paul and would have paganised
'
'

Christianity, but the Reformation brought Northern

Europe back to the Scriptures and to the Christ.
To-day men are proclaiming a Gospel without the
supernatural. They are asking us to be content with
a perfect human Christ with a Bethlehem where no
;

miracle was wrought ; with a Calvary which saw

subHme self-sacrifice, but no atonement for sin with
;

a sepulchre from which no angel's hand rolled away

the stone. But we must have none of it. We will
hold fast, we will transmit the faith once for all de-
 THE MESSAGE AND THE MAN 277

livered to the saints. We will hand down to our

children, we proclaim to all the tribes of the
will
earth, Christ Incarnate, Atoning, Risen, Ascended,
our Intercessor at God's right hand, waiting to come
again to judge the quick and the dead."
The man who thinks he can help to evangelise the
world without faith in Christ and experience of His
power will disappoint those who send him, and will
himself regret ever having attempted to do the work
of a missionary. Many blighted, disappointed lives
are explained by this fact.
Throughout all the East thousands have lost faith
in their old religions, and are longing for guidance,
not to new doubts, but to a new faith. The spiritual
hunger of men in Korea will not be satisfied by philan-
thropic effort for their temporal needs. The educated
classes in Egypt, who have lost faith in the Koran as
the very Word of God, will not find rest for their souls
and help in temptation from those who have not
tested the truth of the gospel of Christ and are pre-
pared to present the living Christ with that confidence
which is the result of personal knowledge of His
power to enable men to live the victorious life. Men
everywhere are hungering for the living Christ.
There is no one who can guide them but the man
who has that thorough grip on the fundamentals of
the Christian faith which comes as a result of having
experienced its power.
It is strange that this should not appear axiomatic
to those who are filled with philanthropic love for
humanity and think that they can do good service on
the foreign field. Yet there are men who think that
they can help to evangelise the w^orld without the
message of the Gospel in their hearts and in their life.
A missionary candidate recently wrote " I do not
:
278 THE MESSAGE AND THE MAN
feel free to force my own individual opinion on my
fellow-man, nor do I think that by proselytising the
heathen we benefit him. Yet," etc. Such a man
has no true idea of a missionary. The missionary
does not force his individual opinion on any man.
His convictions are the product of his experience.
His experience came when Truth made him its
captive and its advocate. He has a message because
he has accepted the Truth and his own life has been
mastered by its power.
There are also men who think that character has
little relation to creed, and that the non-Christian
world will find Jesus Christ without the message of
the Cross. Such an one recently wrote :

" I should like to take the position of a medical man

rather than of a missionary, as I am not only not versed
along religious lines, but am primarily a medical man at
heart. I believe that character is a more important
consideration than mere religious belief. I attend Church,
but am not a member, and am thoroughly of the new '

school ' in my beliefs concerning the Christian faith."

There is nothing to prevent a man with an altruistic

spirit going out to practise medicine in a non-Christian

country in the same way as he practises in this
country, namely, at his own charges. But it is not
reasonable to expect a Mission Board, organised for
the express purpose of giving a knowledge of Jesus
Christ to the non-Christian world, to send him out at
their expense.
A medical practitioner, teacher, or an engineer
might do excellent service on the foreign field, as well
as at home along philanthropic lines, although the
fierce temptations of the Orient and the non- Christian
atmosphere make it very hard for any one not
 THE MESSAGE AND THE MAN 279

dominated by the life of Christ and who has not

tested His power to retain moral character.
The non- Christian world, however, needs not
only medical skill, but the skill of reaching men's
hearts with a message of hope. The only men who
have worked modern miracles on the foreign field
have been the men with a message.
This does not mean that the one message is not
expressed in diverse ways and by every possible
method. " There are diversities of gifts, but the
same Spirit " uses them to the one end, that of
bringing men to Christ and Christ into the lives of
men. " There is only one aim before us missionaries,"
said Donald Fraser, after experience in the heart of
Africa, to the students at the Nashville Student
—
Volunteer Convention, " it is the presentation of
Christ to the world. I do not for a moment fancy
that such an aim limits in any way the methods which
we may use. Everything which elevates the social
conscience, which purifies administration, which
sanctifies laws— every method of that sort may be-
come an avenue to lead to Jesus Christ. But this
I say, that these things by themselves are useless ;
that unless these avenues lead directly to the living
Christ, we are only doing a temporal work which will
not last through the ages. I say, too, that if we who
lead along these avenues are not to end in a maze,
we must step side by side with Jesus Christ, that the
people may at last reach to Him. Let me press it.
The supreme end of the missionary cannot be attained
by anything else than by spiritual methods, by
spiritual ambitions, the elevation of the human race
until it returns to God, and the face of God is again
formed in man."
It was Henry Martyn who, when a Mohammedan
 280 THE MESSAGE AND THE MAN
was speaking derisively of Christ, said " I could
:

not endure existence if Christ were not glorified.

It would be hell for me if He were always to be
thus dishonoured." Raymund Lull, Robert Moffat,
James Gilmour, David Livingstone, John G. Paton,
James Chalmers, Grenfell of Labrador, and Grenfell
of the Congo, with all the other heroes of the Cross,
have been able to say with the Apostle Paul, " We
preach Christ crucified." Every one of them, how-
ever diverse in call, talents, and environment, attained
missionary success because they had a message and
that message the Gospel, which they preached not as
a theory or creed, but as their very life.
A man who has mere opinions and no convictions
wrought out in his own life's experience as regards
the Christ, is a man without a message. The man who
expects to go out and represent Christianity in the
non-Christian world must carry with him the con-
sciousness of the power of Christ enabling him hour
by hour to live the victorious life. It is the one in-
dispensable part of the missionary's outfit and the one
that convinces the other man of the truth of the
message.
Some years ago a missionary was preaching in
a hospital. He spoke of the love of Christ, and en-
deavoured to set forth its length and breadth and
depth and height, using the words of the Apostle
as the basis of what he was saying. He endeavoured
to present the subject simply, so that it could be
understood by the uneducated people, who had
gathered in the waiting-room of the hospital.
At the close of the address a Moslem, unprepossess-
ing in appearance, who had evidently not been to the
hospital before, stepped forward and with Bedouin
boldness exclaimed bluntly, " I understood all you
 THE MESSAGE AND THE MAN 281

told us, because I have seen that sort of a man

myself."
In the conversation that followed, this man, who
came from a city about a thousand miles distant,
began to describe, in response to inquiries, a stranger
who had come to his city and took up his residence
there. The Moslem told how he had watched the
stranger.
" Why," he said, " he was a strange man. When
people did wrong to him, he did good to them. He
looked after sick folks and prisoners, and everybody
who was in trouble. He even treated negro slave
boys and sick Arabs kindly. He was always good
to other people. Lots of them never had such a
friend as he was. He used to take long journeys
in the broiling sun to help them. He seemed to think
one man was as good as another. He was a friend to
all kinds of people. He was just what you said."
It surprised the missionary that this rude un-
educated man had recognised in the description
which he had given of the love of Christ, a Christian
missionary and greater was his surprise later to
;

find that it was his own brother who some years before
had opened a mission in that city. That Mohamme-
dan had not only heard the message of the missionary,
but he had seen it exemplified in the missionary's
life. What higher tribute could be paid to the daily
life of one of God's servants than the fact that an
ignorant Mohammedan, studying him day by day,
recognised in his daily life the principles of the Gospel
of Christ !

The Christian Church has established and sup-

ported the missionary enterprise to give the non-
Christian world the Gospel of Christ as it has been
received and interpreted by that Church. Those who
282 THE MESSAGE AND THE MAN
do not accept the message, though they may call
themselves members of a Church, have nothing to
take to the mission field, and manifestly, instead of re-
presenting the Church, they mz^-represent the Church
that sends them.
All missionary Boards should not only emphasise
the highest physical and intellectual qualifications
of candidates for missionary work, but even more
strongly insist that they be spiritually qualified. Only
spiritual men are a real acquisition and reinforcement
in the conduct of a spiritual enterprise. Unless the
missionary's first love is his love for Christ crucified
and exalted, he will lose it, grow lukewarm and finally
cold, when surrounded by the atmosphere of heathen-
ism. The real missionary spirit is the Holy Spirit.
He Himself gave us the message in the Scriptures,
and in the Christ enables us to interpret it to others.
Not until a man's life has been transformed by the
power of the message he goes to proclaim is he ready
to endure the hardship and to be patient under the
adversity which is sure to be his experience as a
missionary. He must know that the Christian faith
is a reality ; that his faith is the " substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." He
believes that God has worked miracles in the past and
can work miracles to-day. He knows that Christianity
in its origin, history, and effect is from first to last
supernatural. The man who denies its supernatural
character cannot be a true missionary of the Christ,
even though he go to the mission field. The mis-
sionary spirit will not abide without the missionary
message. The giants in faith have been the giants
in faithfulness.
 INDEX
Abyssinia, 43, 56, 61, 207. Anjuman-i-Taraqqi Islam,

Acolutho, A., 162. 166.

Adana, 119, 127. Annalideir Islam, 45.
Aden, 66, 119. Annam, 68.
Adrianople, 119. Arabia, loi ff. ; Moslem pop-
ulation, 115;
68, Nile
Aegean Islands, 69.
Afghanistan, Arabic in, 193 ;
Mission press literature in,
fanaticism, loi ; islamised, 32.

75 ; Koran
104 Mos-
in, ;
Arabian Mission, 106 ff.
lem population, 68 un- ;
Arabic Bible, outreach of, 25.

occupied mission field, 47, Arabic, spread of, 31, 156,

115 young Afghans, 212.

;
192 ff.
Africa, Moslem population, Arabic-Persian version of the
43. 57> 58. 61 ff.; un- Koran, 170.
occupied fields, 49. Argentine, Moslem popula-
Aintab, 120. tion, 69.
Akmolinsk, 77. Armenian Church, 39, 40, 232;
'Alam, suppression of, 30. Moslems, 68, 78, 117.
Albania, 117, 222. Arnold, Prof., quoted, 45. 7^ ;

Aleppo, 119. Theo., 161.

Algeria, Arabic in, 192; Arrivabene, A., 161.
Moslem population, 63 ; Ashkabad, 76.
Moslem press, 248 Nile ;
Asia, Moslem population, 57,

Mission press literature, 32. 58, 66 ff.

American College for Girls, Asia Minor, Moslem popula-

Constantinople, 26. tion, 68 Nile Mission
;

American missions, Asia press literature in, 32.

Minor, 26; Nile valley, 31. 'Attar, Mohammed el, 181 ff.

Amin, Judge Kasim, quoted, Australia, Moslem popula-

126, 180, 219, 248. tion, 70.

Andijan, 77. Austria- Hungary, Moslem

Andrias, 7, 162. population, 69.
Angola, 61. Axenfeld, Dr. K., 43.
284 INDEX
Azhar, conditions 184 in, 219; number of Bible
curriculum, 144 reform, ; versions, 157.
29. 125 ; inquirers from, Bibliander, Theodore, 159,
220 f. 161.
BobrovinkofE, Mme, 56, y6,
Bab Fatooh, 233.
el 861
Baghdad, Cairo literature in, Boedi Oetama, 216.
28; missions at, 119; Bokhara, attacked by Sara-
Moslem press of, 248 ; cens, 672 A.D., 74 centre ;

struggle for Home Rule, of Moslem propaganda, 75,

210 railway, 102.;
77 government, 82
;

Baglitche-Serai, 81. Moslem population, 68 ;

Bahrein Islands, 66, 119. unoccupied mission field,

Baku, yj. 49, 115-
Balkan wars, 2)'^, 210. Bonaventura de Seve, 160.
Baluchistan, 10 1. Borden, Wm., 222.
Bandar Abbas, 103. Bosphorus, 24.
Bartema, visit to Mecca, 22. Boysen, 161.
Bartold, Prof. W., quoted Brazil, Moslem population,
81. 70; Moslem press, 207.
Barton, Dr. Jas., quoted, 25, Brent, Bishop, quoted, 51.
112. British Borneo, 66 East ;

Basutoland, 64. Africa, 32, 63 Guiana, 70.

;

Bechuanaland, 64. Broomhall, Marshall, 56, 207

Becker, Prof., 43, 45, 65 Brown, Dr. Francis, 44.
(note 4). Bryce, Viscount, 40.
Belgian Congo, 61. Bukhsh, S. Khuda, quoted,
Bengal, Christian converts in, 180, 217, 219, 246 ff., 266 f.
221 Nile Mission press
; Bulgaria, Moslem population,
literature in, 32 pilgrims ; 69.
to Mecca, 21. Burckhardt, visit to Mecca,
Bengali, as language of re- 22.
ligious literature, 156; Burma, 28.
translation of Koran in, Burton, 22, 168.
Bushire, 103.
- Berceau de Islam," 45. 1' Busrah, 103, 119, 210.
Beyrout, Faculte Orientale,
45 missions at, 119, 197.
; Caetani, Prince Leone, 45,
Bible House, Constantinople, 147 f., 204.
26. Cairo, centre of intellectual
Bible Society, work in Cairo, influence, 19, 26 ff. centre ;

31 Russia, 87 f.
; Arabia, ; of dervish orders, 30 ff. ;
 INDEX 285
conditions in, 184!., 248 ;
Comores, 62.
conference at, 113, 204; -*
Comrade," quoted, 205, 253,
journalism, 30 ff. ; Khedival 256.
library, 27 Moslem ag-
; Constantinople, centre of poli-
nostic influence of govern- tical influence, 19, 24 ff. ;

ment schools, 29; mosques, conquest by Turks, 24 ;

27 ;
population, 26 ff. ;
missionary occupation, 26,
printing presses, 28 site ; 119; Moslem press of, 248 ;

for Christian university, 31 ;

significance of present
students, 28. struggle for, 25.
Calcutta, Moslem press, 248. Coppolani, 31.
Cantine, Rev. Jas., quoted, Coptic Church, 31, 39.
107. Courtellemont, visit to Mecca,
Canton, Moslem prayer to- 22.
wards Mecca, 21 Cairo ; Crete, 69.
literature in, 28. Crimea, islamised, 75.
Cape Colony, Cairo influence Cromer, Earl of, quoted, 28,
at, 28 ; Koran in, 104 ; 123, 124, 195.
Moslem population, 64 ;
Cross, Mohammed's attitude
pilgrims to Mecca, 21 ; towards the, 230 ff.
prayers towards Mecca, 2 1 Cuba, Moslem population,
Cape Town, 9 1 fl. 70.
Casanova, 45. Curzon, Lord, quoted, 206.
Cemeteries, 21. Cyprus, Nile Mission press
Census of Moslem World, 55 ff. literature in, 32.
Central Asia, 49.
Ceylon, 66. Daghestan, yj.
Cheikho, Pdre, 45. Dahomey, 62.
China, Arabic in, 193 Mos- ; Damascus Railway, 114.
lem population, 56, 68 1, Damiry, Ed., 191.
221 Moslem prayer to-
; Danish translation of the
wards Mecca, 18 Nile ; Koran, 160.
Mission press literature in, Darfur, 65.
32. Denney, Dr. Jas., quoted, 227,
Chinese commentary on the 242.
Koran, 171 f. Depont, 30.
Chinese Turkestan, 32, 49. Dervish orders, 30.
Church Missionary Society in Dhu-al-Hajj, 146.
Cairo, 31. Dhu-al-Ka'da, 146.
Cilicia, 128. Diarbekr, 104.
Clark, Edson L., quoted, 105. Disintegration of Moslem
Clocks in Moslem lands, 1 50 ff. world, 208 f
286 INDEX
D'Ollone, Commandant, 56, French Equatorial Africa, 62 ;

207. Guiana, 70 Guinea, 62 ; ;

Doughty, 22, 164 ;

quoted, literature in Arabic trans-
232. lations, 30 Sahara, WTiite
;

Duab of Turkestan, 82. Fathers in the, 49 Somali- ;

Dutch East Indies, Moslem land, 62 translations of

;

population, 6y policy re-

;
the Koran, 160.
garding Islam, 212 Guiana, ; Frorief, Justus Fredericus,
70; translation of the 160.
Koran, 161. Fula, 65 (note 3).
Dwight, Dr., 26.
Gambia, 6^.
Edinburgh World ]^Iissionary Garabedian, Rev. S., 91.
Conference, 44, 204, 257. Gasprinsky, 79, 80, 219, 248.
Egypt, Arabic press, 31 ;
Gerdener, Rev. G. B., quoted,
Christian literature in, 32 ; 92.
Christian population, 31 ; German Colonial Congress of
Moslem population, 64 1910, 43, 212 Colonies ;

revival of Islam, 250 ff. in Africa, Moslem popula-

Egyptian Sudan, 32. tion, 56 South - West
;

Elisabetpol, jj. Africa, 6^ ; East Africa, 32,

English translations of the 63 ; translations of the
Koran, 163 S. Koran, 161.
Eritrea, 61. Glasemaker, J. H., 161.
Esperanto translation of the Gold Coast, 61.
Koran, 162. Goldsack, Rev. W., 173.
Europe, Moslem population, Goldziher, Prof., 45.
69. Great Britain, Moslem popu-
lation, 69.
Fahmy, Mansour, 248. Greece, 69.
Falconer, Keith, 133, 222. Grimme, Prof. Herbert, 45,
Federated Malay States, 67. 51.
Finley, Major, 205. Grosvenor, Gilbert H,, quoted,
Finns of the Volga, j^. 71-
Forbes, Dr., quoted, 141. Gujerati translation of the
Forsyth, Dr. P. T., quoted, Koran, 170.
226.
Fracassi, A., 162. Hajj al Akbar, 146.
France, Moslem population, Halil Halid, quoted, 233.
69. HanbaU school, 60.
French, Bishop V., 133, Hanifi school, 60.
222. Hansen, Dr., 43, 213.
 INDEX 287
Hartmann, Prof. M., 45, 58, Jakuts, jy.
65 (note 4). Jamad-al-Awal, 145 ; J.-ath-
Haussa, 65 (note 3), 192. Thani, 145.
Heathen Mohammedans of Jamaica, 70.
Malaysia, 60. Japan, Moslem population,
Hebrew translation of the 69; Moslem prayer towards
Koran, 160. Mecca, 19 Moslem pro-
;

Hedjaz Railway, 23, 206. paganda, 207.

Hermann of Dalmatia, Java, Cairo influence in, 28 ;

159. Christian converts, 221 ;

Hindi translation of the Koran in, 104, 172 Mos- ;

Koran, 170. lem population, 67 Pil- ;

"Hindustan Review," quoted, grimage to Mecca, 21 ;

208 f. Sharikat Islam, 216 ; edu-

Houtsma, 45. cation, 250.
Huber, Major R., map of the Jerusalem, 119.
Ottoman Empire, 40. Jessup, Dr. H. H., 57.
Hurgronje, Snouck, 22, 23, Jiddah, terminus of Hedjaz
45. 60. Railway, 23 missionary
;

work at, 219.

Ibn Saood, 211.
'Id-ul-Azha, 146. Kabyles, 233.
'Id-ui-Fitz, 146. Kadhriya, 81.
Ignorance in Islam, 26. Kaisariyah, 1 1 9.
Ilminsky, Nicholas S, 49, Kalkar, Dr. Christian H.,
86 f. 46.
Imad-ud-Din, Dr., 170. Kameruns, 32, 6-^^.

Imam-el-Muslimin, 24. Kars, yj.

India, Islam in, 183, 247 ;
Kashgar, 76.
Moslem population, 41, Kasimirski, 160.
66 f . ; Nile Mission press Kazan, yy , 79.
literature in, 32 ; spread Kerbela, 119, 203, 220, 267.
of Islam, 41. Keyser, Prof., 161.
Indo-China, loi. Khiva, 115.
Intellectual readjustment Khokand, yy,
among Moslems, 28 f. Kikuyu Conference, Moslem
Ireland, Alley ne, 59. criticism of, 258 f.

"Islamic Review," quoted, Kirghiz, 75, y6.

263 ff. Kirman, 119.
Ispahan, 119. Koelle, quoted, 238.
Italian Somaliland, 61 trans- ; Koran, 20 et passim.
lation of the Koran, 161. Kurds, yy.
288 INDEX
Kuteiba, 74. Margoliouth, Prof.^D. S., 45,

Kuweit, 102, 118. 58, 65 (note 4), 155, 164.

Marsovan, 120.
Lagos, 32. Martyn, Henry, 133, 222.
Lammens, P^re H., 45. Massignon, Louis, 45.
Lane-Poole, Stanley, quoted, Maurer, H., 128.
21 f., 157 f. Mauritanie, 62.
Larrey, Baron de, quoted, Mauritius, 64, 205.
105. Mayer, Miss J. von, 56, 76 ff.
Larson, E. John, quoted, 85. Mecca, centre of religious
Latin translations of the influence, 19, 20 ff., 106;
Koran,. 159 ff. conference at, 210 condi-
;

Le Chatelier, Prof., 45. tions at, 23, 182 pilgrim-

;

Leir, Jacob b. Israel ha, age, 20, 81, 97, 203 popu- ;

161. lation, question of

20;
Liberia, 43, 61. missionary occupation, 22,
Libya, 61. 23 railway
; to, 125 ;

Littmann, Dr. Enno, quoted, Sherif of, 210; universal

44. prayer towards, 21 f.
Lucknow Conference, 204 Medina, conditions at, 182 f. ;

Moslem Educational Con- pilgrimage to, 203.

ference, 268. Megerlin, Frederick, 161.
Lucky days, 151. Merv, ^6.
Lull, Raymund, 46, 222. Meshed, 219.
Mesopotamia, 66,
MacDonald, Prof. D. B., Mexico, Moslem population,
quoted, 45, 272. 70.
Madagascar, 62, 208. Mirza Ab'ul Fazl, 165.
Mahan, Capt., 118. Missionary education, influ-
Mahdism, 213. ence of, 214, 249.
Malaysia, 49, 106, 192, 208, "Missionary Review of the
212. World," Census of Moslem
Malays in South Africa, 92 ff. World, 57.
Malay translation of the -- Moayyad
" on Moslem
Koran, 170. population of the world, 57.
Maldive Islands, 66. Mohammed, 21 et passim.
Maliki school, 60. Mohammed Abdul Hakim
-'El-Manar," 205, 235 ff., 260. Khan, 165.
Mandingo, 65 (note 3). Montenegro, 69.
Maracci, Louis, 159. Montet, 45.
Marash, 120. Moondji, Abdul Kareem,
Mardin, 104, 119. quoted, 248.
 INDEX 289
Morocco, Arabic in, 192 ; Pan-Tjoork, 79.
changed conditions in, 220 ; Pan-Turkism, y%,
influence of Constantinople, Panthier, 160.
25 ; Moslem population, Payne, Dr., 222,
62 ; Nile Mission press Pennell, Dr., 222 f.

literature in, 32. Persia, intellectual centre of

Moslem, literature for children, Central Asia, 116 Moslem ;

196 f. ; propaganda, 254 ff. population, 69, 78, 115 ;

Mosques in South Africa, 95. Nile Mission press litera-

Mosul, 119. ture in, 32 political condi-
;

" Muhammadi," quoted, '^j. tions, 211.

Muharram, 145. Persian Armenia, 32.
Muir, Sir Wm., quoted, 194. Persian, as a language of
religious literature, 156
Nallino, C. A., 144. translation of the Koran,
Naqshabendi, 81. 170.
Natal, 32, 64. Petrus Venerabilis, 159.
New Guinea, 104. Philippine Islands, 25, ^y.
New School Moslems, 60, 208, Pilgrimage to Mecca, 21, 22.
215 f., 219, 245 ff. Pitto, Joseph, visit to Mecca,
Ngarpah, 172. 22.
Nigeria, 32, 67^. Portuguese East Africa, 61
Nile Mission press, 31 ff., 197. Guinea, 61.
Nisabori, quoted, 140 f. Prayer periods, 149.
Noldeke, Theodor, 45, 161. Propaganda of Islam from
Nording, J. T., 160. Cairo, 3 1 south of the
;

North America, Moslem popu- equator, 2>'^ Bokhara, 75,

;

lation, 69. Japan, 207.

77 \

Norwegian translation of the Pushtu translation of the

Koran, 160. Koran, 170.
Nyassaland, 32, 64.
Qadiana sect, 166 ff., 252.
Orange Province, 64.
Orenburg, yj. Rabi'a al-Awal, 145 ; R.-uth-
Oriental churches, 25, -3^%,
39, Thani, 145.
115. Rajah, 145.
"Orient and Occident," 156. Ralli, Augustus, 22.
Ramsay, Sir Wm., 24.
Palestine, 32, 115. Reckendorf, Hermann, 161.
Palmer, E. H., 164. Red Crescent Society, 231.
Pamir sects, 82. Reunion, 62.
Pan-Islamism, yZ, 209, 212 f. Richter, Prof. J., 65 (note 4).
19
290 INDEX
Rickmers, W. R., quoted, 82. Shaban, 145.
Riode Oro, 61. Shadiliyeh, 8 1
Robert College, 26, 120. Shafi school, 60.
Robert of Retina, 159. Shah, Dr. Ahmad, 170.
Rodwell, J. M., 164. Sharikat Islam in Java, 216.
Rogers, Miner, 128. Shawwal, 146.
Rohrbach, Dr., quoted, 102 f. Shedd, Dr., quoted, 123.
Roman Catholic, Missions to Sheldrake, Khalid, 162.
Moslems in Africa, 43, 49 ;
Shiah sect, 60, 239 f.

scholars of Islam, 45. Shiraz, 119.

Rumania, 69. Siam, Moslem population, 56,
Russia, Islam in, j-i) ^- J 69.
Moslem literature, 80 if. ; Siberia, 75, loi.
Moslem population, 68 ;
Sidqi, M. Tewfiq, 234, 255.
Moslem women, Zt^^ 84 if. \ Sierra Leone, 21, 63.
Nile Mission press litera- Sill, E. R., quoted, 190.

ture in, 32 no Protestant

; Simon, Gottfried, 60.
mission to Moslems, 48, Sindh, 32.
86 ff. ;
pilgrims to Mecca, Smyrna, 119, 120.
21; mission to Islam, ^2>'' Somaliland, 63, 213.
Russian translation of the South Africa, 91 ff.
Koran, 161. South America, 69 f.
Ryer, A. du, 160, 161. Spanish, Guinea, 61 ; transla-
tion of the Koran, 160.
Safar, 145. Strad, Rev. F. M., quoted,
Sahara, 28. 112.
Sale, Geo., 159, 161, 163. Strad, W. T., quoted, 26.
Salonica, 119. Straits Settlement, 67.
Samarkand, 74, ^6, 77, 83. Strategic survey and occupa-
Saratoff, 83. tion needed, 48 ff.
Sartes, yy. Sudan, 64.
Savary, 160. Sumatra, 104, 221.
Sayous, 45. Swahelis, 192.
Schaade, 45. Swaziland, 64.
Schweigger, 161. Swedish translation of the
Seligsohn, 45. Koran, 160.
Sell,Canon, quoted, 42 f. Syria, 32, 62>, 115.
Senegal, 62. Syrian Protestant College,
Senussi sect, 213. 120.
Servia, Moslem population,
69. Tabriz, 119.
Servier. A.. 212. Takle, Rev. J., quoted, 221.
 INDEX 291
Tannir, M. Tahir et, 234, 255. UUmann, 161.
Tarsus, 120. Ulug Beg, 145.
Tartary, islamised, 75. Union of Christian forces over
Tashkent, 77,S^. against Islam : Oriental
Tatars, 75. Churches, 40; between
Teheran, 119, 120. Protestant and Roman
" Terjuman," 79. Catholic, 42 ff., 50 fi. ; lines
Tersk, 77. for Protestant initiative,
Tibet, 69, loi. 44 ff. ; points of unity be-
Tiflis, 85. tween Christians, 46 ff.
Timbuctoo, 28, 49. United Provinces, 32.
Tobolsk, 21. Unity, and Spread of Islam,
Togo, 63. 39 of Christendom, cited
;

Togoudar Ogoul, 75. by "Muhammadi," 37; re-

Tornberg, 160. ferred to in Cairo press,
Tracy, President, quoted, 120. 38 ; of Moslem world,
Traditions on Jesus Christ, 19.
229 £E. Uralsk, 77.
Translations of the Koran, Urdu, as language of religious
155 ff. literature, 156; translations
Transvaal, 32. of the Koran, 169, 170.
Trebizond, 119. Usbeks, 77.
Trinidad, 70.
Tripoli, 32, 192. Wadai, 65 (note 4).
Troizk, 77. Wahl, G., 161.
Tuaregs, 232. Warneck, J., on Moslems in
Tunganis, 75. Malaysia, 60.
Tunisia, 32, 6-^, 192. Watches in Moslem lands,
Turkestan, islamised, 74, 75 ; 151 ff.

unoccupied field, 115; Watson, Dr. Chas. R., quoted,

women of, 83. 18,32.
Turkey in Europe, 32, 69, West Africa, 21.
116 f. Westermann, Prof. D., 57.
Turkish Arabia, 32. West Indies, Koran in,
Turkish as a language of 104.
religious literature, 156. Whitehead, Bishop, quoted,
Turkish translations of the 41.
Koran, 173 ff. Wilde, visit to Mecca, 22.
Turkmans, 77. Willcocks, Sir W., 118.
Wilson, Rev. S. G., quoted,
Ufa, 77 y 79. 240.
Uganda, 64. Woking Mission, 259.
292 INDEX
Wolof, 65 (note 3). Yezd, 119.
Wiirz, Pastor F., 51. Young, Rev. Dr. J. C, quoted,
112.
Yanichouyli, Mir, 171.
Yemen, 210. Zanzibar, 64, 192, 218.
Yenbo, 220. Zarkawy, 142.

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