The Future of Islam Part 4

Neither India, then, nor Western Africa can reasonably be expected to supply that subst.i.tute for the House of Othman which we need. A more apparent and in the opinion of some a likely candidate for the Caliphate succession may be looked for in the Viceregal family of Egypt. Mohammed Towfik, if he were a man of genius like his grandfather, or if, honest man as he is, he plays his cards with success, might in a few years become an important rival at Mecca to the Sultan. To say nothing of its traditional connection with the Caliphate, Egypt has the more modern recollection of Mehemet Ali to urge upon the Hejazi in its favour as the protecting State of Islam.

Mehemet Ali's name and that of his successor Ibrahim Pasha, if not precisely popular, are at least respected at Mecca; and the latter possesses a great t.i.tle to Sunite grat.i.tude in having destroyed the Wahhabite empire in 1818. I have mentioned Mehemet Ali's ambition; and a similar ambition would seem to have occurred to Ismal, the late Khedive. He, in the plenitude of his financial power, is stated to have expended large sums of money in subsidising the Sherifs with a view to possible contingencies at Constantinople. But unfortunately for him the opening of the Suez Ca.n.a.l, on which he had counted for securing him the support of Europe, proved the precise instrument of ruin for his scheme.

The Porte in 1871, scenting danger to its own Caliphal pretensions from this quarter, occupied the Red Sea in force, reinforced its garrisons in Jeddah and Yembo, advanced to Taf, and threw a large army into Yemen.

This was alone made possible by the Ca.n.a.l, and Ismal to his chagrin found himself "hoist with his own petard." Mohammed Towfik, therefore, would have some excuse in family tradition if he indulged occasionally in dreams of a similar nature. His connection with Mecca is at the present day second only to that of Constantinople; the Egyptian Khedivieh line of steamers ply constantly between Suez and Jeddah; and the Haj the Khedive sends to Mecca, including as it does most of the Mogrebbin pilgrims, is more numerous than the Sultan's. He maintains intimate relations with one at least of the great Sherifal families, and sends a Mahmal yearly with an important surrah to Medina. Mohammed Towfik also has the deserved reputation of being a sincere Mussulman and an honest man, and it is certain that a large section of true liberal opinion looks to him as the worthiest supporter of its views. With all this I doubt if he be big enough a man to aspire as yet with success to Abd el Hamid's succession.

The present Viceroy's financial position, though we may hope sounder in its base, is not so immediately powerful as his father's; and much ready money will be required by an aspirant to the Caliphate. His fighting power, too, is small, and he would have to proclaim himself in arms.

Moreover--and this I fear will remain an insuperable difficulty--he is hampered with the control of Europe. Islam would hardly obey another Caliph who was himself obedient to Christendom; and the same causes which have ruined the House of Othman, would also ruin him. A Caliph, as things stand, cannot legally govern, except by the old canon law of the Sheriat, and though a lapsus from strict observance may be tolerated in an ordinary prince, or even in a well established Caliph, a new Caliph putting forward a new claim would be more strictly bound. How could Mohammed Towfik's necessity to Islam be reconciled to his necessity to Europe? Between the two stools he hardly could avert a fall.[15]

Unless, then, some unexpected religious hero should appear in Eastern Asia, of which as yet there is no sign, we are driven to Arabia for a solution of the difficulty where to establish a Mussulman theocracy, and to the Sherifal family of Mecca itself for a new dynasty.

The family of the Sherifs has this vast advantage over any other possible compet.i.tor to the supreme t.i.tle of Islam, that it is of the acknowledged blood of that tribe of Koreysh which Mohammed himself designated as his heirs. Amongst many other pa.s.sages of authority which bear upon the rights of the Koreysh the following seem to me the most explicit and the best worth quoting: "The prophet," says a tradition of Omm Hani, daughter of Abutaleb, "exalted the Koreysh by conferring on them seven prerogatives: the first, the _Nebbuwat_ (the fact that they had given birth to a prophet); the second, the _Khalafat_ (the succession); the third, the _Hejabat_ (the guardianship of the Kaaba); the fourth, the _Sikayat_ (the right of supplying water to the Haj); the fifth, the _Refadat_ (the right of entertaining the Haj); the sixth, the _Nedwat_ (the right of counsel, government); and the seventh, the _Lewa_ (possession of the banner, with the right of proclaiming war)." The prophet also, according to another tradition, said, "As long as there remains one man of the Koreysh, so long shall that man be my successor;"

and as to the Arab race, "If the Arab race falls Islam shall fall." All the world knows these things, and to the popular mind, especially, the Sherif is already far more truly the representative of spiritual rank than any Sultan or Caliph is.

The vast populations of Southern and Eastern Asia send out their pilgrims, not to Constantinople but to Mecca, and it is the Sherif whom they find there supreme. The Turkish Government in Hejaz holds a comparatively insignificant position, and the Sultan's representative at Jeddah is hardly more than servant to the Prince of Mecca. It is he who is the descendant of their prophet, not the other, and though the learned may make distinctions in favour of the Caliph the Haj only hears of the Sherif. Even at Constantinople, by immemorial custom, the Sultan rises to receive members of the sacred family; and at Mecca it is commonly said that should a Sultan make the Haj in person he would be received by the Grand Sherif as an inferior. The Sherifal family, then, is surrounded with a halo of religious prestige which would make their acquisition of the supreme temporal t.i.tle appear natural to all but the races who have been in subjection to the Ottomans; and were a man of real ability to appear amongst them he would, in the crisis we have foreseen, be sure to find an almost universal following.

That the Ottoman Government is perfectly aware of this is certain. Even in the days of its greatest power it always showed its jealousy and distrust of Mecca, and was careful when any of the Grand Sherifs acquired what was considered dangerous influence, to supplant him by setting up a rival. Its physical power enabled it to do this, and though it could not abolish the office of the Grand Sherifate, it could interfere in the order of succession. Family feuds have, therefore, been at all times fostered by the Turks in Hejaz, and will be, as long as their presence there is tolerated. An excellent example of their system has recently been given in the episode of the late Grand Sherif's death, and the story of it will serve also to show the fear entertained by the present Sultan of this his great spiritual rival. To tell it properly I must go back to the epoch of the Wahhabite invasion of Hejaz in 1808.

At that time, and for the latter half of the previous century, the supreme dignity of the Sherifal House was held by a branch of it known as the Dewy Zeyd (the word _Dewy_ is used in Hejaz, as are elsewhere _Beni_ or _Ahl_, meaning _people_, _family_, _house_), which had replaced in 1750 the Barakat branch, mentioned by Niebuhr as in his day supreme. The actual holder of the t.i.tle was Ghaleb ibn Mesaad, and he, finding himself unable to contend against the Wahhabis, became himself a Wahhabi. Consequently, when Mehemet Ali appeared at Mecca in 1812, his first act was to depose this Ghaleb, in spite of his protest that he had returned to orthodoxy, and to appoint another member of the Sherifal House in his place.

The Sherif chosen was Yahia ibn Serur, of a rival branch, the Dewy Aoun, and a bitter animosity was, by this means, engendered between the two families of Aoun and Zeyd, which is continued to the present day. Nor, as may be supposed, was this lessened by the subsequent changes rung by the Turkish and Egyptian Governments in their appointments to the office, for, in 1827, we find Abd el Mutalleb, the son of the deposed Wahhabite Ghaleb, reappointed, and in the following year again, Mohammed, the son of Yahia ibn Aoun, an intrigue which brought on a civil war. Then in 1848 a new intrigue reinstated Abd el Mutalleb and the Zeyds; and then, in 1853, these were again deposed for rebellion, and an Aoun was placed in power. From 1853 till 1880 the Aouns retained the Grand Sherifate and were supreme in Hejaz. Coming into power at a time when Liberal ideas were in the ascendant they have consistently been Liberal, and still represent the more humane and progressive party among the Meccans. In the desert, where all are lat.i.tudinarian, they are the popular party; and, though themselves beyond a suspicion of unorthodoxy, they have always shown a tolerant spirit towards the Shiahs and other heretics, with whom the Sherifal authority necessarily comes in contact every year at the Haj. They have even maintained friendly terms with the European element at Jeddah, and as long as they remained in power the relations between India and Mecca were of an amicable nature.

Abdallah ibn Aoun, the son of Mohammed, who succeeded his father in 1858, and reigned for nineteen years, was a man of considerable ability, and he is credited with having had views of so advanced a nature as to include the opening of Hejaz to European trade. Nor was his brother, who in 1877 became Grand Sherif, of a less liberal mind. Though of less ability than Abdallah, he is described as eminently humane and virtuous, and it is certain that, with the exception of his hereditary enemies, the Zeyds, he was universally beloved by the Hejazi. So much was this the case that, in the year following the disastrous Russian war, when Constantinople seemed on the point of dissolution, the Arabs began to talk openly of making El Husseyn ibn Aoun Caliph in the Sultan's place.

I have not been able to ascertain that El Husseyn himself indulged the ambitious project of his friends, for he was eminently a man of peace, and the Caliphal t.i.tle would hardly have given him a higher position than he held. But it is certain that his popularity gave umbrage at Constantinople, the more so as Abd el Hamid could not and dared not depose him. El Husseyn, too, became specially obnoxious to the reactionary party, when it resolved at last to quarrel with England, for he and his family persisted in remaining on friendly terms with the British Government on all occasions when the interests of Indian subjects of her Majesty's came in question at the Haj. For this reason, princ.i.p.ally, it would seem his death was resolved on to make room for the agent of a new policy.

On the 14th of March, 1880, Jeddah was the scene of a solemn pageant.

The Haj was just over, and the seaport of Mecca crowded with pilgrims was waiting for the Grand Sherif, the descendant of the prophet and the representative of the Sacred House of Ali, to give the blessing of his presence to the last departing votaries. Travelling by night from Mecca, El Husseyn and his retinue appeared at dawn outside the city walls, and when it was morning, mounted on a white mare from Nejd, and preceded by his escort of Koreysh Arabs and the Sultan's guard of honour, he rode into the town. The streets of Jeddah are narrow and tortuous, and the way from the gate to the house of Omar Na.s.sif, his agent, where he was accustomed to alight, was thronged with pious folk, who struggled for the privilege of kissing his feet and the hem of his Arab cloak. He had nearly reached the place when an old beggar from the crowd pushed his way forward asking loudly for alms in the name of G.o.d. It was an appeal not to be denied, and as the Sherif turned to those near him to order a contribution from the bag kept for such distributions, the old man rose upon him, and drawing a ragged knife (so it was described to me) struck him in the belly. At first, even those who saw the deed hardly knew what had happened, for El Husseyn did not fall or dismount, and without speaking rode on to the house. There he was lifted from his mare and carried to an upper chamber, and in the course of some hours he expired.

Those nearest him, meanwhile, had seized and cudgelled the old man, and some of the escort had taken him to the guard-house. When it became known what had happened, a great cry arose in Jeddah, and old and young, and women and children, and citizens and strangers wept together. I have heard the scene described as one beyond description moving, and the women shrieked and wailed the whole night long. El Husseyn was beloved, and he was taken in the flower of his manhood.

No satisfactory judicial investigation seems to have been made of the deed, though a formal mejlis was held at Mecca whither the a.s.sa.s.sin was immediately transferred, and on the fourth day he was publicly executed.

Who and what he was it is difficult to determine. The Turkish bulletin on the event described him as a Persian fanatic, but no one confessed to having known him, and those who saw and spoke to him while in custody maintain that he was an Afghan and a Sunite. He seems to have given half-a-dozen contradictory accounts of himself; but the general impression remains that he came from Turkey, and was by profession a dervish. He had not come with the Haj, but had been first noticed as a beggar at Mecca ten days before, when he had asked and received an alms of the Sherif, and had since been several times found obtrusively in El Husseyn's path. No one at Jeddah holds the Turkish Governor to have been cognisant of the crime. He was personally on good terms with El Husseyn, and has since been disgraced; but all point to the Stamboul Camarilla and even the Sultan himself as its author. It is known that Abd el Hamid constantly employs dervishes as his spies and private agents, and some who pretend to know best affirm that the old man received his mission directly from the Caliph. I do not affect to decide upon the point, but think the _onus probandi_ to lie with those who would deny it.

a.s.sa.s.sination of a dangerous rival or of too powerful a chieftain has been the resource time out of mind of the Ottoman sovereigns, and they can hardly claim indulgence now from public opinion. The Sheykh of the Dervishes is all powerful with his fanatical followers, and he is the Sultan's servant; a word from him would doubtless have secured the services of twenty such devotees. One circ.u.mstance points decidedly to Constantinople. It is known in Jeddah that El Husseyn's successor, who had long been resident at Constantinople, sent orders to his agent at Jeddah to prepare for his return as Grand Sherif two months before El Husseyn, who was a young man, died; and that he had, moreover, dispatched most of his baggage in antic.i.p.ation.

The last words of the old a.s.sa.s.sin are curious. Having done his deed he seemed quite happy, and neither ate nor drank, but prepared for the next world. A little while before he was executed he related a story. "There was once," he said, "an elephant, a great and n.o.ble beast, and to him G.o.d sent a gnat, the smallest thing which is. It stung him on the trunk and the elephant died. Allah Kerim: G.o.d is merciful."

El Husseyn's successor, the man for whom room was made, and who knew beforehand that it was to be made, was none other than the aged and twice deposed Abd el Mutalleb, the son of the Wahhabite Ghaleb, the fiercest fanatic of the Dewy Zeyd.

I have not room here to describe in detail the effect of this coup de Jarnac on the political aspect of Hejaz. For the moment the reactionary party is in power at Mecca, as it is at Constantinople. Abd el Mutalleb is supported by Turkish bayonets, and the Aoun family and the Liberals are suffering persecution at Mecca, while the Sherifal Court, which had hitherto been most friendly to England, has become the focus of Indian discontent. Outside the town all is disorder. It is sufficient for the present if I have shown that there is in Hejaz an element of spiritual power already existing side by side with the Sultan, of which advantage may one day be taken to provide him with a natural successor. If no new figure should appear on the political horizon of Islam when the Ottoman empire dies, sufficiently commanding to attract the allegiance of the Mussulman world (and of such there is as yet no sign), it is certainly to the Sherifal family of Mecca that the ma.s.s of Mohammedans would look for a representative of their supreme headship, and of that Caliphate of which they stand in need.

The transfer of the seat of spiritual power from Constantinople to Mecca would be an easy and natural one, and would hardly disturb the existing ideas of the vulgar, while it would harmonize with all the traditions of the learned. Mecca or Medina would, on the extinction of Constantinople, become almost of necessity the legal home of the Ahl el Agde, and might easily become the acknowledged centre of spiritual power. All whom I have spoken to on the subject agree that the solution would be an acceptable one to every school of Ulema except the distinctly Turkish schools. Indeed "Mecca, the seat of the Caliphate" is, as far as I have had an opportunity of judging, the cry of the day with Mussulmans; nor is it one likely to lose strength in the future. Like the cry of "Roma capitale," it seems to exercise a strong influence on the imagination of all to whom it is suggested, and when to that is added "a Caliphate from the Koreysh," the idea is to Arabs at least irresistible. How indeed should it be otherwise when we look back on history?

For my own part, though I do not pretend to determine the course events will take, I consider this notion of a return to Mecca decidedly the most probable of all the contingencies we have reviewed, and the one which gives the best promise of renewed spiritual life for Islam.

Politically the Caliph at Mecca would of course be less important than now on the Bosphorus; but religiously he would have a far more a.s.sured footing. Every year the pilgrimage from every part of the world would visit him, and instead of representing a mere provincial school of thought, he would then be a true metropolitan for all schools and all nations.

The Arabian element in Islam would certainly support such a nomination, and it must be remembered that Arabia extends from Marocco to Bushire; and so would the Indian and the Malay--indeed every element but the Turkish, which is day by day becoming of less importance. I have even heard it affirmed that a Caliphate of the Koreysh at Mecca would go far towards reconciling the Schismatics, Abadhites, and Shiahs with orthodoxy; and I have reason to believe that it would so affect the liberal three-quarters of Wahhabism. To the Shiahs, especially, a descendant of Ali could not but be acceptable; and to the Arabs of Oman and Yemen a Caliph of the Koreysh would be at least less repugnant than a Caliph of the Beni Othman. There certainly have of late years been symptoms of less bitterness between these schismatics and their old enemies, the Sunites; and such a change in the conditions of the Caliphate might conceivably bring about a full reconciliation of all parties. Mussulmans can no longer afford to fight each other as of old; and I know that a reunion of the sects is already an idea with advanced thinkers. Lastly, the Caliphate would in Arabia be freed from the incubus of Turkish scholasticism and the stigma of Turkish immorality, and would have freer scope for what Islam most of all requires, a moral reformation.

It is surely not beyond the flight of sane imagination to suppose, in the last overwhelming catastrophe of Constantinople, a council of Ulema a.s.sembling at Mecca, and according to the legal precedent of ancient days electing a Caliph. The a.s.sembly would, without doubt, witness intrigues of princes and quarrels among schoolmen and appeals to fanaticism and accusations of infidelity. Money, too, would certainly play its part there as elsewhere, and perhaps blood might be shed. But any one who remembers the history of the Christian Church in the fifteenth century, and the synods which preceded the Council of Basle, must admit that such accompaniments of intrigue and corruption are no bar to a legal solution of religious difficulties. It was above all else the rivalries of Popes and Anti-popes that precipitated the Catholic Reformation.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] According to Canon Law the Caliph cannot cede any portion of the lands of Islam except on physical compulsion.

[15] This too was written before the events of September, 1881. These have immensely added to the chance of Cairo's becoming once more the seat of the Caliphate, though not perhaps of Mohammed Towfik's being the Caliph elected.

CHAPTER IV.

A MOHAMMEDAN REFORMATION.

It is with considerable doubt of my ability to do justice to so very difficult a subject that I now approach the most important point of all in this inquiry, namely, the question on which in reality every other depends: "Is there a possibility of anything like general reform for Islam in her political and moral life?"

It is obvious that, unless we can answer this in the affirmative, none of the changes I have been prefiguring will very much affect her ultimate fortunes--neither the solution of her legal deadlock with the Ottoman Caliphate, nor the transfer of her metropolis to a new centre, nor even the triumph of her arms, if such were possible, in Africa or India. These by themselves could, at best, only delay her decline. They might even precipitate her ruin. Islam, if she relies only on the sword, must in the end perish by it, for her forces, vast as they are, are without physical cohesion, being scattered widely over the surface of three continents and divided by insuperable accidents of seas and deserts; and the enemy she would have to face is intelligent as well as strong, and would not let her rest. Already what is called the "Progress of the World" envelopes her with its ships and its commerce, and, above all, with its printed thought, which she is beginning to read. Nor is it likely in the future to affect her less. Every year as it goes by carries her farther from the possibility of isolation, and forces on her new acquaintances, not only her old foes, the Frank and Muscovite, but the German, the Chinaman, and the American, with all of whom she may have in turn to count. If she would not be strangled by these influences she must use other arms than those of the flesh, and meet the intellectual invasion of her frontiers with a corresponding intelligence. Otherwise she has nothing to look forward to but a gradual decay, spiritual as well as political. Her law must become little by little a dead letter, her Caliphate an obsolete survival, and her creed a mere opinion. Islam as a living and controlling moral force in the world would then gradually cease.

In expressing my conviction that Islam is not thus destined yet awhile to perish I believe that I am running counter to much high authority among my countrymen. I know that it is a received opinion with those best qualified to instruct the public that Islam is in its const.i.tution unamenable to change, and by consequence to progressive life, or even, in the face of hostile elements, to prolonged life at all. Students of the Sheriat have not inaptly compared the Koranic law to a dead man's hand, rigid and cold, and only to be loosened when the hand itself shall have been cut away. It has been a.s.serted that the first rule of Mohammedan thought has been that change was inadmissible, and development of religious practice, either to right or left of the narrow path of mediaeval scholasticism, absolutely precluded. I know this, and I know, too, that a vast array of learned Mohammedan opinion can be cited to prove this to be the case, and that very few of the modern Ulema of any school of divinity would venture openly to impugn its truth. Nor have I forgotten the repeated failure of attempts made in Turkey within the last fifty years to gain religious a.s.sent to the various legal innovations decreed by Sultan after Sultan in deference to the will of Europe, nor the fate which has sometimes overtaken those who were the advocates of change. I know, according to all rule written and spoken by the orthodox, that Islam cannot move, and yet in spite of it I answer with some confidence in the fashion of Galileo, "E pur si muove."

The fact is, Islam does move. A vast change has come upon Mohammedan thought since its last legal Mujtahed wrote his last legal opinion; and what was true of orthodox Islam fifty and even twenty years ago is no longer true now. When Urquhart, the first exponent of Mohammedanism to Englishmen, began his writing, the Hanefite teaching of Constantinople had not begun to be questioned, and he was perfectly justified in citing it as the only rule recognized by the ma.s.s of the orthodox. No such thing as a liberal religious party then existed anywhere, and those who broke the law in the name of political reform were breakers of the law and nothing more. Every good man was their enemy, and if any spoke of liberty he was understood as meaning licence. It was not even conceived then that the Sheriat might be legally remodelled. Now, however, and especially within the last ten years, a large section of G.o.dly and legal-minded men have ranged themselves on the side of liberal opinion, and serious attempts have been made to reconcile a desire of improvement with unabated loyalty to Islam.

A true liberal party has thus been formed, which includes in its ranks not merely political intriguers of the type familiar to Europe in Midhat Pasha, but men of sincere piety, who would introduce moral as well as political reforms into the practice of Mohammedans. These have it in their programme to make the practice of religion more austere while widening its basis, to free the intelligence of believers from scholastic trammels, and at the same time to enforce more strictly the higher moral law of the Koran, which has been so long and so strangely violated. In this they stand in close resemblance to the "Reformers" of Christianity; and some of the circ.u.mstances which have given them birth are so a.n.a.logous to those which Europe encountered in the fifteenth century that it is impossible not to draw in one's own mind a parallel, leading to the conviction that Islam, too, will work out for itself a Reformation.

The two chief agents of religious reform in Europe were the misery of the poor and the general spread of knowledge. It is difficult at this distance of time to conceive how abject was the general state of the European peasantry in the days of Louis XI. of France and Frederick III.

of Germany. The constant wars and almost as constant famines, the general insecurity of the conditions of life, the dependence of a vast majority of the poor on capricious patrons, the hideous growth of corruption and licentiousness in the ruling cla.s.ses, and the impotence of the ruled to obtain justice, above all, the servile acquiescence of religion, which should have protected them, in the political illegalities daily witnessed--all these things, stirring the hearts of men, caused them to cry out against the existing order of Church discipline, and inclined them to Reform. On the other hand, as we all know, the invention of printing had caused men to read and the invention of the New World to travel. Moreover, in the fifteenth century the Ottoman Turks, then an irresistible power, were invading Europe, and a new element of contact with an outside world was created, and a new fear. Christendom certainly at that time was in danger of political annihilation, or fancied itself to be so, and the apprehensions of devout persons in Central Europe were roused to a vivid consciousness of impending evil by the thought that this was perhaps another authorized scourge of G.o.d.

I will not strain the parallel further than it will bear, but I would suggest that causes somewhat a.n.a.logous to these are now at work among the Mussulmans of the still independent states of Islam, and that they are operating somewhat in the same direction. The Mussulman peasantry, especially of the Ottoman Empire, are miserable, and they know that they are so, and they look in vain to their religion to protect them, as in former days, against their rulers. They find that all their world now is corrupt--that the law is broken daily by those who should enforce the law; that the illegalities of those who ruin them are constantly condoned by a conniving body of the Ulema; that for all practical purposes of justice and mercy religion has abdicated its claim to direct and govern. They have learned, too, by their intercourse with strangers, and in the towns by the newspapers which they now eagerly read, that this has not been always so, and that servitude is not the natural state of man or acquiescence in evil the true position of religion, and they see in all they suffer an outrage inflicted on the better law of Islam.

I was much struck by hearing the Egyptian peasantry last year attribute the lighter taxes they were then enjoying to the fact that their new ruler was "a man who feared G.o.d."

At the same time the learned cla.s.ses are shocked and alarmed at the political decline of Islam and the still greater dangers which stare her in the face, and they attribute them to the unchecked wickedness and corruption with which the long rule of Constantinople has pervaded every cla.s.s of society, even beyond its own territorial borders. They complain now that they have been led astray, and believe that the vengeance of Heaven will overtake them if they do not amend their ways. In all this, I say, there is something of the spirit which once goaded Christians into an examination of the bases on which their belief rested, and of the true nature of the law which tolerated such great corruption.

Nor must we suppose that any part of this dissatisfaction is attributable as yet to a decay of faith, such as we now witness among ourselves. Islam as yet shows hardly a taint of infidelity. The Mussulman of the present day, whatever his rank in life, believes with as absolute a faith as did the Christian of the period just referred to.

With the exception of here and there a false convert or, as a very rare case, an Europeanized infidel of the modern type, there is no such thing as a Mohammedan sceptic, that is to say, a Moslem who does not believe in the divine mission of Mohammed. He may neglect every duty of his profession, be guilty of every crime, have broken every law--he may be the worst and the most depraved of men--or, on the other hand, he may have adopted the language and to a certain extent the tone of thought of Europe, and, a thing far more rare, he may be even a scoffer and blasphemer;--still I do not imagine that in his heart he any the less firmly believes that the Koran is the book of truth, or that at the day of judgment he shall be found with those who have escaped Jehannem through their professed acknowledgment of G.o.d and of His apostle.

I have heard strange stories in corroboration of this from persons whom I could not doubt, and about persons whom all the world knew. Thus, one who was with Fuad Pasha, the most European of Ottoman diplomatists, in his last days at Nice, a.s.sures me that his whole time was spent in a recitation of the Koran, learning it by heart. Another, who was called the Voltaire of Islam, performed his prayers and prostrations with scrupulous regularity whenever he found himself in private; and a third, equally notorious as a sceptic, died of religious mania. All, too, who have mingled much with Mussulmans, must have been struck with the profound resignation with which even thoughtless and irreligious men bear the ills of life, and the fort.i.tude with which they usually meet their end--with the large proportion that they see of men who habitually pray and fast, and who on occasion, at great risk and sacrifice, make the pilgrimage, and with the general absence of profanity, and the fact that an avowal of religion is never proffered apologetically as with us, nor met in any society with derision. These things are, perhaps, not in themselves evidence of belief, for hypocrites have everywhere their reward, but the fact even of hypocrisy proves the general spirit to be one of avowed belief.

The truly devout are doubtless rare, but where we find them it is evident that their belief pervades their lives in as strict a sense as it does devout persons among ourselves. It would probably be difficult to point out in Europe men who in the world--I do not speak of ecclesiastics or persons in religious orders--lead more transparently religious lives than do the pious Moslems of the better cla.s.s whom one may find in almost any oriental town, or men who more closely follow the ideal which their creed sets before them. To doubt the sincerity and even, in a certain sense, the sanct.i.ty of such persons, would be to doubt all religion. In any case it is notorious that the faith of Mecca is still the living belief of a vast number of the human race, the rule of their lives, and the explanation to them of their whole existence.

There is no sign as yet that it has ceased to be a living faith.

Neither in considering its future is it easy for a candid English mind to escape the admission that, for all purposes of argument, the Mohammedan creed must be treated as no vain superst.i.tion but a true religion, true inasmuch as it is a form of the worship of that one true G.o.d in whom Europe, in spite of her modern reason, still believes. As such it is ent.i.tled to whatever credit we may give true religions of prolonged vitality; and while admitting the eternal truth of Christianity for ourselves, we may be tempted to believe that in the Arabian mind, if in no other, Islam too will prove eternal.

In its simplest form Islam was but an emphatic renewal of the immemorial creed of the Semites, and as long as a pure Semitic race is left in the world, the revelation of Mecca may be expected to remain a necessary link in their tradition. No modern arguments of science are ever likely to affect the belief of Arabia that G.o.d has at sundry times and in sundry places spoken to man by the mouth of his prophets; and among these prophets Mohammed will always be the most conspicuous because the most distinctly national. Also the law of Islam--I am not speaking merely of the Sheriat as we now see it--will always remain their law because it is the codification of their custom, and its political organization their political organization because it is founded on a practice coeval with their history.

Lastly, Semitic thought is a strong leaven which everywhere pervades the minds of nations, aliens though they be, who have once admitted it; and it will not easily be cast out. We have seen in Europe, even in England, a land never brought physically into contact with Arabia, how long Arabian thought, filtered as it was through France and Spain to our sh.o.r.es, has dominated our ideas. Chivalry, a notion purely Bedouin, is hardly yet extinct among us. Romance, the offspring of pre-Islamic Arabia, is still a common motive of our action, and our poets express it still, to the neglect of cla.s.sic models, in the rhymed verse of Yemen.

The ma.s.s of our people still pray to the G.o.d of Abraham, and turn eastwards towards that land which is Arabia's half-sister, the Holy Land of the Jews.

If then we, who are mere aliens, find it impossible to escape this subtle influence, what must it be for those races wholly or half Arabian who have for centuries been impregnated with Islam, the quintessence of Arabian thought? Who shall fix the term of its power, and say that it cannot renew itself and live? "Send forth," says a famous English writer, who was also a famous English statesman, "a great thought, as you have done before, from Mount Sinai, from the villages of Galilee, from the deserts of Arabia, and you may again remodel all men's inst.i.tutions, change their principles of action, and breathe a new spirit into the scope of their existence."