Mohammedanism

Lectures on Its Origin, Its Religious and Political Growth, and Its Present
State

by C. Snouck Hurgronje

Professor of the Arabic Language in the University of Leiden, Holland
1916


CONTENTS


SOME POINTS CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF ISLÂM.

THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF ISLÂM.

THE POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ISLÂM.

ISLÂM AND MODERN THOUGHT.



Mohammedanism


IV

ISLÂM AND MODERN THOUGHT


One of the most powerful factors of religious life in its higher forms is
the need of man to find in this world of changing things an imperishable
essence, to separate the eternal from the temporal and then to attach
himself to the former. Where the possibility of this operation is despaired
of, there may arise a pessimism, which finds no path of liberation from the
painful vicissitudes of life other than the annihilation of individuality.
A firm belief in a sphere of life freed from the category of time, together
with the conviction that the poetic images of that superior world current
among mankind are images and nothing else, is likely to give rise to
definitions of the Absolute by purely negative attributes and to mental
efforts having for their object the absorption of individual existence
in the indescribable infinite. Generally speaking, a high development of
intellectual life, especially an intimate acquaintance with different
religious systems, is not favourable to the continuance of elaborate
conceptions of things eternal; it will rather increase the tendency to
deprive the idea of the Transcendent of all colour and definiteness.

The naïve ideas concerning the other world in the clear-cut form outlined
for them by previous generations are most likely to remain unchanged in a
religious community where intellectual intercourse is chiefly limited to
that between members of the community. There the belief is fostered that
things most appreciated and cherished in this fading world by mankind will
have an enduring existence in a world to come, and that the best of the
changing phenomena of life are eternal and will continue free from that
change, which is the principal cause of human misery. Material death will
be followed by awakening to a purer life, the idealized continuation of
life on earth, and for this reason already during this life the faithful
will find their delight in those things which they know to be everlasting.

The less faith is submitted to the control of intellect, the more numerous
the objects will be to which durable value is attributed. This is true for
different individuals as well as for one religious community as compared to
another. There are Christians attached only to the spirit of the Gospel,
Mohammedans attached only to the spirit of the Qorân. Others give a place
in their world of imperishable things to a particular translation of the
Bible in its old-fashioned orthography or to a written Qorân in preference
to a printed one. Orthodox Judaism and orthodox Islâm have marked with the
stamp of eternity codes of law, whose influence has worked as an impediment
to the life of the adherents of those religions and to the free intercourse
of other people with them as well. So the Roman Catholic and many
Protestant Churches have in their organizations and in their dogmatic
systems eternalized institutions and ideas whose unchangeableness has come
to retard spiritual progress.

Among all conservative factors of human life religion must necessarily be
the most conservative, were it only because its aim is precisely to store
up and keep under its guardianship the treasures destined for eternity to
which we have alluded. Now, every new period in the history of civilization
obliges a religious community to undertake a general revision of the
contents of its treasury. It is unavoidable that the guardians on such
occasions should be in a certain measure disappointed, for they find that
some of, the goods under their care have given way to the wasting influence
of time, whilst others are in a state which gives rise to serious doubt as
to their right of being classified with lasting treasures. In reality the
loss is only an apparent one; far from impoverishing the community, it
enhances the solidity of its possessions. What remains after the sifting
process may be less imposing to the inexperienced mind; gradually the
consideration gains ground that what has been rejected was nothing but
useless rubbish which had been wrongly valued.

Sometimes it may happen that the general movement of spiritual progress
goes almost too fast, so that one revision of the stores of religion is
immediately followed by another. Then dissension is likely to arise among
the adherents of a religion; some of them come to the conclusion that there
must be an end of sifting and think it better to lock up the treasuries
once for all and to stop the dangerous enquiries; whereas others begin to
entertain doubt concerning the value even of such goods as do not yet show
any trace of decay.

The treasuries of Islâm are excessively full of rubbish that has become
entirely useless; and for nine or ten centuries they have not been
submitted to a revision deserving that name. If we wish to understand the
whole or any important part of the system of Islâm, we must always begin by
transporting ourselves into the third or fourth century of the Hijrah, and
we must constantly bear in mind that from the Medina period downwards Islâm
has always been considered by its adherents as bound to regulate all the
details of their life by means of prescriptions emanating directly or
indirectly from God, and therefore incapable of being reformed. At the
time when these prescriptions acquired their definite form, Islâm ruled an
important portion of the world; it considered the conquest of the rest
as being only a question of time; and, therefore, felt itself quite
independent in the development of its law. There was little reason indeed
for the Moslim canonists to take into serious account the interests of men
not subject to Mohammedan authority or to care for the opinion of devotees
of other religions. Islâm might act, and did almost act, as if it were the
only power in the world; it did so in the way of a grand seigneur, showing
a great amount of generosity towards its subjugated enemies. The adherents
of other religions were or would become subjects of the Commander of the
Faithful; those subjects were given a full claim on Mohammedan protection
and justice; while the independent unbelievers were in general to be
treated as enemies until in submission. Their spiritual life deserved not
even so much attention as that of Islâm received from Abbé Maracci or
Doctor Prideaux. The false doctrines of other peoples were of no interest
whatever in themselves; and, since there was no fear of Mohammedans being
tainted by them, polemics against the abrogated religions were more of a
pastime than an indispensable part of theology. The Mohammedan community
being in a sense Allah's army, with the conquest of the world as its
object, apostasy deserved the punishment of death in no lesser degree than
desertion in the holy war, nay more so; for the latter might be the effect
of cowardice, whereas the former was an act of inexcusable treachery.

In the attitude of Islâm towards other religions there is hardly one
feature that has not its counterpart in the practice of Christian states
during the Middle Ages. The great difference is that the Mohammedan
community erected this medieval custom into a system unalterable like all
prescriptions based on its infallible "Agreement" (Ijmâ'). Here lay the
great difficulty when the nineteenth and twentieth centuries placed the
Moslim world face to face with a civilization that had sprung up outside
its borders and without its collaboration, that was from a spiritual point
of view by far its superior and at the same time possessed of sufficient
material power to thrust the Mohammedans aside wherever they seemed to be
an impediment in its way. A long series of the most painful experiences,
meaning as many encroachments upon the political independence of Mohammedan
territories, ended by teaching Islâm that it had definitely to change its
lines of conduct. The times were gone when relations with the non-Musulman
world quite different from those foreseen by the mediaeval theory might
be considered as exceptions to the rule, as temporary concessions to
transitory necessities. In ever wider circles a thorough revision of the
system came to be considered as a requirement of the time. The fact that
the number of Mohammedans subject to foreign rule increased enormously, and
by far surpassed those of the citizens of independent Mohammedan states,
made the problem almost as interesting to Western nations as to the
Mohammedans themselves. Both parties are almost equally concerned in the
question, whether a way will be found to associate the Moslim world to
modern civilization, without obliging it to empty its spiritual treasury
altogether. Nobody can in earnest advocate the idea of leaving the solution
of the problem to rude force. The Moslim of yore, going through the world
with the Qorân in one hand, the sword in the other, giving unbelievers the
choice between conversion or death, is a creation of legendary fancy. We
can but hope that modern civilization will not be so fanatical against
Moslims, as the latter were unjustly said to have been during the period
of their power. If the modern world were only to offer the Mohammedans the
choice between giving up at once the traditions of their ancestors or being
treated as barbarians, there would be sure to ensue a struggle as bloody as
has ever been witnessed in the world. It is worth while indeed to examine
the system of Islâm from this special point of view, and to try to find the
terms on which a durable _modus vivendi_ might be established between Islâm
and modern thought.

The purely dogmatic part is not of great importance. Some of us may admire
the tenets of the Mohammedan doctrine, others may as heartily despise them;
to the participation of Mohammedans in the civilized life of our days they
are as innoxious as any other mediaeval dogmatic system that counts its
millions of adherents among ourselves. The details of Mohammedan dogmatics
have long ceased to interest other circles than those of professional
theologians; the chief points arouse no discussion and the deviations in
popular superstition as well as in philosophical thought which in practice
meet with toleration are almost unlimited. The Mohammedan Hell claims
the souls of all heterodox people, it is true; but this does not prevent
benevolent intercourse in this world, and more enlightened Moslims are
inclined to enlarge their definition of the word "faithful" so as to
include their non-Mohammedan friends. The faith in a Mahdî, who will come
to regenerate the world, is apt to give rise to revolutionary movements led
by skilful demagogues pretending to act as the "Guided One," or, at least,
to prepare the way for his coming. Most of the European powers having
Mohammedan subjects have had their disagreeable experiences in this
respect. But Moslim chiefs of states have their obvious good reasons for
not liking such movements either; and even the majority of ordinary Moslims
look upon candidates for Mahdi-ship with suspicion. A contented prosperous
population offers such candidates little chance of success.

The ritual laws of Islâm are a heavy burden to those who strictly observe
them; a man who has to perform worship five times a day in a state of
ritual purity and during a whole month in a year has to abstain from
food and drink and other enjoyments from daybreak until sunset, is at a
disadvantage when he has to enter into competition with non-Musulmans
for getting work of any kind. But since most of the Moslims have become
subjects of foreign powers and religious police has been practically
abolished in Mohammedan states, there is no external compulsion. The ever
smaller minority of strict practisers make use of a right which nobody can
contest.

Drinking wine or other intoxicating drinks, taking interest on money,
gambling--including even insurance contracts according to the stricter
interpretation--are things which a Moslim may abstain from without
hindering non-Mohammedans; or which in our days he may do, notwithstanding
the prohibition of divine law, even without losing his good name.

Those who want to accentuate the antithesis between Islâm and modern
civilization point rightly to the personal law; here is indeed a great
stumbling-block. The allowance of polygamy up to a maximum of four wives
is represented by Mohammedan authors as a progress if compared with the
irregularity of pagan Arabia and even with the acknowledgment of unlimited
polygamy during certain periods of Biblical history. The following subtle
argument is to be found in some schoolbooks on Mohammedan law: The law of
Moses was exceedingly benevolent to males by permitting them to have an
unlimited number of wives; then came the law of Jesus, extreme on the other
side by prescribing monogamy; at last Mohammed restored the equilibrium by
conceding one wife to each of the four humours which make up the male's
constitution. This theory, which leaves the question what the woman is
to do with three of her four humours undecided, will hardly find fervent
advocates among the present canonists. At the same time, very few of them
would venture to pronounce their preference for monogamy in a general way,
polygamy forming a part of the law that is to prevail, according to the
infallible Agreement of the Community, until the Day of Resurrection.

On the other side polygamy, although _allowed_, is far from being
_recommended_ by the majority of theologians. Many of them even dissuade
men capable of mastering their passion from marriage in general, and
censure a man who takes two wives if he can live honestly with one. In some
Mohammedan countries social circumstances enforce practical monogamy. The
whole question lies in the education of women; when this has been raised to
a higher level, polygamy will necessarily come to an end. It is therefore
most satisfactory that among male Mohammedans the persuasion of the
necessity of a solid education for girls is daily gaining ground. This year
(1913), a young Egyptian took his doctor's degree at the Paris University
by sustaining a dissertation on the position of women in the Moslim world,
in which he told his co-religionists the full truth concerning this rather
delicate subject[1]. If social evolution takes the right course, the
practice of polygamy will be abolished; and the maintenance of its
lawfulness in canonical works will mainly be a survival of a bygone phase
of development.

[Footnote 1: Mansour Fahmy, _La condition de la femme dans la tradition
et l'évolution de l'Islamisme_, Paris, Félix Alcan, 1913. The sometimes
imprudent form in which the young reformer enounced his ideas caused him to
be very badly treated by his compatriots at his return from Europe.]

The facility with which a man can divorce his wife at his pleasure,
contrasted with her rights against him, is a still more serious impediment
to the development of family life than the institution of polygamy; more
serious, also, than veiling and seclusion of women. Where the general
opinion is favourable to the improvement of the position of women in
society, there is always found a way to secure it to them without
conflicting with the divine law; but a radical reform will remain most
difficult so long as that law which allows the man to repudiate his wife
without any reason, whereas it delivers the woman almost unarmed into the
power of her husband, is considered to be one of the permanent treasures of
Islâm.

It is a pity indeed that thus far women vigorously striving for liberation
from those mediaeval institutions are rare exceptions in Mohammedan
countries. Were Mohammedan women capable of the violent tactics of
suffragettes, they would rather try to blow up the houses of feminists than
those of the patrons of the old régime. The ordinary Mohammedan woman looks
upon the endeavour of her husband to induce her to partake freely in public
life as a want of consideration; it makes on her about the same impression
as that which a respectable woman in our society would receive from her
husband encouraging her to visit places generally frequented by people of
bad reputation. It is the girls' school that will awaken those sleeping
ones and so, slowly and gradually, prepare a better future, when the Moslim
woman will be the worthy companion of her husband and the intelligent
educator of her children. This will be due, then, neither to the Prophet's
Sunnah nor to the infallible Agreement of the Community of the first
centuries of Islâm, but to the irresistible power of the evolution of human
society, which is merciless to laws even of divine origin and transfers
them, when their time is come, from the treasury of everlasting goods to a
museum of antiquities.

Slavery, and in its consequence free intercourse of a man with his own
female slaves without any limitation as to their number, has also been
incorporated into the sacred law, and therefore has been placed on the
wrong side of the border that is to divide eternal things from temporal
ones. This should not be called a mediaeval institution; the most civilized
nations not having given it up before the middle of the nineteenth century.
The law of Islâm regulated the position of slaves with much equity, and
there is a great body of testimony from people who have spent a part of
their lives among Mohammedan nations which does justice to the benevolent
treatment which bondmen generally receive from their masters there. Besides
that, we are bound to state that in many Western countries or countries
under Western domination whole groups of the population live under
circumstances with which those of Mohammedan slavery may be compared to
advantage.

The only legal cause of slavery in Islâm is prisonership of war or birth
from slave parents. The captivity of enemies of Islâm has not at all
necessarily the effect of enslaving them; for the competent authorities
may dispose of them in any other way, also in the way prescribed by modern
international law or custom. In proportion to the realization of the
political ideal of Islâm the number of its enemies must diminish and the
possibilities of enslaving men must consequently decrease. Setting slaves
free is one of the most meritorious pious works, and, at the same time,
the regular atonement for certain transgressions of the sacred law. So,
according to Mohammedan principles, slavery is an institution destined
to disappear. When, in the last century, Mohammedan princes signed
international treaties for the suppression of slavery, from their point of
view this was a premature anticipation of a future political and social
development--a step which they felt obliged to take out of consideration
for the great powers. In Arabia, every effort of the Turkish Government to
put such international agreements into execution has thus far given rise to
popular sedition against the Ottoman authority. Therefore, the promulgation
of decrees of abolition was stopped; and slavery continued to exist. The
import of slaves from Africa has, in fact, considerably diminished; but I
am not quite sure of the proportional increase of the liberty which the
natives of that continent enjoy at home.

Slavery as well as polygamy is in a certain sense to Mohammedans a sacred
institution, being incorporated in their Holy Law; but the practice of
neither of the two institutions is indispensable to the integrity of Islâm.

All those antiquated institutions, if considered from the point of view of
modern international intercourse, are only a trifle in comparison with the
legal prescriptions of Islâm concerning the attitude of the Mohammedan
community against the parts of the world not yet subject to its authority,
"the Abode of War" as they are technically called. It is a principal duty
of the Khalif, or of the chiefs considered as his substitutes in different
countries, to avail themselves of every opportunity to extend by force the
dominion of Allah and His Messenger. With unsubdued unbelievers _peace_
is not _allowed_; a _truce_ for a period not exceeding ten years may be
concluded if the interest of Islâm requires it.

The chapters of the Mohammedan law on holy war and on the conditions on
which the submission of the adherents of tolerated religions is to be
accepted seem to be a foolish pretension if we consider them by the light
of the actual division of political power in the world. But here, too, to
understand is better than to ridicule. In the centuries in which the system
of Islâm acquired its maturity, such an aspiration after universal dominion
was not at all ridiculous; and many Christian states of the time were
far from reaching the Mohammedan standard of tolerance against heterodox
creeds. The delicate point is this, that the petrification or at least the
process of stiffening that has attacked the whole spiritual life of Islâm
since about 1000 A.D. makes its accommodation to the requirements of modern
intercourse a most difficult problem.

But it is not only the Mohammedan community that needed misfortune and
humiliation before it was able to appreciate liberty of conscience; or that
took a long time to digest those painful lessons of history. There
are still Christian Churches which accept religious liberty only in
circumstances that make supreme authority unattainable to them; and which,
elsewhere, would not disdain the use of material means to subdue spirits to
what they consider the absolute truth.

To judge such things with equity, we must remember that every man possessed
of a firm conviction of any kind is more or less a missionary; and the
belief in the possibility of winning souls by violence has many adherents
everywhere. One of my friends among the young-Turkish state officials,
who wished to persuade me of the perfect religious tolerance of Turkey of
today, concluded his argument by the following reflection: "Formerly men
used to behead each other for difference of opinion about the Hereafter.
Nowadays, praise be to Allah, we are permitted to believe what we like; but
people continue to kill each other for political or social dissension. That
is most pitiful indeed; for the weapons in use being more terrible and more
costly than before, mankind lacks the peace necessary to enjoy the liberty
of conscience it has acquired."

The truthful irony of these words need not prevent us from considering the
independence of spiritual life and the liberation of its development from
material compulsion as one of the greatest blessings of our civilization.
We feel urged by missionary zeal of the better kind to make the Mohammedan
world partake in its enjoyment. In the Turkish Empire, in Egypt, in many
Mohammedan countries under Western control, the progressive elements of
Moslim society spontaneously meet us half-way. But behind them are the
millions who firmly adhere to the old superstition and are supported by
the canonists, those faithful guardians of what the infallible Community
declared almost one thousand years ago to be the doctrine and rule of life
for all centuries to come. Will it ever prove possible to move in one
direction a body composed of such different elements, or will this body be
torn in pieces when the movement has become irresistible?

We have more than once pointed to the catholic character of orthodox Islâm.
In fact, the diversity of spiritual tendencies is not less in the Moslim
world than within the sphere of Christian influence; but in Islâm, apart
from the political schisms of the first centuries, that diversity has not
given rise to anything like the division of Christianity into sects. There
is a prophetic saying, related by Tradition, which later generations have
generally misunderstood to mean that the Mohammedan community would be
split into seventy-three different sects. Moslim heresiologists have been
induced by this prediction to fill up their lists of seventy-three numbers
with all sorts of names, many of which represent nothing but individual
opinions of more or less famous scholars on subordinate points of doctrine
or law. Almost ninety-five per cent. of all Mohammedans are indeed bound
together by a spiritual unity that may be compared with that of the Roman
Catholic Church, within whose walls there is also room for religious and
intellectual life of very different origin and tendency. In the sense of
broadness, Islâm has this advantage, that there is no generally recognized
palpable authority able to stop now and then the progress of modernism or
similar deviations from the trodden path with an imperative "Halt!" There
is no lack indeed of mutual accusation of heresy; but this remains without
serious consequences because of the absence of a high ecclesiastical
council competent to decide once for all. The political authorities, who
might be induced by fanatical theologians to settle disputes by violent
inquisitorial means, have been prevented for a long time from such
interference by more pressing affairs.

A knowledge alone of the orthodox system of Islâm, however complete, would
give us an even more inadequate idea of the actual world of catholic Islâm
than the notion we should acquire of the spiritual currents moving the
Roman Catholic world by merely studying the dogma and the canonical law of
the Church of Rome.

Nevertheless, the unity of Islamic thought is by no means a word void of
sense. The ideas of Mohammedan philosophers, borrowed for a great part from
Neoplatonism, the pantheism and the emanation theory of Mohammedan mystics
are certainly still further distant from the simplicity of Qorânic
religion than the orthodox dogmatics; but all those conceptions alike show
indubitable marks of having grown up on Mohammedan soil. In the works even
of those mystics who efface the limits between things human and divine,
who put Judaism, Christianity, and Paganism on the same line with the
revelation of Mohammed, and who are therefore duly anathematized by the
whole orthodox world, almost every page testifies to the relation of the
ideas enounced with Mohammedan civilization. Most of the treatises on
science, arts, or law written by Egyptian students for their doctor's
degree at European universities make no exception to this rule; the manner
in which these authors conceive the problems and strive for their solution
is, in a certain sense, in the broadest sense of course, Mohammedan. Thus,
if we speak of Mohammedan thought, civilization, spirit, we have to bear in
mind the great importance of the system which, almost unchanged, has been
delivered for about one thousand years by one generation of doctors of
Islâm to the other, although it has become ever more unfit to meet the
needs of the Community, on whose infallible Agreement it rests. But, at the
same time, we ought to consider that beside the agreement of canonists,
of dogmatists, and of mystics, there are a dozen more agreements, social,
political, popular, philosophical, and so on, and that however great may be
the influence of the doctors, who pretend to monopolize infallibility for
the opinions on which they agree, the real Agreement of Islâm is the least
common measure of all the agreements of the groups which make up the
Community.

It would require a large volume to review the principal currents of thought
pervading the Moslim world in our day; but a general notion may be acquired
by a rapid glance at two centres, geographically not far distant from each
other, but situated at the opposite poles of spiritual life: Mecca and
Cairo.

In Mecca yearly two or three hundred thousand Moslims from all parts of the
world come together to celebrate the hajj, that curious set of ceremonies
of pagan Arabian origin which Mohammed has incorporated into his religion,
a durable survival that in Islâm makes an impression as singular as that
of jumping processions in Christianity. Mohammed never could have foreseen
that the consequence of his concession to deeply rooted Arabic custom
would be that in future centuries Chinese, Malays, Indians, Tatars, Turks,
Egyptians, Berbers, and negroes would meet on this barren desert soil and
carry home profound impressions of the international significance of Islâm.
Still more important is the fact that from all those countries young people
settle here for years to devote themselves to the study of the sacred
science. From the second to the tenth month of the Mohammedan lunar year,
the Haram, _i.e._, the mosque, which is an open place with the Ka'bah in
its midst and surrounded by large roofed galleries, has free room enough
between the hours of public service to allow of a dozen or more circles of
students sitting down around their professors to listen to as many lectures
on different subjects, generally delivered in a very loud voice. Arabic
grammar and style, prosody, logic, and other preparatory branches, the
sacred trivium; canonic law, dogmatics, and mysticism, and, for the more
advanced, exegesis of Qorân and Tradition and some other branches of
supererogation, are taught here in the mediaeval way from mediaeval
text-books or from more modern compilations reproducing their contents and
completing them more or less by treating modern questions according to the
same methods.

It is now almost thirty years since I lived the life of a Meccan student
during one university year, after having become familiar with the matter
taught by the professors of the temple of Mecca, the Haram, by privately
studying it, so that I could freely use all my time in observing the
mentality of people learning those things not for curiosity, but in order
to acquire the only true direction for their life in this world and the
salvation of their souls in the world to come. For a modern man there could
hardly be a better opportunity imagined for getting a true vision of the
Middle Ages than is offered to the Orientalist by a few months' stay in
the Holy City of Islâm. In countries like China, Tibet, or India there
are spheres of spiritual life which present to us still more interesting
material for comparative study of religions than that of Mecca, because
they are so much more distant from our own; but, just on that account,
the Western student would not be able to adapt his mind to their mental
atmospheres as he may do in Mecca. No one would think for one moment of
considering Confucianism, Hinduism, or Buddhism as specially akin to
Christianity, whereas Islâm has been treated by some historians of the
Christian Church as belonging to the heretical offspring of the Christian
religion. In fact, if we are able to abstract ourselves for a moment from
all dogmatic prejudice and to become a Meccan with the Meccans, one of the
"neighbours of Allah," as they call themselves, we feel in their temple,
the Haram, as if we were conversing with our ancestors of five or six
centuries ago. Here scholasticism with a rabbinical tint forms the great
attraction to the minds of thousands of intellectually highly gifted men of
all ages.

The most important lectures are delivered during the forenoon and in the
evening. A walk, at one of those hours, through the square and under the
colonnades of the mosque, with ears opened to all sides, will enable you to
get a general idea of the objects of mental exercise of this international
assembly. Here you may find a sheikh of pure Arab descent explaining to his
audience, composed of white Syrians or Circassians, of brown and yellow
Abyssinians and Egyptians, of negroes, Chinese, and Malays, the probable
and improbable legal consequences of marriage contracts, not excepting
those between men and genii; there a negro scholar is explaining the
ontological evidence of the existence of a Creator and the logical
necessity of His having twenty qualities, inseparable from, but not
identical with, His essence; in the midst of another circle a learned
_muftî_ of indeterminably mixed extraction demonstrates to his pupils from
the standard work of al-Ghazâlí the absolute vanity of law and doctrine to
those whose hearts are not purified from every attachment to the world.
Most of the branches of Mohammedan learning are represented within the
walls of this temple by more or less famous scholars; and still there are a
great number of private lectures delivered at home by professors who do not
like to be disturbed by the unavoidable noise in the mosque, which during
the whole day serves as a meeting place for friends or business men, as an
exercise hall for Qorân reciters, and even as a passage for people going
from one part of the town to the other.

In order to complete your mediaeval dream with a scene from daily life, you
have only to leave the mosque by the Bâb Dereybah, one of its twenty-two
gates, where you may see human merchandise exhibited for sale by the
slave-brokers, and then to have a glance, outside the wall, at a camel
caravan, bringing firewood and vegetables into the town, led by Beduins
whose outward appearance has as little changed as their minds since the day
when Mohammed began here to preach the Word of Allah.

To the greater part of the world represented by this international
exhibition of Islâm, as a modern Musulman writer calls it, our modern
world, with all its problems, its emotions, its learning and science,
hardly exists. On the other hand, the average modern man does not
understand much more of the mental life of the two hundred millions to whom
the barren Mecca has become the great centre. In former days, other centres
were much more important, although Mecca has always been the goal of
pilgrimage and the cherished abode of many learned men. Many capitals of
Islâm offered the students an easier life and better accommodations for
their studies; while in Mecca four months of the year are devoted to the
foreign guests of Allah, by attending to whose various needs all Meccans
gain their livelihood. For centuries Cairo has stood unrivalled as a seat
of Mohammedan learning of every kind; and even now the Uaram of Mecca is
not to be compared to the Azhar-mosque as regards the number and the fame
of its professors and the variety of branches cultivated.

In the last half-century, however, the ancient repute of the Egyptian
metropolis has suffered a good deal from the enormous increase of European
influence in the land of the Pharaohs; the effects of which have made
themselves felt even in the Azhar. Modern programs and methods of
instruction have been adopted; and, what is still worse, modernism itself,
favoured by the late Muftî Muhammed Abduh, has made its entrance into the
sacred lecture-halls, which until a few years ago seemed inaccessible to
the slightest deviation from the decrees of the Infallible Agreement of the
Community. Strenuous efforts have been made by eminent scholars to liberate
Islâm from the chains of the authority of the past ages on the basis of
independent interpretation of the Qorân; not in the way of the Wahhâbî
reformers, who tried a century before to restore the institutions of
Mohammed's time in their original purity, but on the contrary with the
object of adapting Islâm by all means in their power to the requirements of
modern life.

Official protection of the bold innovators prevented their conservative
opponents from casting them out of the Azhar, but the assent to their
doctrines was more enthusiastic outside its walls than inside. The ever
more numerous adherents of modern thought in Egypt do not generally proceed
from the ranks of the Azhar students, nor do they generally care very much
in their later life for reforming the methods prevailing there, although
they may be inclined to applaud the efforts of the modernists. To the
intellectuals of the higher classes the Azhar has ceased to offer great
attraction; if it were not for the important funds (_wagf_) for the
benefit of professors and students, the numbers of both classes would have
diminished much more than is already the case, and the faithful cultivators
of mediaeval Mohammedan science would prefer to live in Mecca, free from
Western influence and control. Even as it is, the predilection of foreign
students of law and theology is turning more and more towards Mecca.

As one of the numerous interesting specimens of the mental development
effected in Egypt in the last years, I may mention a book that appeared in
Cairo two years ago[1], containing a description of the present Khedive's
pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, performed two years before. The author
evidently possesses a good deal of the scholastic learning to be gathered
in the Azhar and no European erudition in the stricter sense of the word.
In an introductory chapter he gives a summary of the geography and history
of the Arabian peninsula, describes the Hijâz in a more detailed manner,
and in his very elaborate account of the journey, on which he accompanied
his princely master, the topography of the holy cities, the peculiarities
of their inhabitants and of the foreign visitors, the political
institutions, and the social conditions are treated almost as fully and
accurately as we could desire from the hand of the most accomplished
European scholar. The work is illustrated by good maps and plans and by a
great number of excellent photographs expressly taken for this purpose by
the Khedive's order. The author intersperses his account with many witty
remarks as well as serious reflections on religious and political topics,
thus making it very readable to those of us who are familiar with the
Arabic language. He adorns his description of the holy places and of the
pilgrimage-rites with the unctuous phrases used in handbooks for the hajji,
and he does not disturb the mind of the pious reader by any historical
criticism of the traditions connected with the House of Allah, the Black
Stone, and the other sanctuaries, but he loses no opportunity to show his
dislike of all superstition; sometimes, as if to prevent Western readers
from indulging in mockery, he compares Meccan rites or customs with
superstitious practices current amongst Jews or Christians of today.

[Footnote 1: _Ar-rihlah al-Hijaziyyah_, by Muhammed Labib al-Batanunf, 2d
edition, Cairo, 1329 Hijrah.]

This book, at whose contents many a Meccan scholar of the old style will
shake his head and exclaim: "We seek refuge near Allah from Satan, the
cursed!" has been adopted by the Egyptian Department of Public Instruction
as a reading-book for the schools.

What surprised me more than anything else was the author's quoting as his
predecessors in the description of Mecca and Medina, Burckhardt, Burton,
and myself, and his sending me, although personally unacquainted with him,
a presentation copy with a flattering dedication. This author and his book
would have been impossible in the Moslim world not more than thirty years
ago. In Egypt such a man is nowadays already considered as one of those
more conservative moderns, who prefer the rationalistic explanation of the
Azhar lore to putting it aside altogether. Within the Azhar, his book is
sure to meet with hearty approval from the followers of Muhammed Abduh, but
not less hearty disapproval from the opponents of modernism who make up the
majority of the professors as well as of the students.

In these very last years a new progress of modern thought has manifested
itself in Cairo in the foundation, under the auspices of Fu'âd Pasha, an
uncle of the present Khedive, of the Egyptian University. Cairo has had for
a long time its schools of medicine and law, which could be turned easily
into university faculties; therefore, the founders of the university
thought it urgent to establish a faculty of arts, and, if this proved a
success, to add a faculty of science. In the meantime, gifted young men
were granted subsidies to learn at European universities what they needed
to know to be the professors of a coming generation, and, for the present,
Christian as well as Mohammedan natives of Egypt and European scholars
living in the country were appointed as lecturers; professors being
borrowed from the universities of Europe to deliver lectures in Arabic on
different subjects chosen more or less at random before an audience little
prepared to digest the lessons offered to them.

The rather hasty start and the lack of a well-defined scheme have made
the Egyptian University a subject of severe criticism. Nevertheless, its
foundation is an unmistakable expression of the desire of intellectual
Egypt to translate modern thought into its own language, to adapt modern
higher instruction to its own needs. This same aim is pursued in a perhaps
more efficacious manner by the hundreds of Egyptian students of law,
science, and medicine at French, English, and some other European
universities. The Turks could not freely follow such examples before
the revolution of 1908; but they have shown since that time that their
abstention was not voluntary. England, France, Holland, and other countries
governing Mohammedan populations are all endeavouring to find the right way
to incorporate their Mohammedan subjects into their own civilization. Fully
recognizing that it was the material covetousness of past generations
that submitted those nations to their rule, the so-called colonial powers
consider it their duty now to secure for them in international intercourse
the place which their natural talent enables them to occupy. The question
whether it is better simply to leave the Moslims to Islâm as it was for
centuries is no longer an object of serious discussion, the reforming
process being at work everywhere--in some parts with surprising rapidity.
We can only try to prognosticate the solution which the near future
reserves for the problem, how the Moslim world is to be associated with
modern thought.

In this problem the whole civilized world and the whole world of Islâm are
concerned. The ethnic difference between Indians, North-Africans, Malays,
etc., may necessitate a difference of method in detail; the Islâm problem
lies at the basis of the question for all of them. On the other hand,
the future development of Islâm does not only interest countries with
Mohammedan dominions, it claims as well the attention of all the nations
partaking in the international exchange of material and spiritual goods.
This would be more generally recognized if some knowledge of Islâm were
more widely spread amongst ourselves; if it were better realized that Islâm
is next akin to Christianity.

It is the Christian mission that shows the deepest consciousness of this
state of things, and the greatest activity in promoting an association
of Mohammedan thought with that of Western nations. The solid mass of
experience due to the efforts of numerous missionaries is not of an
encouraging nature. There is no reasonable hope of the conversion
of important numbers of Mohammedans to any Christian denomination.
Broad-minded missionary societies have therefore given up the old fruitless
proselytizing methods and have turned to social improvement in the way of
education, medical treatment, and the like. It cannot be denied, that
what they want above all to bring to Mohammedans is just what these most
energetically decline to accept. On the other hand the advocates of a
purely civilizing mission are bound to acknowledge that, but for rare
exceptions, the desire of incorporating Mohammedan nations into our world
of thought does not rouse the devoted, self-denying enthusiasm inspired by
the vocation of propagating a religious belief. The ardour displayed by
some missionaries in establishing in the Dâr al-Islâm Christian centres
from which they distribute to the Mohammedans those elements of our
civilization which are acceptable to them deserves cordial praise; the more
so because they themselves entertain but little hope of attaining
their ultimate aim of conversion. Mohammedans who take any interest in
Christianity are taught by their own teachers that the revelation of Jesus,
after having suffered serious corruption by the Christians themselves, has
been purified and restored to its original simplicity by Mohammed, and are
therefore inaccessible to missionary arguments; nay, amongst uncivilized
pagans the lay mission of Islâm is the most formidable competitor of
clerical propagation of the Christian faith.

People who take no active part in missionary work are not competent to
dissuade Christian missionaries from continuing their seemingly hopeless
labour among Mohammedans, nor to prescribe to them the methods they are
to adopt; their full autonomy is to be respected. But all agree that
Mohammedans, disinclined as they are to reject their own traditions of
thirteen centuries and to adopt a new religious faith, become ever better
disposed to associate their intellectual, social, and political life with
that of the modern world. Here lies the starting point for two divisions of
mankind which for centuries have lived their own lives separately in mutual
misunderstanding, from which to pursue their way arm in arm to the greater
advantage of both. We must leave it to the Mohammedans themselves to
reconcile the new ideas which they want with the old ones with which they
cannot dispense; but we can help them in adapting their educational system
to modern requirements and give them a good example by rejecting the
detestable identification of power and right in politics which lies at the
basis of their own canonical law on holy war as well as at the basis of the
political practice of modern Western states. This is a work in which we
all may collaborate, whatever our own religious conviction may be. The
principal condition for a fruitful friendly intercourse of this kind is
that we make the Moslim world an object of continual serious investigation
in our intellectual centres.

Having spent a good deal of my life in seeking for the right method of
associating with modern thought the thirty-five millions of Mohammedans
whom history has placed under the guardianship of my own country, I could
not help drawing some practical conclusions from the lessons of history
which I have tried to reduce to their most abridged form. There is no lack
of pessimists, whose wisdom has found its poetic form in the words of
Kipling:

  East is East and West is West,
  And never the twain shall meet.

To me, with regard to the Moslim world, these words seem almost a
blasphemy. The experience acquired by adapting myself to the peculiarities
of Mohammedans, and by daily conversation with them for about twenty years,
has impressed me with the firm conviction that between Islâm and the modern
world an understanding _is_ to be attained, and that no period has offered
a better chance of furthering it than the time in which we are living. To
Kipling's poetical despair I think we have a right to prefer the words of
a broad-minded modern Hindu writer: "The pity is that men, led astray by
adventitious differences, miss the essential resemblances[1]."

[Footnote 1: S.M. Mitra, _Anglo-Indian Studies_, London, Longmans, Green &
Co., 1913, P. 232.]

It would be a great satisfaction to me if my lectures might cause some of
my hearers to consider the problem of Islâm as one of the most important of
our time, and its solution worthy of their interest and of a claim on their
exertion.