by profession, who owes his success in life to his faith. Though, outwardly, he conforms to all the precepts of Islam and occasionally stands up in public as the champion and spokesman of his coreligionists; yet, to my utter horror, I found that he held opinions about his religion and its founder which even Voltaire would have rejected with indignation and Gibbon with commiserating contempt."1 Later on we shall examine more fully the activities of these gentry in the chapters devoted to Pan-Islamism and Nationalism. What I desire to emphasize here is their pernicious influence on the prospects of a genuine Mohammedan reformation as visualized by the true reformers whom I have described. Their malevolent desire to stir up the fanatic passions of the ignorant masses and their equally malevolent hatred of everything Western except military improvements are revealed by outbursts like the following from the pen of a prominent "Young Turk." "Yes, the Mohammedan religion is in open hostility to all your world of progress. Learn, ye European observers, that a Christian, whatever his position, by the mere fact that he is a Christian, is in our eyes a being devoid of all human dignity. Our reasoning is simple and definitive. We say: the man whose judgment is so perverted as to deny the evidence of the One God and to fabricate gods of different kinds, cannot be other than the most ignoble expression of human stupidity. To speak to him would be a humiliation to our reason and an offense to the grandeur of the Master of the Universe. The worshipper of false gods is a monster of ingratitude; he is the execration of the universe; to 1 S. Khuda Bukhsh, op. cit., p. 241. combat him, convert him, or annihilate him is the holiest task of the Faithful. These are the eternal commands of our One God. For us there are in this world only Believers and Misbelievers; love, charity, fraternity to Believers; disgust, hatred, and war to Misbelievers. Among Misbelievers, the most odious and criminal are those who, while recognizing God, create Him of earthly parents, give Him a son, a mother; so monstrous an aberration surpasses, in our eyes, all bounds of iniquity; the presence of such miscreants among us is the bane of our existence; their doctrine is a direct insult to the purity of our faith; their contact a pollution for our bodies; any relation with them a torture for our souls. "While detesting you, we have been studying your political institutions and your military organizations. Besides the new arms which Providence procures for us by your own means, you yourselves have rekindled the inextinguishable faith of our heroic martyrs. Our Young Turks, our Babis, our new fraternities, all are sects in their varied forms, are inspired by the same thought, the same purpose. Toward what end? Christian civilization? Never!" 1 Such harangues unfortunately find ready hearers among the Moslem masses. Although the liberal reformers are a growing power in Islam, it must not be forgotten that they are as yet only a minority, an élite, below whom lie the ignorant masses, still suffering from the blight of agelong obscurantism, wrapped in admiration of their own world, which they regard as the highest ideal of human 1Sheikh Abd-ul-Haak, in Sherif Pasha's organ, Mecheroutiette, of August, 1912. Quoted from: A. Servier, Le Nationalisme musulman, Constantine, Algeria, 1913. existence, and fanatically hating everything outside as wicked, despicable, and deceptive. Even when compelled to admit the superior power of the West, they hate it none the less. They rebel blindly against the spirit of change which is forcing them out of their old ruts, and their anger is still further heightened by that ubiquitous Western domination which is pressing upon them from all sides. Such persons are as clay in the hands of the Pan-Islamic and Nationalist leaders who mould the multitude to their own sinister ends. Islam is, in fact, to-day torn between the forces of liberal reform and chauvinistic reaction. The liberals are not only the hope of an evolutionary reformation, they are also favored by the trend of the times, since the Moslem world is being continually permeated by Western progress and must continue to be thus permeated unless Western civilization itself collapses in ruin. Yet, though the ultimate triumph of the liberals appears probable, what delays, what setbacks, what fresh barriers of warfare and fanaticism may not the chauvinist reactionaries bring about! Neither the reform of Islam nor the relations between East and West are free from perils whose ominous possibilities we shall later discuss. Meanwhile, there remains the hopeful fact that throughout the Moslem world a numerous and powerful minority, composed not merely of Westernized persons but also of orthodox conservatives, are aware of Islam's decadence and are convinced that a thoroughgoing reformation along liberal, progressive lines is at once a practical necessity and a sacred duty. Exactly how this reformation shall be legally effected has not yet been determined, nor is a detailed discussion of technical machinery neces sary for our consideration.1 History teaches us that where the will to reform is vitally present, reformation will somehow or other be accomplished. One thing is certain: the reforming spirit, in its various manifestations, has already produced profound changes throughout Islam. The Moslem world of to-day is vastly different from the Moslem world of a century ago. The Wahabi leaven has destroyed abuses and has rekindled a purer religious faith. Even its fanatical zeal has not been without moral compensations. The spread of liberal principles and Western progress goes on apace. If there is much to fear for the future, there is also much to hope. 1 For such discussion of legal methods, see W. S. Blunt, The Future of Islam (London, 1882); A. Le chatelier, L'Islam au dix-neuvième Siècle (Paris, 1888); Dr. Perron, L'Islamisme (Paris, 1877); H. N. Brailsford, "Modernism in Islam," The Fortnightly Review, September, 1908; Sir Theodore Morison, "Can Islam be Reformed," The Nineteenth Century and After, October, 1908; M. Pickthall, "La Morale islamique," Revue Politique Internationale, July, 1916; XX, "L'Islam après la Guerre," Revue de Paris, 15 January; 1916. CHAPTER II PAN-ISLAMISM LIKE all great movements, the Mohammedan Revival is highly complex. Starting with the simple, puritan protest of Wahabism, it has developed many phases, widely diverse and sometimes almost antithetical. In the previous chapter we examined the phase looking toward an evolutionary reformation of Islam and a genuine assimilation of the progressive spirit as well as the external forms of Western civilization. At the same time we saw that these liberal reformers are as yet only a minority, an élite; while the Moslem masses, still plunged in ignorance and imperfectly awakened from their age-long torpor, are influenced by other leaders of a very different character-men inclined to militant rather than pacific courses, and hostile rather than receptive to the West. These militant forces are, in their turn, complex. They may be grouped roughly under the general concepts known as "Pan-Islamism" and "Nationalism." It is to a consideration of the first of these two concepts, to Pan-Islamism, that this chapter is devoted. Pan-Islamism, which in its broadest sense is the feeling of solidarity between all "True Believers," is as old as the Prophet, when Mohammed and his few followers were bound together by the tie of faith against their pagan compatriots who sought their destruction. To |