HO- POSITION OF MOHAMMEDANISM, ETC. 153
may ultimately be a stepping-stone to Christianity, like the law of Moses which served as a schoolmaster to lead men to the gos pel. It has destroyed the power of idolatry in Arabia and a large part of Asia and Africa, and raised Tartars and Negroes from the rudest forms of superstition to the belief and worship of the one true God, and to a certain degree of civilization.
It should be mentioned, however, that, according to the testi mony of missionaries and African travelers, Mohammedanism has inflamed the simple minded African tribes with the impure fire of fanaticism and given them greater power of resistance to Christianity. Sir William Muir, a very competent judge, thinks that Mohammedanism by the poisoning influence of polygamy and slavery, and by crushing all freedom of judgment in religion has interposed the most effectual barrier against the reception of Christianity. " Xo system/' he says, " could have been devised with more consummate skill for shutting out the nations over which it has sway, from the light of truth. Idolatrous Arabs might have been aroused to spiritual life and to the adoption of the faith of Jesus; Mahometan Arabia is, to the human eye, sealed against the benign influences of the gospel. . . . The sword of Mahomet and the Coran are the most fatal enemies of civiliza tion, liberty, and truth." 1
This is no doubt true of the past. But we have not yet seen the end of this historical problem. It is not impossible that Islam may yet prove to be a necessary condition for the revival of a pure Scriptural religion in the East. Protestant missionaries from England and America enjoy greater liberty under the Mo hammedan rule than they would under a Greek or Russian
who have fallen under its extraordinary power." Carlyle calls the creed of Mo hammed "a kind of Christianity better than that of those miserable Syrian Sects with the head full of worthless noise, the heart empty and dead. The truth of it is imbedded in portentous error and falsehood ; but the truth makes it to be believed, not the falsehood : it succeeded by its truth. A bastard kind of Christianity, but a living kind ; with a heart-life in it ; not dead, chopping, barren logic merely." 1 Life of Mahomet, IV. 321, 322.
154 FOURTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
government. The Mohammedan abhorrence of idolatry and image worship, Mohammedan simplicity and temperance are points of contact with the evangelical type of Christianity, which from the extreme West has established flourishing missions in the most important parts of Turkey. The Greek Church can do little or nothing with the Mohammedans ; if they are to be con verted it must be done by a Christianity which is free from all appearance of idolatry, more simple in worship, and more vigorous in life than that which they have so easily conquered and learned to despise. It is an encouraging fact that Mohammedans have great respect for the Anglo-Saxon race. They now swear by the word of an Englishman as much as by the beard of Mohammed. Islam is still a great religious power in the East. It rules supreme in Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor, Egypt, North Africa, and makes progress among the savage tribes in the interior of the Dark Continent. It is by no means simply, as Schlegel charac terized the system, " a prophet without miracles, a faith without mysteries, and a morality without love." It has tenacity, aggres sive vitality and intense enthusiasm. Every traveller in the Ori ent must be struck with the power of its simple monotheism upon its followers. A visit to the Moslem University in the Mosque El Azhar at Cairo is very instructive. It dates from the tenth century (975), and numbers (or numbered in 1877, when I visited it) no less than ten thousand students who come from all parts of the Mohammedan world and present the appearance of a huge Sunday School, seated in small groups on the floor, studying the Koran as the beginning and end of all wisdom, and then at the stated hours for prayer rising to perform their devotions under the lead of their teachers. They live in primitive simplicity, studying, eating and sleeping on a blanket or straw mat in the same mosque, but the expression of their faces betrays the fanatic al devotion to their creed. They support themselves, or are aided by the alms of the faithful. The teachers (over three hun dred) receive no salary and live by private instruction or presents from rich scholars.