The story of Islam

Palestine, now swept within the Turkish Empire, re-echoes the hard rasp of the Moslem creed and shrinks beneath the pressure of the Moslem heel. Strange that within the Empire of the Turk, the Empire which in the past has stood for oppression and persecution, should lie the land that once cradled the Saviour of the world. Stranger still and far more tragic, that on the hills which JESUS trod, around the lake He loved, and in the villages which heard His words of Life and Light and Truth, His Name is almost forgotten, dishonoured by the name that denies His claim.

A CHALLENGE FROM WEST AFRICA.
'Where Moslem mosque and pagan temple are side by side.'

The Bedouin Arab with his camel or his herd of goats camps unthinking upon the sacred sites. Bethlehem, Nazareth, Cana, Capernaum, Calvary, Olivet mean nothing to him. He spreads his prayer-mat towards Mecca and invokes Mohammed.

We have traversed Asia from the farthest East, and the voice of the muezzin has haunted our ears. But we have not finished yet.

Africa.

Africa lies before us, the land of trackless deserts, overpowering forests, pestiferous marshes, vast inland seas.

It is the continent of pagan races, negro and Bantu crowding in mud-built towns or scattered in countless villages on the river banks. No stately temples of sculptured marble enshrine their pagan gods; weird sacred trees, fetishes, sacred stones take their place.

The pagan continent—is it so indeed? What means, then, the muezzin call from Cape to Cairo, from Lagos to Zanzibar? Whence come fanatic Moslems facing eastward and northward in the old strongholds of Christian Churches in North Africa and Egypt, in the heart of the Sahara, in the great, walled cities of Sokoto, in the vast bush lands of West Africa, where Moslem mosque and pagan temple are side by side? Down through central, pagan Africa, the land where Livingstone's heart still lies, we find the Moslem convert where ten years ago Mohammed was not known. Pagan Africa! its paganism fades into the past, and it fades before the crescent, not the Cross.

Urgent Problems.

That is the problem of Africa, and it is the problem of today. What is to be the future of this great continent? The land is in trust to the powers of Europe, Christian by name. They must decide its fate. Is the simple, laughing savage, clinging so feebly to his poor superstition, to be gripped by the iron hand of this Islam we have studied, or shall his feet be set upon the path which has no limit but the purity, the love, the holiness of God? Twelve centuries ago the Christian citadels of North Africa were wrested from the Christian Church and they have never been recovered. Islam has rolled across the great Soudan and in the last fifty years has broken through into the Southern Continent. In the last ten years it has spread down the Niger river, passing little Christian churches on the way, across the old West African Protectorates, and out to the sea, building its tiny mosques in heathen villages, teaching its short, simple creed, steeling the African against the Gospel.[5]

One-third of Africa is Moslem. The next twenty-five years must largely decide the fate of the rest.

Moslem Propaganda in Africa.

How has it come to pass? Not by the sword, for Europe has ordered the sword to be sheathed. Not by the prestige of Moslem government, for the great bulk of Africa is under European rule, which professes to treat all religions alike.

The Moslem trader, confident, earnest, and proud, sitting at rest in the market of a neighbouring village, on the long march of a caravan, on the ship that bears him up and down the Nile, in the streets of the great coast towns, boldly acknowledges Allah and His Prophet. He feels no qualms for any inconsistency in his life, nor is his message weakened thereby. The simple pagan, whose ancient superstitions are already rudely shattered by advancing civilization, eagerly grasps at a creed so simple and so apparently complete. He knows it offers him a brotherhood and a social status he never dreamt of before. The meagreness of Islam's demands makes conversion easy. He need make but small change in the manner of his life, while, instead of the haunting dread of a world full of evil and evil-meaning spirits, comes the great revelation, 'There is one God.' For him for the rest of life his relation to that God is summed up in one word, 'Islam'—submission. 'We must submit to God.'

A magnificent Moslem.

Traders or warriors, there is something great about these Moslems. There is a fine picture by Sir Reginald Wingate of Abdurahman Wad en Nejumi, his noblest enemy who fought under the Mahdi in the Eastern Soudan:

'He was a Jaali, one of the not very numerous tribe of Jaalin, but one in whom the Baggara recognized warlike qualities similar to their own, and with whom it was important to keep on good terms. In early life, a Fiki, like the Mahdi, and his devoted friend, stern, hard, ascetic, the thin, dark man was the incarnation of a blind sincerity of conviction. He never transgressed the self-appointed strictures with which he ruled his conduct. Withal, a spice of madness entered into his composition. There was no man but trusted his word, and his the distant enterprise, his the forefront of danger always was. Mahdiism was the natural outlet for his wild temper. He was the Khâlid of the Prophet's wars. He it was who prepared the stratagem which annihilated Hicks. He it was who crept silently round through the shallow mud beyond the crumbled ramparts of Khartoum. In him was realized the phrase, unique in consular dispatch, "They are so fond of the Mahdi, one may say that they are the body, and he the soul."'

And this of Wad en Nejumi's death a few years later:

'All fighting appeared over, when a camel laden with what was at first supposed to be a gun was observed along the line of retreat, surrounded by some forty men. This party, on being observed, was fired on by a troop of cavalry; the camel fell and most of the men appeared to have been killed; the cavalry then followed up, and called upon the remainder to surrender, but as they approached, the Arabs supposed to have been killed suddenly sprang up, and rushing at them, a hand-to-hand encounter ensued; a number were killed, and the remainder returned once more to their camel. They were again called upon to surrender, but their only response was a second charge, which resulted in all being killed except one, who, mounting a passing horse, succeeded in escaping. The cavalry finding no gun on the camel, as they expected, continued the pursuit, but it was subsequently discovered that the camel had been carrying the dead body of an important chief, and under the direction of Captain Macdonald it was sent to Toski, where it was at once identified by all the captives as that of Nejumi. It eventually transpired that, being severely wounded, he was being carefully tended by his bodyguard, who, placing him on a rough camel litter, had attempted to convey him to the rear. One of his sons, a boy of five years old, was found dead beside the camel, while another baby boy, scarcely a year old, was brought by his nurse into the camp at Toski on the following day.'[6]

We dare to admire him. Can we not sever the man from the system and learn to love him too?

That is the paradox of Islam—the hateful system, and the rough, natural, earnest, lovable man. How shall the Church of Christ bear herself towards it? What does it mean for each individual Christian in these opening years of the twentieth century?

QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER X

1. What grounds are there for considering the problem of the duty of Christianity in the face of Islam to be one of the great world-problems of our day?

2. What do you know of the Mohammedan population of India?

3. Draw a sketch map of the Turkish Empire. What is meant by the muezzin?

4. Why is Africa to-day one of the greatest battle-grounds between Islam and Christianity? What is being done? What ought to be done?

5. What do you know of Wad en Nejumi? How should such men be treated by the English in Egypt?

[1] It should be remembered that the early Church 'for three hundred years had all the Governments of the world and all the Courts of Justice against her.' Yet these were the days of the Church's greatest vigour!

[2] An Arabic proverb is common throughout Persia which sadly epitomizes the influence of Mecca. It is as follows: 'If your friend has been to Mecca, trust him not. If he has been there twice, avoid him. If he has made the pilgrimage three times, then flee from him as you would from Satan himself.'

[3] The reader is recommended to keep the map (on pp. 200-1) open while reading this chapter.

[4] Kashmir and the North-West Frontier Province are Moslem almost to a man; the hardy races of the Punjab are predominantly Moslem; the whole of that huge stretch called the United Provinces, with its old Mohammedan citadels and mosques, is still the intellectual centre of Indian Mohammedanism. Calcutta, and the dense network of villages of Bengal, contain twenty-five million professed Moslems. In Bombay one-fifth of the people are Mohammedans. During recent years Mohammedanism has still been spreading in India.

[5] Speaking at the Lagos Church Synod in 1906, the Rev. A. W. Smith said, 'Mohammedanism was introduced into the Ijebu country [a huge and densely populated district near Lagos] in 1893, and to-day half its population is professedly Mohammedan.'

[6] Sir Reginald Wingate, Mahdiism and the Egyptian Soudan, pp. 239, 431, 432.

CHAPTER XI

ISLAM AND THE CHURCH OF CHRIST

'For a brave man, to know that an evil is, is simply to know that it has to be vanquished.'—A. M. FAIRBAIRN.

'O, it is great, and there's no other greatness, to make some part of God's creation a little fruitfuller, better, more worthy of God.'—CARLYLE.

Livingstone and Stanley.

On November 10, 1871, two men met in the heart of Africa. One, David Livingstone, intrepid missionary and explorer, had been lost, and reputed dead for years. The other, Henry Stanley, after long months of heroic search, found the 'white man with hair on his face' within sound of the thunderous surf on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, and greeted him with, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?'

The day of that meeting is one of the most significant dates in Africa's history. Stanley returned home to rouse Europe. Livingstone, worn and weakened by illness, remained. At Ilala, a year after Stanley left him, his faithful African boys found 'the great master' kneeling by his bedside, dead.

The life and death of Livingstone is said to have inspired the founding of twenty-two Missionary Societies. Certainly it opened a new chapter in the story of African Missions.

The ears of Europe rang with the tales of Livingstone and Stanley, and the heart of Europe responded to their appeal to heal that great open sore, the slave trade.

The Slave Trade.

And who were the slave traders? Our friends the Moslem Arabs. But Stanley and Livingstone, standing in the heart of that Dark Continent, saw plainly enough that something else was needed to lighten the darkness than even the most vigorous suppression of the Slave Trade and its attendant atrocities. Superstition, misery, degradation, cruelty, were everywhere. And as for the Moslems, pouring in from the north in peaceful caravan or devastating slave raid, they were making the situation tenfold worse in every way than it was. It was evident that no healing of Africa's sores could come from them.

Call to the Church.

In a famous despatch published in the Daily Telegraph, on November 15, 1875, Stanley challenged the Church of Christ to plunge boldly into the heart of Africa, and make the countries of the still pagan tribes south of the Great Lakes centres of light for the whole Dark Continent. The challenge was accepted and the implied prophecy has come true.

Missions in Central Africa.

The Universities' Mission to Central Africa (founded in response to an earlier appeal from Livingstone) has built its cathedral at Zanzibar, on the site of the old slave market, and its work has spread inwards through Nyassaland.

The Livingstonia Mission, founded by the Free Church of Scotland after Livingstone's death, has, in a short space of twenty years, seen wild, warlike tribes, whose chief concern was warfare and slaughter, settle down into hard-working Christian communities.

In Uganda, the Mission founded by the Church Missionary Society a little later, has seen the growth of a Church of 98,000 Native Christians supporting its own 3,000 Native Christian workers and sending its own missionaries into the heathen countries around.

But in each place they were only just in time; and other regions which were not occupied, the Moslem is winning to-day. Thirty years before Livingstone's death, the great German Krapf, working for the Church Missionary Society, had seen the danger, and had challenged the Church to forge a chain of Mission stations from east to west to bind the Moslem to the north.

Many links of that chain have not yet been forged, and the Moslem has streamed down into the Southern Continent till there is hardly a section of Africa in which he may not be found.

The Niger and Hausa Land.

Away in the West in the vast Niger districts the same unequal race is going on, but Christendom was later in the field. In 1899, before our British troops had subdued the Hausa states, a little party led by Bishop Tugwell had penetrated 700 miles, even up to Kano. Here the Moslem ruled the land and brooked no interference with his raiding or his slavery. He was engaged in bringing the simple unorganized pagan tribes to heel. Christian missionaries were the last people he wanted. For many months the little defenceless party found no rest for the soles of their feet. If they pitched their tent they were quickly ordered to remove it, the alternative being the executioner's sword. At last, in a little village, they pitched their camp in simple faith among a people of whom not one but wished them gone. Death, and the many fevers of West Africa have worked sad havoc in their ranks, but bravely they kept on, though often one man alone 'held the fort' in Gierku.

A language to be learned and reduced to Roman writing, the Bible to be translated, the suspicions of a hostile people to be allayed, the very meaning of the words truth and purity to be taught, learned Moslem Mallams[1] to be dealt with, men and women, boys and girls, in a bondage to sin, such as we have never thought of in Europe, to be led out into the liberty with which Christ alone makes free—that was the task before them.

That was ten years ago: what is found to-day?

A Hausa Convert.

'Last summer a Hausa convert, only one year after his baptism, was travelling, for business purposes, to the old and fanatical city of Katsina, 140 miles from our C. M. S. station in Zaria, almost the earliest stronghold of Islam in this land. He was a young man of considerable ability and well known for his learning; his conversion and baptism had caused some consternation in orthodox circles, where it had been freely said that whatever we might succeed in doing among the illiterate, we should never convert a Mallam!

'Soon after his arrival in Katsina, he was sent for by the Emir, who said to him, "We have heard of you, and your reputation has reached here. Why did you leave your own faith and that of your fathers, and become a Christian?" Seeking for God's guidance, our friend quietly gave his reasons, and spoke of his joy and rest in Christ. He then asked permission to expound the Christian faith, that those assembled (a few of the leading men, including the chief religious Mohammedan official and judge) might understand what he had received in exchange for Islam. This was permitted, and for a long time he preached Christ to them.

'From that time, during the rest of his stay in the city, not one day passed but he was invited to the houses of the leading Mallams and chiefs, to explain the Christian faith and read the Scriptures in Arabic. So the gospel was faithfully preached to many in this city where no white missionary has been allowed, by one who had been a learned Mohammedan and whom Christ had saved. This same man and others are fearlessly proclaiming Christ, and with ceaseless energy are seeking and praying to bring in their fellow-countrymen to the Light.'

So wrote Dr. Miller in June, 1909. It is but a corner of the picture—but it must suffice us.

Egypt.

The strength of Islam in Africa is Egypt. The great Moslem University of Al Azhar 'is the centre, literally, from a geographical, and actually from a spiritual point of view of the world of Islam,'—a Moslem University which exists to teach the Moslem faith, with thousands of students, and a training that often covers twenty years, to which men come from every outpost of the Moslem world. 'Far the oldest of the medieval Universities, it is the only one which has remained, and remains, medieval in its curriculum, its methods, its whole aspect'—such is the head and heart of Islam to-day.

Shall this citadel of Islam be left unassailed while the Church passes on to easier work? Or is it a challenge for picked men, the best our Western learning can produce, to outlearn the learned, to love the hardest hearts and have patience over wooden heads, to believe in spite of all appearances that Truth is great and will prevail? To-day, through the many pillared porticoes into the great University Court where for long centuries no Christian could so much as enter, Christian missionaries, true enough, men enough for this, pass freely, welcome friends and visitors. From this Moslem of Moslem Universities, 'students and ex-students have been converted to Christianity, and not a few have, as they paced or sat apart, studied there not the Korân, but the Injil Yasu'a al Masih (Gospel of Jesus Christ)'!

Asia.

And what of the problem in Asia, the struggle with Islam and its many and various forms there—Islam in undisputed power, Islam plus European influence, Islam under British rule, Islam under Dutch, and French, and Chinese governments, Islam sealing itself against the world, Islam caught in the rush of twentieth-century movements? What is the Church of Christ attempting? What trophies has she won?

Henry Martyn.

Just a hundred years ago Henry Martyn, a young brilliant scholar, Senior Wrangler of Cambridge, went out to India as a Chaplain of the East India Company. He was only in India four years before he moved on to Persia, but he left behind him a translation, of the Bible into Hindustani. His life was 'cut short,' as men said, at thirty-one.

The fact of his going out at all was staggering enough for intelligent men of his day. But when it transpired that his purpose in taking the post was that he might work among Hindus and Moslems, they had no words to describe his action but 'madness.' 'Absolutely throwing his life away!' said some. 'Of all the ridiculous ideas!' said others. 'Well, of all the impossible tasks!' said the more thoughtful, to whom, in those days, the conversion of a Moslem to Christianity was unimaginable. Possibly if he had stayed at home he might have lived to grey hairs, a life of learning, wealth, and honour. Instead, he planted a tiny living seed in the field of Islam. Was it worth while?

It is reported that he left in India one, and only one, convert, Abdul Masih, the keeper of the jewels at the Court of Oudh. He lived for fifteen years after Martyn's death, labouring among his Moslem compatriots, the first Mohammedan ordained to the Christian ministry.

Imad-ud-Din.

To-day among the native pastors and Christian preachers and teachers in North India, there are at least 200 who were once followers of Islam.[2]

Let one speak for himself. His name is Moulvie Imad-ud-Din, he is a lineal descendant of the famous Mohammedan saint, Qutab Jamal, who traced his descent from the ancient royal house of Persia: he was born near Delhi, in 1830, and died at Amritsar, in 1900.

'When I was fifteen years of age, I left my friends and relatives for my education, and went to Agra, where my brother, Moulvie Karim-ud-Din, was the Headmaster in the Urdu language. I remained there a long time under him.... As soon as I had leisure from the study of science, I began to wait on Fakirs and pious and learned men, to discover the advantages of religion. I frequented the mosques and the houses set apart for religious purposes, and the homes of the Moulvies and carried on my studies in Mohammedan law, the ceremonies of the Korân and the traditional sayings of Mohammed, and also in manners, logic and philosophy. I knew nothing of the Christian religion. I had some doubts in my mind respecting Mohammedanism in consequence of intercourse I had had with some Christians, but the taunting curses of the Moulvies and Mohammedans so confounded me that I quickly drew back from all such thoughts.... I gave up all thought of disputation, and controversy, and began to take great pains in acquiring knowledge. Without troubling myself about any other concerns, I read steadily night and day and continued doing so for eight or ten years.

When the necessary attainments in the outward knowledge of religion had been acquired, and I had become brimful of Mohammedan bigotry from it, I became entangled in another snare which the learned Mohammedans have placed in the path of the seeker after truth.... The Mohammedans always at first, and for a long period of time, set forth before enquirers the outward rites of their law, and their bodily exercises and unprofitable stories and the affinities of words used in their controversies. They then tie him by the leg with a rope of deceit, in order to make him sit down and rest contented, by telling him that what he has already learned consists merely of the outward ordinances of Mohammedanism, but that if he wishes to prosecute his studies and investigate the realities of religion he must go to the Fakirs and the Mohammedan saints, and remain in attendance on them for many years because they possess the secret science of religion.

'As soon as I was entangled in this subtle science, I began to practise speaking little, eating little, living apart from men, afflicting my body and keeping awake at nights. I used to spend whole nights reading the Korân. I put in practice ... all the various special penances and devotions that were enjoined. I used to shut my eyes and sit in retirement, seeking by thinking on the Name of God to write it on my heart. I constantly sat on the graves of holy men, in hopes that, by contemplation, I might receive some revelation from the tombs. I went and sat in the assemblies of the elders and hoped to receive grace by gazing with great faith on the faces of the Sufies. I used to go even to the dreamy and intoxicated fanatics, in the hope of thus attaining union with God. And I did all this, besides performing my prayers five times a day, and also the prayer in the night and that in the very early morning, and always was I repeating the salutation of Mohammed and the confession of faith....

'The thought of utterly renouncing the world then came into my mind with so much power that I left everybody and went into the jungles and became a Fakir, putting on clothes covered with red ochre and wandered here and there, from city to city, and from village to village, step by step alone, without plan or baggage.

'In addition to the above I wrote the name of God on paper 125,000 times, and I cut out each word separately with scissors and wrapped them up each in a little ball of flour and fed the fish in the river with them in the way the book prescribed....

'I had got into the same state of mind that many learned Mohammedans have been in under similar circumstances. I once had thought that Mohammedanism was the best of all religions on earth. I had, therefore, believed Christianity to be untrue: in short, I was a vehement opponent of the Christian religion. I therefore became convinced in my own mind that all religions were but vain fables, and that it was better for me to live in ease and comfort myself, to act honestly towards everybody, and to be satisfied with believing in the unity of God. For six years my mind remained afflicted with these foolish thoughts....

'I came to Lahore. I here heard of the conversion to Christianity of Moulvie Safdar Ali at Jubbulpore, which greatly amazed me ... gradually I remembered that Ali was a true and just man, and I began to ask myself how he could have acted in such a foolish manner as to leave the Mohammedan religion. I then thought that I ought to begin to dispute with him by letter about it. With this object I procured the Old and New Testaments and asked an English Christian missionary to read the English Testament with me. When I read as far as the 7th Chapter of St. Matthew, doubts fixed themselves upon my mind respecting the truth of Mohammedanism. I became so agitated that I spent whole days, and often also whole nights, in reading and considering the books, and began to speak about them both with missionaries and Mohammedans. Within a year I had investigated the whole matter, chiefly at nights, and I discovered that the religion of Mohammed is not of God, and that Mohammedans have been deceived, and that salvation is assuredly to be found in the Christian religion.

'As soon as this had become evident to me, I made everything known to my Mohammedan friends and followers. Some of them became angry; but some listened in my private chamber to the proof I gave them. They said quite plainly that they knew that the religion of Mohammed is not true; but they asked me what they could do, when they were afraid of the opposition of the world and of the reproaches and curses of ignorant men. In their hearts they said they certainly believed Christianity to be true, and that Mohammed could not be the Mediator of the men of his religion, but they were unwilling to lose the esteem of the world. They urged me not to make my faith public, but to call myself outwardly a Mohammedan, and yet in my heart to believe in Christianity.... The extent of their faith became thus evident to me by their own confessions. I committed them all to God for, besides praying for them, I knew not anything else I could do for them, and I went myself to Amritsar and received baptism.'

HON. ION KEITH-FALCONER. REV. IMAD UD-DIN D.D.
'Strong men, missionary and convert.'

'Since my entrance into the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, I have had great peace in my soul.... By reading the Word of God I have found enjoyment in life. My friends and acquaintances and my disciples and followers and others, have all become my enemies.... I therefore pray for them. May God give them grace and open the eyes of their minds that they may be partakers of the everlasting salvation of the Lord, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.'

Shortly after Henry Martyn arrived in India he had written, 'Even if I should never see a native converted, God may design by my patience and continuance in the Word to encourage future missionaries.' Again, was it worth while?

Dutch East Indies.

In the Dutch East Indies alone there are to-day 24,000 Christian converts from Islam, and from 200 to 300 are baptized every year—the fruit of the labours of stout-hearted Dutchmen.

Persia.

We have so far been meeting strong men, missionary and convert. Let us take a look at a very different Moslem whom we meet in a Christian Hospital for women in the heart of Persia. The English lady worker has just completed her round of the wards, and we greet with her a former out-patient, one of a group of women converts.

'The first of these was Sakîneh, who entered the Women's Dispensary with her aunt, who was ill. At that time Sakîneh was a bigoted Moslem, but gradually the message touched her heart. A year later she came for treatment for herself, her husband's cruelty having made her ill, for which reason he divorced her. Sakîneh was then eager to learn more of Christ's love. Her father beat her cruelly, but this seemed to increase her desire for teaching.... She declared her faith in Jesus as the only Saviour ... and was baptized. Shortly after she began to try and tell her own family and neighbours.... The news spread in her village, Hoseinabad, that she was a Christian. Then a system of boycotting and persecution began. Her friends no longer saluted her in the streets, she was pelted with mud and stones, hooted at, called infidel, Nazarene, Christian dog, etc. At the Public Baths a woman noticed she had no Moslem charms on, and charged her publicly with being a Christian. At first she was afraid to reply, then answered "Yes." At once she was cast out, and the place declared defiled by her. She was followed down the street by an angry mob, and beaten with a chain used for whipping donkeys.... Her fellow-villagers declared either Sakîneh must be put to death or she and her parents must leave the village. As night came on the mob surrounded the house, threatening to take her life. Her brother-in-law got her over the wall of the village into the desert, and brought her to our house. Sakîneh was unnerved, but kept on repeating, "I have not denied Christ; I want to live and die a Christian."'

It was just twenty years ago that Sakîneh bore her brave witness for Christ.

The Christian Church in Persia to-day.

It is a beautiful picture, and one full of hope, that remains with us as we leave the sad, inert, decadent land of Persia. There among a people, sinful, sensuous, corrupt, and apparently loveless, at almost every place where in school or hospital, in gaudy harem or in humble cottage, the Gospel of purity and love is preached to-day, are little companies of Persian Christians, men and women who, disowned, impoverished, persecuted, in peril of imprisonment and death, count it a joy to suffer for Christ's sake. Truly in Persia are heroic outposts of the Christian Church.

Ion Keith-Falconer and Arabia.

We close this chapter with a short picture of one of the noble men who have given their lives to win the way into Arabia.

'See, in the purpose of God for Arabia, that lad of promise, lovable, thoughtful, strong in mind and body, in his noble Scottish home. See him at Harrow, then at Cambridge, rising above his fellows, many-sided, full of fire and life. Watch him at work, passing rapidly from form to form at Harrow, taking a first in one Tripos and then another at Cambridge, good at mathematics, brilliant at languages, a born teacher, so exact in his working that he masters Dutch Grammar in three weeks rather than leave a book in that language, which bore upon a lecture, unread. Watch him at play—bicycling from John o' Groats to Land's End, and winning the Bicycling Championship of England, a man of superb physique and training, "as hard as nails." Watch him at his special hobby—shorthand, an expert verbatim reporter, the chosen writer on phonography in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Down in the slums of Cambridge, or in the East End of London, you may find him too, now raising, or himself giving, funds for some enterprise, now addressing a great meeting, now sitting beside a man who seeks a way to Christ.

'For Ion Keith-Falconer is more than student and athlete—beyond the power of brain and muscle there lies a heart which beats true to its Master, "fervent still after all the turmoil of a great Public School and the more subtle temptations of a great University."

Surely scholarship and Cambridge claim such a man as this? At nine-and-twenty we find him a learned professor in Cambridge, at thirty a missionary to Arabia, at thirty-one, only six months after he left England, we stand by his grave, the black mountainous rocks of Aden lie behind us, and the white sandy shore of Arabia edges the limitless stretch of the ocean beyond.

From one point of view, Keith-Falconer's missionary career was disastrous and a dislocation. From another, his going was the most natural thing in the world. Young, strong, free, a master of Arabic, he had the constraining love of Christ within him, and a vision of the Moslem world—especially Arabia—before. Speaking for the last time before he left Scotland, he said:

'"While vast continents are shrouded in almost utter darkness, and hundreds of millions suffer the horrors of heathenism, and of Islam, the burden of proof lies upon you to show that the circumstances in which God has placed you were meant by Him to keep you out of the foreign mission-field."

'The purpose of the strong man to spend and be spent in the Cause shines out in those last short months. We see him building at Sheikh Othman a centre for his work, talking with patients in the mat-verandah, dropping into coffee-shops to meet in friendly intercourse with the Moslems he loved, picking up and carrying with the aid of his devoted colleague a sick man left to die in the street. Then the fever-mists gather, and the scholar-missionary's death claims Arabia for her true Lord.

'The missionary chapter of Ion Keith-Falconer's life closed quickly, but the eyes of Christians were opened to the land for which he died.'

Is there such a thing as waste in God's economy? Is it not written 'whoso loseth his life, the same shall find it'?

QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER XI

1. Of the heroes mentioned in this chapter, whom do you consider the greatest, and why?

2. What answer would you give to the assertion that Ion Keith-Falconer's life was wasted through his going to missionary work in Arabia?

3. Estimate the extent of the work done for Africa by Livingstone. How far is it being followed up adequately now?

4. Give some account of the perplexities, hindrances, and difficulties which make it hard for a Mohammedan to become a Christian.

5. Which parts of the Moslem world seem to you in most need of Christian missionaries to-day? Why? What sort of men would you send to each?

[1] i.e. Teachers.

[2] Dr. Wherry, Islam and Christianity in India.

CHAPTER XII

ISLAM AND THE CHRISTIAN

'So while the World rolls on from change to change
        And realms of thought expand,
The letter stands without expanse or range,
        Stiff as a dead man's hand.
While as the life-blood fills the glowing form,
        The spirit Christ has shed
Flows through the ripening ages, fresh and warm,
        More felt than heard or read,'
                                        MILNES' 'PALM LEAVES'
                        (quoted in Stanley's Eastern Church).

The Story of Islam.

We have reached the end of the telling of our story. Let our minds move over it again once more. Thirteen hundred years ago in Arabia, an insignificant, untamed, untaught 'Land of the Desert,' there arose an Arab man who, forsaking idols, believed utterly in God. His followers poured forth into the world with a Faith that carried all before them. That Faith broke the great imperial civilizations of its day, and bore down the timid standards of a corrupt and palsied Church. Occupying the Mediterranean countries and the sites of the ancient empires, it established itself as the greatest ruling force the world had ever known. In spite of the rise of younger nations, the magnificence of medieval Europe, the growth of science and the arts of civilization and of war, in spite of many rival empires in the modern 'scramble for the world,' Islam still holds with its tenacious grip the thoughts and hearts of men. It dominates to-day one-seventh of mankind, moving still to fresh conquests of the Faith. We have traced that Faith in history and seen it settling like a deadly blight upon the nations, chilling and paralyzing the moral life of man. We have examined it in its essential meaning and significance.

Islam rises up before us in its tremendous rugged strength, leagued with the wild nature of 200 millions of our fellow-men, and overshadowing Christendom.

The Challenge of Islam.

'The only one of the great religions to come after Christianity: the only one that categorically denies the truth of Christianity: the only one that has in the past signally defeated Christianity: the only one that seriously disputes the world with Christianity: the only one which, in several parts of the world, is to-day forestalling and gaining on Christianity.'[1]

Isaiah.

In another Eastern land 1,200 years before Mohammed, there lived another Prophet. The country that he loved with a passionate devotion was in sore straits. Two mighty kingdoms, one on either side, were driving their highways across it, and threatening to overwhelm it. The very religion which had been the secret of its greatness was challenged and endangered. Men's hearts were full of fear. To one man was given a vision of hope. He alone among his people pierced the clouds that overcast the sky, and saw the light, and believed with all his soul in the vision that he saw—the vision of the kingdom that should be, the rule of righteousness and joy and peace, whose ensign should be Holiness to the Lord. And seeing the future till to him it was present, he worded it thus:—

Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end ... to establish it and to uphold it with judgment and with righteousness from henceforth even for ever.

And St. John upon the summit of a later day painted with a fuller glory the vision of the City that shall be:—

And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof. and the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the Glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb. And the nations shall walk amidst the light thereof: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory into it. And the gates thereof shall in no wise be shut by day (for there shall be no night there): and they shall bring the glory and the honour of the nations into it: and there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie: but only they which are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

It is the purest form of the old-world vision of the 'Golden Age,' and our hearts acclaim it still.

Christ's Kingdom.

Here upon this present, prosaic earth to-day, God is laying by human hands the foundations, broad and deep and true, of that City yet to be. To this world, where sin threw down the gage of battle, the Child was born. Here He fought and triumphed, and upon this earth was raised His cross, the token of the final victory. Here among men in this present world, the battle must be waged, the Kingdom comes.

Every sin, every falsehood, every injustice, every cruelty, every wrong, may challenge but they do not deny that Kingdom—Islam does.

Bringing its ideals down to the level of our nature, it denies the best in man, and denies the Christ of God—the One who alone has triumphed and in whose triumph lies man's only hope. Give the world to Islam, and man's highest vision is gone for ever.

Christian and Moslem.

And so we go to meet the Moslem, and he stands before us strong, fearless, brave, determined. What have we Christians that we can say to him? What can we give? What has he already got?

First, he has God, God all-powerful, all-knowing, Master of the Universe and Lord of men. He has a Prophet, human also as himself, to be at the last day, so he says, his mediator in God's presence, pleading there man's weakness before God.[2] Behind him, with him, around him, stands that great Moslem brotherhood of the 'believers' transcending all race, proud and isolated, mysterious in its kindling warmth and strange fanaticism. For himself, and for them he has his book—his Korân—the final word of God. In it he finds his simple rule of conduct, the things that he must do, his prayer, his almsgiving, the blessing of the pilgrimage, the rules for all his life—nothing impossible in them from first to last, no entanglement of conscience or of principles, no insistence upon the spirit in which they must be carried out. He has his call to service too, for the honour of the Prophet and the advancement of the Faith. And on beyond—his Paradise, the more attractive because so very like this earth without its pains.

MOSLEM BOY-FACES (TUNIS).
'What have we Christians that we can say to them?'

What can we say? Talk about compromise between these two religions? Ask him, ask any Moslem, ask the Korân. The two are essentially, absolutely, and for ever, mutually contradictory and mutually exclusive. The Hindu and the Chinese may indeed set Christ in their Pantheons. But a Moslem set Christ beside the Prophet? Never!

The Proof of Christ.

What then have we to offer? Must we Christians cringe in shame and weakness before his grim unthinking faith and rugged earnestness? It is a searching question. Superior knowledge, or as we think a more complete philosophy of things, does not give us a right to interfere with his belief. He starts with an inherent and determined disbelief in the claim of Christ, it is the very core of his religion. He will not listen to our story. He wants the proof of Christ.

And where shall the proof of Christ be found? There is one only answer, Christ the Son of God, the Son of Man, staked all upon the Christian—His Spirit in the Christian,—all that story, wrought out in suffering and tears, and the shedding of His blood, His triumph over death, His ascension on high, to be told and retold and told again in the life of the Christian. It was always so, He meant it to be so; it was His plan, part of the eternal purpose of God for the Redemption of the World.

The Commission.

And so the commission to teach all nations[3] and the promise of the Spirit stand together—two things which God hath joined—the Witness and the Spirit.

In the power and fulness of that Spirit, the little company of weak and vacillating fishermen with their few companions went out fearlessly to win the world for Christ. They dared to believe what He had said—that 'greater works' remained for them to do because He had gone to the Father.

What mattered then the frowning mask of things, the deadness of the decadent old world, the hateful lust of Grecian cities, the murderous gladiatorial games, scourgings, imprisonments, death? They never doubted the final triumph. Let St. Paul speak out his mind—the secret of the final triumph:

Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth.

Hear St. Paul again, revealing the secret of his own life, 'I live: yet not I, but CHRIST LIVETH IN ME.'

We may answer the Moslem just in proportion as that is true of us—made true by the Holy Spirit.

What else was it in Raymund Lull that made him the one apostle of the Moslems of his day? Whence else came Henry Martyn's quiet, dauntless faith? What else was the source of Ion Keith-Falconer's heroic devotion? To the deadness of Islam, they brought the living Christ: 'The Life was the Light of men.'

The Moslem has blessed us by asking us the question, by forcing us to ask it of ourselves!

The age of the apostles is not a closed chapter of history, like the departed glory of Athens or the Elizabethan age. God still moves amid His Church.

The Stirring of the Nations.

We have been called to live in this twentieth century amid the most tremendous events—save one—the world has ever known. Let us remind ourselves that before the guns of the Great War rolled their terrible thunder, things had been happening in Asia and the East, and particularly in the Moslem world, which were of hardly less importance than the war itself.

The great nations of Asia awoke, as though shaken from an age-long sleep by some mighty galvanic shock. One after another the customs, traditions, and beliefs of centuries have been cast aside. Everywhere is felt the pulse of new ambitions and the desire to get abreast of the modern peoples of the world. Hence mighty and sweeping movements for education and reform, showing themselves hardly less in Turkey and Egypt than in China and India, in this twentieth century, creating a new desire to learn, a deeper sense of need, a readiness to consider and weigh new propositions, and an altogether new opportunity for preaching the eternal Gospel of life, the only true foundation upon which men and nations can build.

And now we are passing through times such as Britain has never known before. The whole nation is pouring out its best, giving them, as it believes, as sacrifices for the world's freedom and the life of generations to come.

The war will be over some day, and those who survive it and those who come after will not forget their glorious dead. They will realize that these lives were given to redeem Britain's opportunity.

It will lie with the present generation of Britain's schoolboys to see to it that they did not purchase that opportunity in vain. To you for whom this book has been written, and for whom it has been revised in barracks, will come the nobler opportunity of the truly holy war—the rebuilding of the world's waste places, the healing of its sores, the substitution of truth and purity where now there is falsehood and wrong. It is the opportunity of the ages. What can we say of it all but this—'God fulfils Himself in many ways'? It is God, God moving behind and shaping history towards its goal.

'For I doubt not through the ages one
        increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with
        the process of the suns.'

The Call of Christ.

Christ walks to-day upon our streets, He is with us in our homes, He draws near to our great schools, He stands over us as we kneel in prayer, seeking for young knights of His cross, weak enough to lean on His great strength; dependent enough to trust with childlike faith; willing to be made pure enough to see God; true enough to reveal His love to men; brave enough to make a great adventure for His sake; utterly His, that in them for the sake of the great needy Moslem world He may fulfil His word:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father.

And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

'O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,
Fight as the Saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the Victor's crown of gold,
                                                                Alleluia!'

[1] C. M. S. Day of Opportunity pamphlets, The Moslem Menace, by W. H. T. Gairdner.

[2] Cf. Illingworth, Christian Doctrine of the Trinity, Appendix.

[3] Acts i. 8.

THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD TODAY - left half

THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD TODAY - right half

APPENDICES AND INDEX

Some Books on Islam (A)

Chronological Table (B)

Moslem Population of the World (C)

Political Survey of Moslem World (D)

Index

APPENDIX A

ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA AND IN THE FAR EAST. E. M. Wherry. (Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 4s. net.) An invaluable study of Islam in India, both in history and as it may be seen to-day.

THE GOSPEL IN NORTH AFRICA. By J. Rutherford and E. H. Glenny. (North African Mission, 1s..) A thrilling account of the founding and work of the gallant North Africa Mission.

RAYMUND LULL, FIRST MISSIONARY TO THE MOSLEMS. By S. M. Zwemer. (Funk & Wagnalls, 3s.)

D. M. THORNTON. The Preacher Prophet. (C.M.S., 1d.)

RIVER, SAND AND SUN, by M. O. Gollock (O.M.S., 2s. net), gives many vivid pictures of Islam as seen in Egypt.

MARY BIRD IN PERSIA. By Clara C. Bice. (C.M.S., 3s. 6d.) A striking account of work amongst Persian women.

MOHAMMEDANISM. HAS IT ANY FUTURE? C. H. Robinson. (S.P.G., 9d. net.) Some most valuable essays on Islam as seen in Hausaland.

THE MOSLEM WORLD. (Christian Literature Society for India, 1s. net.) A quarterly review of current events and the progress of Christian missions in Moslem lands.

The following books would form a valuable addition to School Libraries:

AMONG THE WILD TRIBES OF THE AFGHAN FRONTIER. Dr. T. L. Pennell. (Seeley, 5s. net.)

D. M. THORNTON. A STUDY IN MISSIONARY IDEALS AND METHODS. W. H. T. Gairdner. (Hodder, 3s. 6d. net.)

HENRY MARTYN. By Geo. Smith, C.I.E. (R.T.S., 6s.)

HON. ION KEITH-FALCONER. By Robert Sinker, D.D. (Bell & Co., 7s. 6d.)

APPENDIX B

A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF SOME OF THE
IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE STORY OF ISLAM

A.D.