Two views are widely prevalent regarding the hopelessness of missionary work among Moslems generally, and although these views are diametrically opposite they are agreed that it is waste of time and effort to go to Mohammedan lands, that it is a forlorn hope at best. The first view is that of those who are themselves outside of the kingdom, and who shut its doors against the Moslem, saying: Experience has proved it to be not only useless but dangerous to meddle with the Moslem and his religion. Their faith is good enough for them; it is suited to their ways. They do not worship idols and have a code of morality suitable to the Orient. Mohammed was a prophet of God and did all that could be done for these kind of people. Every attempt to convert them ends in failure. Let them alone. Islam will work out its own reformation. Some, like Canon Taylor and Doctor Blyden, who profess to be Christians, even consider Islam the handmaid of Christianity and specially fitted for the whole Negro race.[157]

The opposite view is that Mohammedanism is not too hopeful to be meddled with but too hopeless! They who hold it profess to believe in the Holy Ghost as the Lord and Life-Giver for the heathen world, but hesitate when it comes to Islam. The Moslem is, they say, wrapped up in self-righteousness and conceit; even those whose fanaticism is overcome dare not accept Christ. It is better to go to the heathen who will hear. Missions to the Moslem world are hopeless, fruitless, useless. It is impossible to Christianize them and there have been few, if any, converts.

That both of these views cannot be correct is evident, since they are contradictory. That the first is false the whole history of Islam demonstrates. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” But what of the other view, held by so many, that we need not expect large results where there is so little promise?

Professor J. G. Lansing, one of the founders of the Arabian mission, wrote in 1890: “If the smallness of the number of converts from Islam to Christianity be pointed out, this argues not so much the unapproachability of Moslems as the indifference and inactivity of Christians. The doctrine of fatalism commonly accredited to Islam, is not one-half so fatalistic in its spirit and operation as that which for thirteen centuries has been practically held by the Christian Church as to the hope of bringing the hosts of Islam into the following of Jesus Christ.” Is it possible that the lack of results complained of has been really a lack of faith? Hudson Taylor remarked a few years ago, “I expect to see some of the most marvellous results within a few years in the missions to Islam, because of this work especially the enemy has said: It is without result. God is not mocked.” Has the apostle to China read the signs of the times aright?

Neither God’s Providence nor His Word are silent in answer to that question. First we have the exceeding hopefulness of results of recent missionary work in many Moslem lands; then the sure promises of God to give His Church the victory over Islam; and lastly the many exceeding great and precious promises for Arabia the cradle of Islam in particular.

1. It is not true that there have been no conversions among Moslems. In India alone there are hundreds who have publicly abjured Islam and been received into the Christian Church. The very first native clergyman of the Northwest Provinces was a converted Mohammedan. Sayad Wilayat Ali of Agra suffered martyrdom at Delhi for Christ. Mirza Ghulam Masih of the royal house of Delhi became a Christian and Abdullah Athim, the valiant-hearted of Amballa embraced the faith. At the Chicago Parliament of Religions Dr. Imad-ud-Din, himself a convert from Islam and a voluminous controversial writer, read a paper on Christian efforts among Indian Mohammedans; this paper gives the names of one hundred and seventeen prominent converts from Islam, mostly from the Punjab. Beside these, the author says, “there are all sorts and conditions of men, rich and poor, high and low men and women, children, learned and unlearned, tradesmen, servants, all kinds and classes of Mohammedans whom the Lord our God hath called into His Church.” It is officially stated that quite one-half of the converts from among the higher classes in the Punjab are from amongst Moslems.

In Persia there have been martyrs for the faith in recent years and several have been baptized. In the Turkish empire there have been scores of converts who have been obliged to flee for their lives or remain believers in secret. At Constantinople a congregation of converted Moslems was gathered by Dr. Koelle, but man after man disappeared—no doubt murdered for his faith. In Egypt there have been scores of baptisms and among others a student of Al Azhar University and a Bey’s son confessed Christ. One has only to turn over the leaves of the Church Missionary Society annual reports to read of Mohammedans being baptized in Kerachi, and Bombay, Peshawar, Delhi, Agra, and on the borders of Afghanistan. In North Africa where the work is very recent there have been conversions and in one locality a remarkable spiritual movement is in progress among the Moslems.

In Java and Sumatra the Dutch and Rhenish missionary societies have labored with remarkable success among the Mohammedan population. At four stations of the Rhenish Mission is Sumatra where the work is practically altogether among Moslems, (namely, Sipirok-Simangumban, Bungabonder, Sipiongot, and Simanasor) the total number of church members according to the Bombay Guardian, is three thousand five hundred and ten. The total number of baptisms from Islam in these stations was during 1897 sixty-nine, and during the first half of 1898 already ninety-seven baptisms were reported. In some of the villages where formerly Islam was predominant it has been expelled altogether. The total number of Battak Christians amount to thirty-one thousand, the largest part of whom were formerly Moslems.[158] In some parts of Java still larger results are claimed.

In most Moslem fields it is absolutely impossible to obtain accurate statistics of the number of conversions for obvious reasons. The threatened death-penalty demands great caution in exposing a convert by freely publishing the fact of his conversion. Everywhere there are multitudes of secret believers whose names are sometimes not known even to the missionaries. Any one who has read the lives of Moslem converts such as that of Kamil or Imad-ud-Din or who knows from books like “Sweet First Fruits” what it means for a Moslem to forsake the faith of his fathers, knows that work in Moslem lands must not be judged by baptismal statistics.

There are other indications of spiritual life entering the Moslem world. There are thousands of Mohammedan youth receiving instruction in Christian mission schools; in Egypt, one mission has twenty-four hundred and sixty-four Moslem pupils enrolled. The permeating power of spiritual Christianity is again at work in the Levant as when Paul and Silas made their missionary journeys. The old churches of the East by their unfaithfulness were the occasion of the great apostasy of Islam; their revival is the pledge of its downfall. There is now an Evangelical Church in Persia, Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Asia Minor. Bodies of living Christians in the midst of Islam; no wonder that their power is beginning to be felt. The devil takes no antiseptic precautions against a non-contagious Christianity. But Evangelical Christianity is contagious, and the whole lurid horizon proclaims in persecutions and massacres and raging oppositions everywhere that Islam feels the power of Christian missions, even although they have only begun to attack in a miserly and puny way this stronghold of Satan.

Regarding the character of Moslem converts Bishop Thoburn says: “I believe that when truly converted the Mohammedan makes not only a devoted Christian but in some respects will make a superior leader. Leadership is a great want in every mission-field and the Mohammedans of India have the material, if it can only be won for Christ and sanctified to His service, out of which splendid workers can be made in the Master’s vineyard.” Doctor Jessup voices the same opinion, “It is not easy for a Mohammedan to embrace Christianity but history shows that when he is converted the Moslem becomes a strong and vigorous Christian.”

2. In the work of missions among Mohammedans as well as in that among the heathen we have the assurance of final victory in the abundant testimony of God’s Word. God’s promises never fail of fulfillment; and those world-wide promises never are put in such a form as to exclude the Mohammedans. The Bible tells us that many false prophets shall arise and deceive many; but it does not for a moment allow that the empire of Christ shall divide rule with any of them. “It pleased the Father that in Him [Jesus not Mohammed] should all fullness dwell.” “The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hands”—not into the hands of Mohammed. “God hath exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name ... far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come.” “That at the name of Jesus every” Mohammedan “knee should bow and every” Moslem “tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” The present may see Islam triumphant, but the future belongs to Christ. Over against the lying truth “there is no God but God and Mohammed is His prophet,” Christianity lifts the standard, “Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?” The Divinity of Christ, which Moslems deny, decides the destiny of all world-kingdoms. Witness the present governments of the Moslem world. “Be wise now therefore O ye kings, be instructed ye judges of the earth ... kiss the Son lest He be angry and ye perish from the way when His wrath is kindled but a little.”

There is a failure among Christians to realize the number and importance of the missionary promises in the Old Testament.[159] The Great Commission was based on these exceeding great promises. The nations were in God’s plan before they were on Christ’s program. And is it not remarkable that nearly all of these Old Testament promises are grouped around the names of countries which now are the centre and strength of the Moslem world? “Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world.” Or will these promises of world-wide import only stretch beyond Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria and Arabia, not including those lands in God’s plan of redemption and dominion? Is there not a special blessing in store for the lands that border Palestine, when the Lord shall comfort Zion and restore all her waste places? “In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria even a blessing in the midst of the earth. Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt My people and Assyria the work of My hands and Israel My inheritance.”

The Moslem world is in no better condition and in no worse condition than the heathen world as portrayed in the New Testament. The need of both is the same; and the same duty to evangelize them; and the same promise of God’s blessing on our work of witness. The Mohammedan world is also without excuse (Rom. i. 20, 32), without hope (John iii. 36; Eph. ii. 12), without peace (Isaiah xlviii. 22), without feeling (Eph. iv. 19), without Christ (Rom. xiii. 13, 14) as is the heathen world. But no less is our responsibility toward them nor the power of God’s love to win them.

It is the rock of Christ’s Sonship which is the stone of stumbling and the rock of offence to the Moslem mind. But it is this very rock on which Christ builds His church; and the foundation of God standeth sure. Writing on this subject Mr. Edward Glenny, the Secretary of the North Africa Mission, well says:

“Blessed be God, we are not left to carry on this warfare at our own charges! ‘He that sent Me is with Me,’ said the Master; and He who sends His servants now is surely with them also, for the promise stands, ‘Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age.’ In all our efforts for the salvation of men, we are dependent upon the power of the Spirit of God; for no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. But if those of us who work at home are conscious of this, those who labor in Mohammedan countries realize it most intensely. Amongst the masses at home, what we have to contend against mostly is indifference; but there it is deeply-rooted prejudice, aye, even in many cases, hatred to Jesus as the Son of God. But the battle is the Lord’s, not ours; we are but instruments to carry out His purposes. The Spirit has been sent forth from the Father to ‘convict THE WORLD of sin,’ and we are not justified in making any reservation in the case of Mohammedans—yea, may we not expect that if there be a nation or race on the earth more inaccessible than another, more averse to the gospel, more hardened against its teachings, that there the Lord will show ‘the exceeding greatness of His power’ by calling out some from their midst whom He may make ‘chosen vessels’ to bear His name to others? Has not that been His mode of working in time past?”

3. There is no land in the world and no people (with the exception of Palestine and the Jews) which bear such close relation to the Theocratic covenants and Old Testament promises as Arabia and the Arabs. The promises for the final victory of the Kingdom of God in Arabia are many, definite and glorious. These promises group themselves around seven names which have from time immemorial been identified with the peninsula of Arabia: Ishmael, Kedar, Nebaioth, Sheba, Seba, Midian and Ephah. We select these names only, omitting others which have an indirect reference to Arabia or the Arabs, as well as those promises, so numerous and glorious, concerning the wilderness and desert-lands. The latter would surely, for the dwellers of Palestine, have primary reference to Northern Arabia; but our argument is strong enough without these general promises.[160]

In order to understand the promises given to the sons of Ishmael, Kedar and Nebaioth, we need first to know the relation which Ishmael bears to the Abrahamic covenant and the place he occupies in God’s plan for the nations as outlined in the book of Genesis.

Hagar, the mother of the Arabian patriarch, seems to have occupied a prominent place in Abraham’s household and appears to have brought to that position not only mental gifts but also an inward participation in the faith of the God of Abraham. She was probably added to the family of faith during Abraham’s sojourn in Egypt and occupied the same position toward the female servants that Eliezer of Damascus did to the male servants. It is when she was driven forth into the wilderness by the jealous harshness of Sarah that we have the first revelation of God regarding her seed. “The angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.”[161] And He said, Whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return to thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, ... “I will multiply thy seed exceedingly that it shall not be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Behold thou art with child, and shall bear a son and shalt call his name Ishmael [God will hear]; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. And he will be a wild man, his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after Him that seeth me.”

It is plain from the context that the angel of the Lord and the Lord Himself are here identified; it was the angel of Jehovah, the angel of the covenant or the Christ of the Old Testament. Why should this “angel” first appear to the Egyptian bondwoman? Is it according to the law that the Lord always reveals Himself first to the poorest, most distressed and receptive hearts or was it the special office of the covenant angel to seek “that which was lost” from the patriarchal church at its very beginning? Lange suggests in his commentary that the “Angel of Jehovah, as the Christ who was to come through Isaac had a peculiar reason for assisting Hagar, since she for the sake of the future Christ is involved in this sorrow.” In any case the special revelation and the special promise was given to Hagar not only but to her seed. Christ, if we may so express it, outlines the future history and character of the Ishmaelites as well as their strength and glory; but He also gives them a spiritual promise in the God-given name, Ishmael, Elohim will hear. Without this the theophany loses it true character. Ishmael as the child of Abraham could not be left undistinguishable among the heathen. It was for Abraham’s sake that the revelation included the unborn child in its promises.

The fulfillment of the promise that Ishmael’s seed should multiply exceedingly has never been more clearly stated than by the geographer Ritter: “Arabia, whose population consists to a large extent of Ishmaelites, is a living fountain of men whose streams for thousands of years have poured themselves far and wide to the east and west. Before Mohammed its tribes were found in all border-Asia, in the East Indies as early as the middle ages; and in all North Africa it is the cradle of all the wandering hordes. Along the whole Indian ocean down to Molucca they had their settlements in the middle ages; they spread along the coast to Mozambique; their caravans crossed India to China, and in Europe they peopled Southern Spain and ruled it for seven hundred years.” Where there has been such clear fulfillment of the promise of natural increase, is there no ground that God will hear and give spiritual blessing also and that Ishmael “shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren” in the new covenant of grace?

Thirteen years after the first promise to Ishmael we hear the promise renewed just after the institution of circumcision, the sign of the covenant of faith. “And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might [even yet] live before Thee. And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shall call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee....” What is the significance of Abraham’s prayer for Ishmael? Is it probable that he merely asks for temporal prosperity and for length of life? This is the idea of some commentators but none of them explain why the prayer asks that Ishmael may live “before God.” Keil and others, more correctly we think, regard the prayer of Abraham as arising out of his anxiety lest Ishmael should not have any part in the blessings of the covenant. The fact that the answer of God contains no denial of the prayer of Abraham is in favor of this interpretation.

In the prayer Abraham expresses his anticipation of an indefinite neglect of Ishmael which was painful to his parental heart. He asks for him, therefore, a life from God in the highest sense. Else what does the circumcision of Ishmael mean? The sealing or ratifying of the covenant of God with Abraham through Isaac’s seed, embraces not only the seed of Isaac, but all those who in a wider sense are sharers of the covenant, Ishmael and his descendants. And however much the Arabs may have departed from the faith of Abraham they have for all these centuries remained faithful to the sign of the old covenant by the rite of circumcision. This is one of the most remarkable facts of history. Circumcision is not once alluded to in the Koran, and Moslem writers offer no explanation for the omission. Yet the custom is universal in Arabia, and from them it passed over with other traditions to all the Moslem world. The Moslems date circumcision from Abraham and circumcise at a late period. The Arabs in “the time of ignorance” also practiced the rite; an uncircumcised person is unknown even among those Bedouins who know nothing of Islam save the name of the prophet.[162]

“As for Ishmael I have heard thee.” For the third time we read of a special revelation to prove God’s love for the son of the bondmaid. In the pathetic story of Hagar’s expulsion, Ishmael is the centre figure.[163] His mocking was its cause; for his sake it was grievous in Abraham’s sight to expel them. To Ishmael again is there a special promise, “because he is thy seed.” When the water is spent in the bottle and Hagar turns away from seeing the death of the child, it was not her weeping but the lad’s prayer that brought deliverance from heaven. “And the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad and hold him by thine hand; for I will make of him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the bottle with water and gave the lad drink. And God was with the lad.”

No less does this history show the moral beauty of Hagar’s character, her tender mother love and all the beautiful traits of a maternal solicitude than the repentance of Ishmael. God heard his voice; God forgave his sinful mocking; God confirmed his promise; God saved his life; God was with the lad. The Providence of God watched over Ishmael. Long years after he seems to have visited his father Abraham, for we read that when the patriarch died in a good old age “his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah.” No mention is made here of the sons of Keturah. And twice in the Bible the generations of Ishmael are recorded in full[164] in order to bind together the prophecies of Genesis with the Messianic promises of Isaiah for the seed of Ishmael.

The twelve princes, sons of Ishmael, whose names are recorded “by their towns and their castles” were undoubtedly the patriarchs of so many Arab tribes. Some of the names can be distinctly traced through history and others are easily identified with modern clans in Arabia. Mibsam, e. g., seems to correspond with the Nejd clan of Bessam some of whom are merchants at Busrah; Mishma is surely the same as the Arabic Bni Misma; while nearly all commentators agree that Duma is Dumat el Jendal in North Arabia, one of the oldest Arabic settlements. Aside from conjecture two names stand prominent and well-known in profane history; Nebajoth and Kedar. Pliny in his natural history mentions them together as the Nabatœi et Cedrei and the Arab historians are familiar with the names. Undoubtedly the Nabatans are related to Nebajoth; although this is denied by Quartremere it is affirmed by M. Chwolson and is the universal opinion of the Arabs themselves.

Now it is these very two names, whose identity no one questions, that are the centre of glorious promises. It is generally known that the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah is the gem of missionary prophecy in the Old Testament; but it does not occur to every one that a large portion of it consists of special promises for Arabia. “The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah, (Sons of Keturah, Gen. xxv. 1-5); all they from Sheba (South Arabia or Yemen) shall come; they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee; the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee: they shall come up with acceptance upon mine altar and I will glorify the house of my glory. Who are these that fly as a cloud and as doves to their windows?”

These verses read in connection with the grand array of promises that precede them leave no room for doubt that the sons of Ishmael have a large place in this coming glory of the Lord and the brightness of His rising. It has only been delayed by our neglect to evangelize Northern Arabia but God will keep His promise yet and Christ shall see of the travail of His soul, among the camel-drivers and shepherds of Arabia. And then shall be fulfilled that other promise significantly put in Isaiah xlii. for this part of the peninsula: “Sing unto the Lord a new song and His praise from the end of the earth ... let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar doth inhabit: let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains.” It is all there, with geographical accuracy and up-to-date; “cities in the wilderness” that is Nejd under its present government; Kedar forsaking the nomad tent and becoming villagers; and the rock-dwellers of Medain Salih! “And I will bring the blind by a way they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them and crooked things straight.” The only proper name, the only geographical centre of the entire chapter is Kedar. In two other prophecies,[165] which have no Messianic character, Kedar is referred to as synonymous with Arabia.

Another group of missionary promises for Arabia cluster round the names Seba and Sheba. “All they from Sheba shall come; they shall bring gold and incense and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord.” (Is. lx. 6.) “The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea all kings shall fall down before Him, all nations shall serve Him.... He shall live and to Him shall be given of the gold of Sheba; prayer also shall be made for Him continually and daily shall He be praised.” The Messianic character of this psalm is generally acknowledged.

Where are Seba and Sheba? Who are they? Three Shebas are referred to in genealogy and prophecy. 1. A son of Raamah, son of Cush; 2. A son of Joktan; 3. A son of Jokshan son of Keturah. But all of these find their dwelling-place in what is now Southern Arabia. The Joktanite Sheba is the kingdom of the Himyarites in Yemen.[166] The kingdom of Sheba embraced the greater part of Yemen; its chief cities and probably its successive capitals were Seba, Sana (Uzal), and Zaphar (Sephar). Seba, the oldest capital, is identical with the present Marib, northeast of Sana; for EzZejjaj in the Taj El Aroos dictionary says, “Seba was the city of Marib or the country in the Yemen of which the city was Marib.” Ptolemy’s map makes plain what the Romans and Greeks understood by Seba and Sheba. The Cushite Sheba settled somewhere on the shores of the Persian Gulf. In the Marasid Stanley-Poole says he found “an identification which appears to be satisfactory—that on the island of Awāl, one of the Bahrein islands are the ruins of an ancient city called Seba.”

The same authority holds that the Keturahite Sheba formed one tribe with the Cushite Sheba and also dwelt in Eastern Arabia. Sheba has always been a land of gold and incense and we are only beginning to know a little of the opulence and glory of the ancient Himyarite kingdom in Yemen from the lately discovered inscriptions and ruins.

In the same psalm that gives these promises to Southern and Eastern Arabia we have this remarkable verse: “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before Him and His enemies shall lick the dust.” The river referred to is undoubtedly the Euphrates[167] and the boundaries given are intended to include the ideal extent of the promised land. Now it is, to say the least, remarkable that modern Jewish commentators interpret this passage together with the forty-eighth chapter of Ezekiel so as to include the whole peninsula of Arabia in the land of promise. I have seen a curious map, printed by Jews in London, on which the twelve restored tribes had each their strip of territory right across Arabia from the Red Sea to the Gulf and including Palestine and Syria.

Isaac Da Costa, the great Dutch poet, who was of Jewish descent gathers together in his epic, “Hagar,” some of these Bible promises for the sons of Ishmael.[168]

But Arabia, although it has all this wealth of promise, is not a field for feeble faith. Yet we can learn to look at this barren land because of these promises with the same reckless, uncalculating, defiant confidence in which Abraham “without being weakened in faith, considered his own body now as good as dead” (R. V.) “but waxed strong through faith giving glory to God.” The promises are great because the obstacles are great; that the glory of the plan as well as the glory of the work may be to God alone. Arabia needs men who will believe as seeing the Invisible. Six hundred years ago Raymond Lull wrote: “It seems to me that the Holy Land cannot be won in any other way than that whereby Thou, O Lord Jesus Christ, and Thy Holy Apostles won it, by love and prayer, and the shedding of tears and blood.”

A lonely worker among Moslems in North Africa recently wrote: “Yes it is lives poured out that these people need—a sowing in tears—in a measure that perhaps no heathen land requires; they need a Calvary before they get their Pentecost. Thanks be unto God for a field like this: in the light of eternity we could ask no higher blessedness than the chance it gives of fellowship with His Son.”

The dumb spirit of Islam has possessed Arabia from its childhood for thirteen hundred years; “he teareth and he foameth and gnasheth with his teeth and pineth away.” “And He said unto them this kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting.” “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” (Mark ix. 14-29.)

Life for Arabia must come from the Life-Giver. “I believe in the Holy Ghost,” therefore mission-work in Arabia will prove the promise of God true in every particular and to its fullest extent. “O that Ishmael might live ... as for Ishmael I have heard thee.”