Part 9

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.

INDEX

A

Abbas (Mohammed's uncle) Abbasids government Khalifate Abd-ul-Hamid, Sultan Abduh, Muftî Muhammed Abraham Abu Bakr Abyssinians Africa Africans Agreement of the Community, _see_ 'Ijmâ' Ahl al-hadîth (men of tradition) 'Ajam Al-Ash'arî Alexander the Great Alî, the fourth Khalîf Ali, Mohammed, the first Khedive Alids 'âmils (agents) Anti-Christ Arabia Arabian, view in regard to the line of descent through a woman tribes prophet heathens migration race armies Shi'ah conquerors origin of hajj peninsula Arabic, traditions speech arts custom grammar language Arabs the nations conquered by the of Christian origin Arnold, Professor T.W. Asia Assassins Augustin Azhar-mosque

B

Bâb Dereybah Bâbîs Bagdad Barbarians Basra Beduins Behâ'îs Bellarminius Berber Bible _See_ Scriptures Bibliander Black Stone Boulainvilliers, Count de Breitinger Buddhism Burckhardt Burton Byzantine Empire Byzantines

C

Caetani, Prince Cairo Casanova, Professor of Paris Caussin de Perceval China Chinese Christian religion influence rituals traditions model of obligatory fasting princes states natives of Egypt missions demonstrations centres in Dar al-Islam faith and missionaries Christian Church Roman Catholic Protestant Christianity Christians religious rites of Circassians Coderc Commander of the Faithful Committee of Union and Progress Confucianism Constantinople Crypto-Mohammedanism

D

Dar al-Islâm Day of judgment Doomsday Dutch, Indies

E

Egypt Egyptian, nation students Department of Public Instruction university Egyptians England English university

F

Faqihs (canonists) Faithful Fâtima Fâtimite, dynasty Khalifate Fatwa French university Fu'âd Pasha

G

Ghazalí Gideon Goldziher Gospels _See_ Scriptures

H

Hadith (legislative tradition) Hadramaut Hadramites Hagar Hajj (pilgrimage) Hanafites Hanbalites Haram (mosque) Hell Hijâz Hijrah, Hinduism Holy Cities _See_ Mecca and Medina Holy Family (Ali and Fatimah) Hottinger Hûd, the prophet

I

'Ijmâ' (Agreement of the Community) Imâms of Yemen India Indians, Indonesia Isaac Ishmael Ishma'ilites Islâm

J

Jacob Jâhiliyyah (Arabian paganism) Jesus Christ as Mehdi Jewish, religion influence rituals model of fasting Jews Jihâd Judaism

K

Ka'bah Khalîf, the first Khalifate Khalîfs, the first four Khârijites, Khedive Kipling Kufa

L

Lammens, Father

M

Mahdî Malays Mâlikites Maracci, Abbé Mary (mother of Jesus) Maulid Mecca Meccans Medina Medinese Messiah Middle Ages Misr, _see_ Cairo Mohammedan, religion masters state orthodox dogma authorities law books countries political life church princes world governors subjects masses statesmen protection community territories dogmatics Hell authors law women nations slavery principles standard of tolerance philosophers mystics thought lunar year learning science populations dominions Mohammedans natives of Egypt Mongols Morocco Moses Moslim princes people authority church canonists world chiefs of states woman society heresiologists Muftî Muir Mujtahids Mutakallim Mu'tazilites

N

Neo-Platonic origin of mysticism Neo-Platonism Nöldeke Non-Alids Non-Arabian converts Non-Arabic Moslims

O

Omar Omayyads Othmân authority Ottoman princes Ottomans

P

Paganism Papacy Paradise Parsîs Persia Persian Empire Porte, the Prideaux, Dr. Protestantism

Q

Qâdhîs Qârîs (Qoran scholars) Qarmatians Qoraish Qorân scolars reciters Qorânic, revelations religion

R

Reland, H. Resurrection Roman Catholics

S

Salât Sale Sâlih, the prophet Sasanids Saul Sayyids Scriptures people of the Shâfi'ites Shâhs of Persia Sharî'ah (Divine Law) Shaukah (actual influence) Sheikhites Sheikh-ul-Islâm Sherîfs Sherîfs of Mecca Sherîfs, rulers of Morocco Shî'ah (the Party of the House) Shî'ites Sîrah (biography) Spain Sprenger Stambul Sultan Sunnah Sunnites Syria Syrians

T

Taif Tatars Testament, _see_ Scriptures Tibet Tradition, _see_ Hadith Trinity Turkey Sultan of Turkish, Empire circles conqueror Sultan arms government state officials Turks

U

'Ulamâ' (learned men)

V

Voltaire

W

Wahhâbî reformers Weil Wellhausen Wezîrs

Y

Yemen Imâms of

Z

Zaidites Zakât (taxes) Zanzibar