Pan-Islam

First and foremost, especially in the United States, where knowledge of non-Christian creeds is not so general as with us, the literature of foreign missions insists on grouping together all regions as yet unexploited by them (whether populated by heathen, Moslems, Buddhists or any other non-Christian race) and describing them indiscriminately as Gibraltars of Satan's power, a challenge to Christendom and a reproach to Zion (whatever that may mean). Yet the four great Christian Churches – Greek, Russian, Catholic and Protestant – seem powerless to check the reign of hell in Bolshevist Europe, where the liberty of man is demonstrated by murder, rapine, torture and every fiendish orgy or bestial lust which mortal mind can conceive. The people among whom these devilries are being enacted are Christians ruled by Christians, and have been Christian for centuries. They are still Christian so far as a blood-besotted clique will let them be anything. And in the face of such facts there are missionaries who enunciate in cold print that without Christianity there could be no charitable or humane organisation of any sort, or good government, or security of property, and – clinching argument – trade would suffer. Could there be any more glaring example of the cart before the horse? Does a dog wag his tail or the tail wag the dog? Is Japan hopelessly benighted and devoid of the activities described as the monopoly of Christianity? Moreover: Can Christian teaching or preaching pacify the embittered struggle between labour and capital which threatens yet to wreck civilisation? Does it even try?

There is no more ridiculous or extravagant boast among a certain class of self-appointed evangelists than the oft-repeated statement that all the modern blessings of Western civilisation are the fruit of Christianity and that the backward state of oriental Moslems is due to the absence of Christianity.

Any thoughtful schoolboy knows that it was the exploitation of coal and iron which lifted us Western nations out of the ruck, backed by the natural hardihood due to a bracing climate, otherwise the Mediterranean might still be harried by corsairs. Steam transport by land and sea was the direct offspring of these two minerals. Even then Western supremacy was gradual and only recently completed by the exploitation of petroleum, rubber and high explosives. Brown Bess, as a shooting weapon, was far inferior to the long-barrelled flint-lock of Morocco, and the Arabian match-lock could out-range any firearm in existence till sharp cutting tools made the rifle possible. What does modern surgery, or any other science of accurate manipulation, not owe to modern steel? When we turn from metallurgy to medicine, let us not forget that Avicenna was writing his pharmacopœia when Christian apothecaries were selling potions and philtres under the sign of a stuffed crocodile.

Some exponents of Christianity would go further and arrogate to her the inception of all arts and handicrafts. Damascus blades, Cordovan leather, Moorish architecture, Persian carpets, Indian filagree, Chinese carvings and Japanese paintings all give the lie to such claims.

If we are to measure Christianity by the material progress of her adherents, what conclusions are we to draw from the history of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire and the Copts? Fourteen hundred years after the birth of Christianity in Palestine the fall of Constantinople shattered her last vestige of sovereignty in the East after she had gone through centuries of decadence, debauch and intrigue such as anyone can find recorded by Gibbon or even in historical novels like "Hypatia."

Islam, to-day, is about the same age as Christianity was then, and has gone through similar stages, except that it has been spared the intrigues of an organised priesthood and its comparative frugality has protected it from oriental enervation to a certain extent.

Compared with Western Christianity its present epoch coincides with the era preceding the Reformation, when religious teaching had become stereotyped and lacked vitality, as is now the case with Moslem teaching as a rule. There is no reason why Islam should not recover as Christianity did, and if it does not it will not be due to any intrinsic defect, but to its oriental environment, which has already debased and wrecked Eastern Christendom.

The respective ages of the two religions induces another comparison. We are now in the fourteenth century of the Hejira; glance at European Christendom of that period in the Christian era, or even much later, and reflect on the Sicilian Vespers, the Inquisition, the massacre of the Huguenots, the atrocious witchfinders who served that pedantic Protestant prig, James I, and all the burnings, hackings and slayings perpetrated in the name of Christendom. We must admit that no Moslems anywhere, even in the most barbarous regions, are any worse than the Christians of those days, while the vast majority are infinitely better, viewed by any general standard of humanity. Christendom's only possible defence is that civilisation has influenced Christianity for good, and not the other way about. There is one other loophole which I, for one, refuse to crawl through – that Christianity is a greater moral force than Islam or more rapid in its action. Missionaries say that Islam is incapable of high ideals owing to its impersonal and inhuman conception of the Deity, whom it does not limit by any human standards of justice. They complain that there is no fatherhood in the Moslem God; but – pursuing their own metaphor – what would an earthly father think if his acts of correction were criticised by his children from their own point of view? He might be angry, but would probably just smile, and I hope the Almighty does the same. A child thinks it most unjust to be rebuked or perhaps chastised for playing at trains with suitable noises at unsuitable seasons but it is that, and similar parental correction, which makes him become a decent member of society and not a self-centred nuisance.

Moslems shrink from applying any human standards to the Deity, regarding Him as the Lord of the Universe and not a popularly-elected premier. "Whatever good is from God, whatever ill from thyself," is a Koranic aphorism. Nor do they seek to drive bargains with Him, as do many pious Christians, and their supplications are limited (as in our Lord's Prayer) to the bare necessities of life – food and water to support existence, and clothing to cover their nakedness.

The application of human ideals to the Almighty places Him on a level with Kipling's "wise wood-pavement gods" or the Teutonic conception of a deity who sent the Entente bad harvests to help German submarine activities. Such absurdities incur the rebuke of the staunch old patriarch, "Though he slay me yet will I trust in him"; there is no excuse for seeking to inflict them on the austerities of Islam.

Climate and terrain have a marked influence on the form religion takes in its human manifestation. Missionary literature asserts this clearly with regard to Islam, describing it, aptly enough, as a religion of desert and oasis thence deriving its austere and sensual features, but the thesis applies with equal force to Christianity. The marked cleavage of hermit-like asceticism and gross sensuality which rock-bound deserts and the lush Nile valley wrought in Egyptian Christendom has been described by every writer dealing with that subject, and Arabian Christianity drooped, and finally died, in the arid pastoral uplands of Jauf and Nejran long before it succumbed in fertile, hard-working Yamen.

If the East became Christian next week there would be the same rank growth and final atrophy or disintegrating schism for lack of outside opposition. Missionaries are quick enough to remark on this process in Arabia where Islam is practically unopposed, but will not apply it to Christianity. They do not seem to realise that healthy competition maintains the vitality of religion no less than trade or any other form of human effort requiring continuous energy and application. Islam revivified a decadent Christianity, and the attacks of modern missionaries are strengthening Islam. They justify these attacks and urge further support for them on the grounds that Islam is moribund and now is the time to give it the coup de grâce, or that Islam is the most dangerous foe to Christendom in the world and must be fought to a finish lest it unite three hundred million Moslems against us. I have seen both reasons given in the same missionary book; both are absurd. The latter is a mere red herring drawn across the trail of existing facts, more so, indeed, than the ex-Kaiser's Yellow Peril, for that at least was trailed from a vast country enclosing within a ring fence a huge population of homogeneous race and creed. As for crushing Islam by missionary enterprise, you cannot kill a great religion with pin-pricks, however numerous and frequent; you can only cause superficial hurts and irritation, as in a German student's duel. Every religion contains the germs of its own destruction within itself (which it can resist indefinitely so long as it is healthy and vigorous), but no outside efforts, however overwhelming, can do aught but stiffen its adherents. The early Christian Church was driven off the face of the earth into catacombs, but emerged to rule supreme in the very city which had driven her underground; Muhammad barely escaped from Mecca with his life, but returned to make it the centre of his creed, and Crusaders died in hopeless defeat at Hattin cursing "Mahound" with their last breath as the enemy of their faith, yet their very presence there showed how Islam had revived Christianity.

Per aspera ad astra: there is no easy road or short cut to collective, spiritual progress. I am not arguing against possible "acts of grace" working on individuals, but the uplift of a race, a class or even a congregation cannot be done by a sort of spiritual legerdemain based on hypnotic suggestion. Individuals may be so swayed for the time being, and, in a few favourable cases, the initial impetus will be carried on, but most human souls are like locusts and flutter earthward when the wind drops. They may have advanced more or less, but are just as likely to be deflected or even swept back again by a change in the wind. Revivalist campaigns and salvation by a coup de théâtre do not encourage consecutive religious thought, which is the only stable foundation of religious belief; second-hand convictions do not wear well in the storm and sunshine of unsheltered lives, and a creed that has to be treated like an orchid is no use to anybody.

If the same amount of earnest, consecutive effort and clear thinking had been applied to religion as has gone to build up civilisation we should all be leading harmonious spiritual lives to-day and sin and sorrow would probably have been banished from the earth, but few people think of applying their mental faculties to religion, and its exploitation by modern mercantile methods is not the same thing at all. Civilisation is an accretion of countless efforts and ceaseless striving to ameliorate existing conditions, whereas religion started as a perfect thesis and has since got overgrown with human bigotry and fantasies while absorbing very little of the vast, increasing store of human knowledge. That is why civilisation has got so much in advance of religion that the latter cannot lead or guide the former, but only lags behind, like a horse hitched to a cart-tail. Missionary writers are rather apt to confuse the gifts of civilisation with the thing itself. A savage can be taught to use a rifle or an electric switch or even a flame-projecter, but this is no proof that he is really civilised. On the other hand, the scholarly recluse and philosopher whose works uplift and refine humanity may bungle even with the "fool-proof" lift which takes him up to his own eyrie in Flat-land, but he is none the less civilised.

They would have us believe that petticoats and pantaloons are the hall-mark of Christian civilisation, and one of their favourite sneers at Arabia (as a proof of its benighted condition and need of their ministrations) is "a land without manufacture where machinery is looked on as a sort of marvel." As a matter of fact, Arabia can manufacture all she really wants, and did so when we blockaded her coasts; nor is machinery any more of a marvel to the average Arabian Arab than it is to the average Occidental. Both use intelligently such machinery as they find necessary in their pursuits and occupations, though neither can make it or repair it except superficially, and both fumble more or less with unfamiliar mechanical appliances. The young man from the country blows the gas out or tries to light his cheroot at an incandescent bulb, and may be considered lucky if he does not get some swift, silent form of vehicular traffic in the small of his back when he is gaping at an electric advertisement in changing-coloured lights. It has been my object, and to a certain extent my duty, on several occasions to try to impress a party of chiefs and their retinue when visiting Aden from the wildest parts of Arabia Felix (which can be very wild indeed). On the same morning I have taken them over a man-of-war, on the musketry-range to see a Maxim at practice and down into a twelve-inch casemate when the monster was about to fire. They never turned a hair, but asked many intelligent questions and a few amusing ones, tried to cadge a rifle or two from the officer showing them the racks for small arms, condemned the Maxim for "eating cartridges too fast" and were much tickled by the gunner-officer's joke that they could have the big cannon if they would take it away with them.

These wild Arabians, when trained, make the most reliable machine-tenders in the East, as they have a penchant for mechanism of all sorts and will not neglect their charge when unsupervised.

We are all inclined to boast too personally of our enlightened civilisation with its marvellous mechanical appliances, but what is it after all but the specialist training of the few serving the wants of the many? If the average missionary swam ashore with an Arab fireman from a shipwreck and landed on an uninhabited island of ordinary tropical aspect, the Arab would know the knack of scaling coco-nut palms (no easy task), the vegetation which would supply him with fibre for fishing-lines and what thorns could be used to make an effective hook, while the missionary would probably be unable to get fire by friction with the aid of a bow-string and spindle.

Missionary literature is very severe on Arabia as a stiff-necked country which has hitherto discouraged evangelical activities. "Hence the low plane of Arabia morally. Slavery and concubinage and, nearly everywhere, polygamy and divorce are fearfully common and fatalism has paralysed enterprise."

This indictment is not only unjust, but it recoils on Western civilisation. Arabia is on a high enough moral plane to refuse drink, drugs and debauchery generally, while prostitution is unknown outside large centres overrun by foreigners, which are more cosmopolitan than Arab. Sanaa, which is a pure Arab city with little or no foreign element, is much more moral than London or New York. To adduce slavery and concubinage coupled with polygamy and divorce as further evidence against Arabia is crass absurdity; slaves are far better treated anywhere in Arabia than they were in the States or the West Indies; concubinage and polygamy, as practised by the patriarchs of Holy Writ, are still legal in that part of the world; there is nothing sinful about them in themselves – a Moslem might as well rebuke Western society for being addicted to whisky and bridge. He might even remind us that divorce is easier in the States than in Arabia and quote the Prophet's words on the subject: "Of all lawful acts divorce is the most hateful in the sight of God." With us a woman can be convicted of adultery in the eyes of the world on evidence that would not hang a cat for stealing cream, but in Islam the act must be proved beyond doubt by two witnesses, who are soundly flogged if their evidence breaks down, and their testimony is declared invalid for the future. This places the accusation under a heavy disability, but it is better than putting a woman's most cherished attribute at the mercy of a suborned servant or two – a far greater injustice to womanhood than bearing a fair share of a naturally hard and toilsome life, which is also a missionary complaint against Arabia. As for fatalism paralysing enterprise there, perhaps it does to a certain extent, but it cannot compare with our own organised strikes in that direction.

Another charge is that Arabia has no stable government and people go armed against each other. Tribal Arabia has the only true form of democratic government, and the Arab tribesman goes armed to make sure that it continues democratic – as many a would-be despot knows to his cost. They use these weapons to settle other disputes occasionally, but Christian cowboys still do so at times unless they have acquired grace and the barley-water habit.

These deliberate misstatements and the distortion of known facts are unworthy of the many earnest workers in recognised mission fields, and they become really mischievous when they culminate in an appeal to the general public calling for resources and personnel to "win Mecca for Christ," and use it and the Arabic language to disseminate Christianity and so win Arabia and, eventually, the Moslem world.

Christianity had a very good start in Arabia long before Muhammad's day, and (contrary to missionary assertion) was in existence there for centuries after his death. Not long before the dawn of Islam, Christian and pagan Arabs fought side by side to overthrow a despotic Jew king in Yamen who was trying to proselytise them with the crude but convincing contrivance of an artificial hell which cost only the firewood and labour involved and beat modern revivalist descriptions of the place to a frazzle as a means of speedy conversion – to a Jew or a cinder.

Christianity lasted in Yamen up to the tenth century A.D. It paid tribute as a subordinate creed, like Judaism, but had far more equable charters and greater respect among Moslems. In fact, it was never driven out, but gradually merged into Islam, as is indicated by the inscriptions found on the lintel of ruined churches here and there, "There is but one God."

The published statement of a travelled missionary that the Turks stabled their cavalry horses in the ruins of Abraha's "cathedral" at Sanaa is misleading. The church which that Abyssinian general built when he came over to help the Arabs against the Jew king of proselytising tendencies has nothing left of it above ground except a bare site surrounded by a low circular wall which would perhaps accommodate the horses of a mounted patrol in bivouac. The Turks probably used it for that purpose without inquiry.

What is the use of bolstering up a presumably sincere religious movement with these puerile and mischievous statements? Apart from the rancour they excite among educated Moslems (who are more familiar with this class of literature than the writers perhaps imagine) they deceive the Christian public and place conscientious missionaries afield in a false position, for most practical mission workers know and admit that the wholesale conversion of Moslems is not a feasible proposition and that sporadic proselytes are very doubtful trophies. Knowing this, they concentrate their principal efforts on schools, hospitals and charitable relief, all based on friendly relations with the natives which have been patiently built up. These relations are jeopardised by the wild-cat utterances which are published for home consumption. If a Christian public cannot support legitimate missionary enterprise without having it camouflaged by all this spiritual swashbuckling, then it is in urgent need of evangelical ministrations itself.

Missionaries in the field have, of course, a personal view which we must not overlook, as it is entirely creditable to all parties concerned. The more strenuous forms of mission work in barbarous countries demand, and get, the highest type of human devotion and courage. It is a healthy sign that the public should support such enterprise and that men and women should be readily found to undertake it gladly. There is a great gulf between such gallantry and the calculating spirit which works from a "strategic centre," to bring about a serious political situation which others have to face.

Let us now examine the Islamic attitude toward Christianity.

The thoughtful Moslem generally admits the excellence of occidental principles and methods in the practical affairs of life, but insists that even earthly existence is made up of more than civilised amenities, economics and appliances for luxury, comfort and locomotion. It is when he comes to examine our social life that he finds us falling very short of our Christian ideals, and he argues to himself that if that is all Christianity can do for us it is not likely to do more for him, but rather less. He admits that his less civilised co-religionists in Arabia, Afghanistan, etc., lack half-tones in their personalities, which are black and white in streaks instead of blending in various shades of grey. He considers that Islam with its simple austerities is better suited to such characters than Christianity with its unattainable ideals. He himself has visited Western cities and observed their conditions shrewdly. He regards missionaries as zealous bagmen travelling with excellent samples for a chaotic firm which does not stock the goods they are trying to push. The missionary may say that he has no "call" to reform existing conditions in his own country, just as the bagman may disclaim responsibility for his firm's slackness; but such excuses book no orders. The travelled Moslem will shake his head and say that he has seen the firm's showrooms, and their principal lines appeared to be Labour trouble, profiteering and diluted Bolshevism, with a particularly tawdry fabric of party politics. He respects the spiritual commercial traveller and his opinions, if sincere (he is a judge of sincerity, being rather a casuist himself), but wherever he has observed the workings of Christianity in bulk it has not had the elevating and transcendental effect which it is said to have; that is, he has not found the goods up to sample and will have none of them.

He seldom realises (to conclude our commercial metaphor) that most Christian folk in countries which export missionaries are born with life-members' tickets entitling them to sound, durable goods which are not displayed in our spiritual shop-windows or in the missionary hand-bag: – the prayers of childhood and the mother's hymn, the distant bells of a Sabbath countryside, the bird-chorus of Spring emphasising the magic hush of Communion on Easter morning, the holly-decked church ringing with the glad carols of Christmastide and the tremendous promise which bids us hope at the graveside of our earthly love. It is such memories as these, and not the stentorian eloquence of some popular salvation-monger in an atmosphere of over-crowded humanity, which go to make staunch Christian souls.

The possible proselyte from Islam has to rely on what the missionary has in his bag. Large quantities of faith are pressed upon him which do not quite meet his requirements, as it is his reason which should be satisfied first; no one can believe without a basis of belief.

There is also a great deal of slaughter-house metaphor which does not appeal to him at all, as he looks on blood as a defilement and a sheep as the silliest animal in existence – except a lamb. These metaphors were used by our Lord in speaking to a people who readily understood them, but for some obscure reason they have not only been retained but amplified extensively to the exclusion of much beautiful imagery which is still apposite. We Christians reverence such similes for their associations, but a Moslem misses the point of them, just as we miss the stately metre of the Koran in translation.

The would-be convert from Islam must, of course, learn to stifle any fond memories of the virile, vivid creed he is invited to renounce. No longer must he give ear to the far-flung call proclaiming from lofty minarets the unity of God and the Prophet's mission or its cheery, swinging reiteration as the dead are carried to the magenna or "gate of Heaven." Certainly not; the less he contemplates their fate the better for his peace of mind, since (if the effort to convert him is anything more than an outrageous piece of impudence) their lot in the hereafter must be appalling and his own depends on the thoroughness with which he steels his heart against all he ever knew and loved before he met that pious man and his little picture pamphlets.