IT
is difficult for Americans, living in this Christian country, to understand the
position of a missionary who goes into a Mohammedan community with the intention
of converting its members.
The
problem is exactly that which would confront a Moslem hodja, or priest, should
he appear with two or three veiled wives in a devout Methodist community in
Michigan and open up a campaign in behalf of the Prophet. As for the results of
education upon a Mohammedan, whenever he is made to doubt his own religion, when
he is educated out of it, he generally becomes an atheist. The spectacle of the
Great War has profoundly influenced all non-Christian peoples and has made
missionary work more difficult than ever. “Christ is not the Prince of Peace,”
they say; and no amount of preaching can make them believe it. “Prince of
Peace,” they sneer, “He is the Prince of the submarine, the bomb-throwing
aeroplane, poison gas, the machine gun.” The supposed results of the teachings
of Christ are more evident than the teachings themselves. One element of
strength of the Mohammedan religion is that it is sincere and gives free play to
the passions and impulses of man’s lower nature. Whatever the teachings of the
Koran as to spreading its doctrines by the sword— for the interpreters of that
sacred book are legion, and one may find anything he wishes in it—there is no
doubt as to the example set by Mohammed, who founded his kingdom sword in hand,
who was a polygamist, a robber of camel caravans and gave orders for the
assassination of his enemies. This is not said in a spirit of defamation of the
Prophet, but as a statement of well-known historic facts. While advocating many
virtues, the Koran gives more play to the human passions and makes a greater
appeal to the natural man than the asceticism of Christianity and hence spreads
more rapidly among primitive peoples and those of a lower grade of
civilization.
I
once met a sweet missionary woman returning from Africa with her little child,
who had fallen sick of fever, to America for medical treatment. She described
the great advance of Mohammedanism in Africa and the seemingly hopeless task of
the Christian missionaries there. She made a sort of map of mission stations and
explained: “We are trying to put a barrier across Africa to prevent
Mohammedanism spreading to the South, beyond the equator,” “From what you say to
me,” I observed, “you can not do it.” “We can’t,” she said, “but God can.” This
seems unanswerable and must appeal strongly to the religious devotee, but there
is an answer and it is this: “God can, of course He can; but He doesn’t, and
probably He will not.” It seems probable that the great gift of Christianity has
been so abused and shamed by the so-called Christian nations that God is weary
of them, and considers it presumptuous for them to send out missionaries to
convert people of another faith. It has been abundantly shown to all reasonable
human beings, who are not religious zealots, that money expended in the attempt
to convert Moslems is money thrown away. Even the missionaries themselves in
Turkey seem to have given it up.
The
same story is heard everywhere. In “The Crescent in Northwest China”, by
G. Findlay Andrew, a missionary, the author says: “Islam has often been
referred to as the challenge to Christian missions. During the past few years a
few Hwei-Hwei (Chinese Moslems) have been reached with the Gospel and, after a
profession of faith, have been accepted as church members or as inquirers. The
number has, however, been very small, and of those who have ‘kept the faith’
only about one remains in church fellowship at the time of writing.” And yet
the good missionary sums this gloomy report up with the remark: “Great as the
problem is, yet the triumph of the Cross over the Crescent in Kansu is
assured.” It is difficult to follow the process of reasoning which derives
this conclusion from these premises.
The
attention of the reader has already been called to the fact that the Turks are
the lowest of the Moslem races and it would not be fair to Mohammedans in
general to say that they approve of butchery and rape as carried out by that
people,
so well characterized by Gladstone and many historians. In fact the
Turks are not the greatest danger to the Christian church. They have
accomplished their fell task, and their influence as a proselytizing power will
not spread beyond their own dominions unless they wage another successful
war.
A
few quotations from that penetrating book, “The New World of Islam”, by
Lothrop Stoddard, will suffice to show how Islamism is ousting
Christianity in those places where it meets it face to face. The
strongest and best organized proselytizing order among the Moslems are the
Senussiya, well described by Mr. Stoddard:
“The
beginning of systematic, self-conscious pan-Islamism dates from about the middle
of the nineteenth century. The Sennussi are careful to avoid a downright breach
with European Powers. Their long-headed, cautious policy is truly astonishing.
For more than half a century the order has been a great force, yet it has never
risked the supreme adventure. In many of the fanatic risings, which have
occurred in various parts of Africa, local Sennussi have undoubtedly taken part,
and the same was true during the Italian campaign in Tripoli and the late war,
but the order itself has never officially entered the lists. The Sennussi
program is the welding, first, of Moslem Africa, and, later of the whole Moslem
world into the revived “Imamat,” of Islam’s early days; into a great theocracy
embracing all true believers—in other words, pan-Islamism. But they believe that
the political liberation of Islam from Christian domination must be preceded by
a profound spiritual regeneration. Year after year and decade after decade the
Sennussi advance slowly, calmly, coldly. They are covering North Africa with
their lodges and schools; and to the southward converting millions of pagan
Negroes to the faith of Islam. Every candid European observer tells the same
story. As an Englishman remarked some twenty years ago: ‘Mohammedanism is making
remarkable progress in the interior of Africa. It is crushing Paganism out.
Against it the Christian propaganda is a myth.’ And a French protestant
missionary remarks in the same vein: ‘We see Islam on its march, sometimes
slowed down, but never stopped, toward the heart of Africa. It fears nothing.
Even Christianity, its most serious rival, it views without hate. While
Christians dream of the conquest of Africa, Mohammedans do it.’ These gains are
being made at the expense of African Christianity as well. The European missions
lose many of their converts to Islam, while across the continent, the ancient
Abyssinian Church, so long an outpost against Islam, seems in danger of
submersion by the rising Moslem tide. There is to-day in the Moslem world a wide
spread conviction that Islam is entering on a period of Renaissance and renewed
glory.”
Mohammedanism
to-day covers the northern part of Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the
Red Sea, nearly to the equator, far below which it has passed on the East; it
surrounds Abyssinia, an island of degenerate Christianity; it holds solidly
Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan, Turkostan and has overrun large portions of China
and Russia, where it is making rapid progress. It is one of the leading
religions of India, and has reached the Dutch Indies and
Philippines.
Pierre
Andre, in his work “Islam et les Races”, gave the total number of
Mohammedans in the world in 1917, as 246,920,000; Laurence Martin of the Library
of Congress, in an article in “Foreign Affair”s for March, 1923, gives
the total number as 230,000,000 a slightly more conservative figure; but any
estimate must be revised yearly, as the number is increasing with astounding
rapidity. It is probable that the number of Mohammedans in the world to-day is
about 250,000,000.
To
the above vast portions of the earth’s surface which have already been mentioned
as solidly Mohammedan must now be added Asia Minor, the last hope and outpost of
Christian civilization in the Near East, which was rapidly spreading and
developing with the aid of our own and other Christian schools, but which has
recently been cleared out by fire and massacre with the aid and connivance of
the Christian powers.
It
has already been asserted that conversions from Mohammedanism to Christianity
are extremely rare, while the former is taking heavy toll from Christian
converts. It seems also that there are well-authenticated cases of Europeans and
Americans having embraced Islam. Professor T. W. Arnold in his ingenious defense
of Mohammedanism, “The Preaching of Islam”, cites the case of an English
solicitor, Mr. William Henry Quillam, who embraced Mohammedanism and became a
missionary of that faith in the city of Liverpool. By 1897, ten years after his
own conversion, Mr. Quillam had made one hundred and thirty-seven
proselytes.
An
American, Mr. Alexander Russell Webb, at one time United States Consul to
Manila, after having embraced Mohammedanism, opened a mission. Mr. Webb had been
brought up as a Presbyterian. In 1875, a Methodist preacher named Norman became
converted to Mohammedanism and began to preach it in
America.
While
I was in Smyrna a native-born American, who was weary of a devoutly Christian
and ascetic wife, so good that he could not get a divorce from her, became a
Mohammedan in order to marry a young woman with whom he had fallen in love, and
with whom he was living happily, as man and wife according to Mohammedan law, up
until quite recently. There is also the well-authenticated story, which, for
obvious reasons, has not been given wide publicity, of the American missionary
woman who married a rich Turk and became a member of his already well-stocked
harem. A number of her former associates wont to see her and endeavored to
persuade her to return to them. She replied:
“I
have always desired to be married and live the natural life of a woman, for
which God intended me. I saw the years slipping away, with no chance in sight of
fulfilling the functions for which the Creator made me and I rebelled. No
Christian man has ever made me an honorable proposal of marriage, though several
have paid me court with shady intentions. This man offered me a union honorable
according to his religion and the laws of the country, and I accepted. I would
rather have a quarter of a man than none at all. I am soon to become a mother; I
am perfectly happy, and I don’t want ever to hear anything more about
missionaries or missionary work.”
The
two last cases are significant as they reveal one of the reasons why
Mohammedanism is less difficult to preach convincingly, under favorable
conditions, than Christianity. It solves, both for men and women,’ some of the
inconveniences of our civilization, which exist despite the greater and greater
efficiency of our divorce courts.
These
pages are written without any spirit of fanaticism and with the sole object of
giving the world, especially the Christian world, the truth about certain
matters of great historic significance. The Mohammedans, in the organized
propaganda which they are making against Christianity, both by written arguments
and by their extensive system of lay missionaries, are well aware of the
unchristian history of the Christian world, and the fearful spectacle of the
Great War has added a powerful argument to their already full quiver. They are
aware also that the teachings of Christ, while never having dictated to any
great extent the policies of governments, have also failed to regulate as they
should the lives of individuals. Mohammedanism does not ask so much of the
individual as does Christianity, and hence is easier to live up to. There
is consequently less hypocrisy. For instance, the marriage relation is very lax
in the Prophet’s creed and polygamy is permitted. A Mohammedan writer says that
the social evil is unknown in Mohammedan countries, and a writer in
“Armenia”, the defunct Boston periodical of that name, replies that this
is true for the reason that the Moslem is permitted by his religion to make his
own home a brothel. The Moslem propaganda argues that their various women have
an open and honorable standing, while the Christian has illicit relations, which
frequently ruin his victims, whom he abandons to a life of
dishonor.
But
we are approaching the Mohammedan in the matter of loose marriage relations, and
in the need of missionary work at home. In 1922, more than one out of every
eight married couples were divorced in the United Status, and it is frequent
with us to have a succession of partners, rivaling the Mohammedan in this
particular. In 1922 there were 184,554 divorces in the United States, as against
112,036 in 1916. In 1922 there were fifty-two lynchings in the United States. In
1922 there were 4,931,905 illiterates in this country, and in the same year a
percentage that reached nearly twenty-three of illiteracy among the Negroes of
seven Southern States. (“A Survey of Southern Illiteracy”,
published by the Education Board, Southern Baptist Convention, Birmingham,
1923.)
The
Koran does not permit the use of wine, and devout Mohammedans abstain from the
use of intoxicants. In the United States the Constitution is very generally
violated by large masses of the population and the day of Christ’s Nativity is
largely celebrated by drunken orgies. Secret vice is prevalent in the United
States to a much larger extent than many people dream of. Every few days some
automobile overturns, killing a guilty couple, or some girl, in fear of the vice
inspector, jumps out of a window, revealing depravity in circles where it was
least expected.
Christianity
lost her power as a world-conquering religion—and thus became an easy prey to
Mohammedanism—as soon as she became obscured in a smoke-screen of controversy.
The innumerable and bewildering quibbles which arose, giving rise to many sects,
and the violent hatreds and schisms engendered, form a history in themselves. At
the time when Mohammed appeared on the scene, the Church was already split into
quarreling sects, who had lost sight of the simple teachings of the Master.
Christians had become depraved and general immorality and degeneracy were
rife.
To-day
the Christian world is about evenly divided between Protestants and Catholics,
rival sects, showing little spirit of compromise. Recent statistics, given by
“Whittaker’s Almanac”, place the total number of Catholics in the world
at 272,860,000 and of Protestants and other denominations, (like the Eastern
Church), who deny the jurisdiction of the Pope, at 290,000,000. Any one who has
lived for any time in countries where missionaries are active will testify to
the saintly character of Catholic Sisters, and the devotion of the Brothers.
They will equally bear witness to the high character, courage and beauty of life
of Protestant missionaries, men and women. But the two sects are antagonistic.
In
Smyrna during the Greek administration, a Y. I. C. A. was started and was doing
excellent work, as also a Y. W. C. A. A notice was posted in all the Catholic
churches that such institutions were of darkness and not of light and that all
true Christians must keep away from them. A Catholic teacher in the Y. W. C. A.
who was being paid a good salary and who needed it was compelled to resign her
post. This is but one instance of many that could be given. When a Mohammedan is
asked to be a Christian, a common answer is, “What kind? There are so
many kinds of you, each warning us against the others.” There is less hope
today of pan-Christianity than of pan-Islamism. Says Kurtz, already referred to:
“To-day Mohammedanism is the one rival of Christianity to become a world
religion,” and a writer in the “Moslem World” for January, 1925: “The
Christian Church, after thirteen centuries of hard struggle finds Islam still a
most baffling problem. It is true historically that Islam has been born after
Christianity and has displaced it almost wherever it has spread. The history of
the whole of North Africa, Palestine and Syria, and present Asia Minor shows
this plainly.”
The
Reverend George Bush in his “Life of Mohammed”, published by the Harpers
in 1830, makes the following reflection:
“Indeed
in this, as in every other instance where the fortunes of an individual are
entirely disproportionate to the means employed, and surpass all reasonable
calculation, we are forced to resolve the problem into the special Providence of
God. Nothing short of this could have achieved such mighty
results”
If
there is no other explanation of Mohammedan success, it is evident that the
Divine intention has not varied in the last ninety years. This is the view-point
of the deeply religious man, who believes in God’s personal management of all
the affairs of this world, attributing to reasons of Divine wisdom matters too
deep for human penetration. The student of history will understand the spread of
Mohammedanism at the expense of Christianity, and the chief reasons have
appeared or will become plain in the course of this
narrative.
A
stouter and more virile figure than Mohammed attempted to establish a similar
creed on this continent. He failed to become a world influence, a permanent
factor in history, for geographical reasons, mainly. The part of the world in
which Brigham Young planted his polygamous creed was not so well adapted to its
expansion as the scene of Mohammed’s early activities. Western civilization,
following close on the heels of the gold rush, overwhelmed the American apostle
and intimate of the Angel Gabriel. The chief reason why Christianity has lost so
much ground before Mohammedanism, and is likely to lose much more, is that there
has never been much real Christianity in the world.
The
history of the so-called “Christian Nations” has been a long tale of bloody
wars, of treachery and robbery, of St. Bartholomew Days and of Catholics
martyrized by Protestants; of persecutions, of saints and witches burned at the
stake.
And
the situation among the “Christian Nations” that allowed the Turks to burn
Smyrna and massacre and abuse its inhabitants was such a culmination of infamy
and shame as shows that the world is becoming less Christian as the years go
by.
Surely
there is no reason to expect God to aid Christian missionaries, after such a
disappointment and travesty. If, as the Reverend Bush remarks, the wonderful
spread of Mohammedanism can only be explained as some special Providence of God,
He may be inspiring the Sennussi to spiritualize their religion and develop the
better features of it. If the Christian faith has had so feeble effect upon the
conduct of Christian nations and has so little harmony that it lacks the force
to convert Mohammedans, then the only alternative open to wisdom, finite or
infinite, would be to make the best of some other creed. When our missionaries
have finished putting the Turkish administrations “on a sound basis,” they might
come home and teach us to be better
Christians. Unless Christianity is saved in -those countries where it still has
a nominal existence, it is doomed, and their civilization will go with it. The
Bolsheviks understand this, as witness the war they are waging against
religion.
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