MOHAMMEDANISM AND CHRISTIANITY
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, Afganistan, Turkestan 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 Affairs_ 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 went 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
States, 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.[14]
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 Almanak_, 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. M. 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 to-day 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. Bartholemew 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.