ISLAM AND THE CHURCH OF CHRIST
'For a brave man, to know that an evil is, is simply to know that it
has to be vanquished.'--A. M. FAIRBAIRN.
'O, it is great, and there's no other greatness, to make some part of
God's creation a little fruitfuller, better, more worthy of
God.'--CARLYLE.
[Sidenote: Livingstone and Stanley.]
On November 10, 1871, two men met in the heart of Africa. One, David
Livingstone, intrepid missionary and explorer, had been lost, and
reputed dead for years. The other, Henry Stanley, after long months
of heroic search, found the 'white man with hair on his face' within
sound of the thunderous surf on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, and
greeted him with, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?'
The day of that meeting is one of the most significant dates in
Africa's history. Stanley returned home to rouse Europe.
Livingstone, worn and weakened by illness, remained. At Ilala, a
year after Stanley {169} left him, his faithful African boys found
'the great master' kneeling by his bedside, dead.
The life and death of Livingstone is said to have inspired the
founding of twenty-two Missionary Societies. Certainly it opened a
new chapter in the story of African Missions.
The ears of Europe rang with the tales of Livingstone and Stanley,
and the heart of Europe responded to their appeal to heal that great
open sore, the slave trade.
[Sidenote: The Slave Trade.]
And who were the slave traders? Our friends the Moslem Arabs. But
Stanley and Livingstone, standing in the heart of that Dark
Continent, saw plainly enough that something else was needed to
lighten the darkness than even the most vigorous suppression of the
Slave Trade and its attendant atrocities. Superstition, misery,
degradation, cruelty, were everywhere. And as for the Moslems,
pouring in from the north in peaceful caravan or devastating slave
raid, they were making the situation tenfold worse in every way than
it was. It was evident that no healing of Africa's sores could come
from them.
[Sidenote: Call to the Church.]
In a famous despatch published in the {170} _Daily Telegraph_, on
November 15, 1875, Stanley challenged the Church of Christ to plunge
boldly into the heart of Africa, and make the countries of the still
pagan tribes south of the Great Lakes centres of light for the whole
Dark Continent. The challenge was accepted and the implied prophecy
has come true.
[Sidenote: Missions in Central Africa.]
The Universities' Mission to Central Africa (founded in response to
an earlier appeal from Livingstone) has built its cathedral at
Zanzibar, on the site of the old slave market, and its work has
spread inwards through Nyassaland.
The Livingstonia Mission, founded by the Free Church of Scotland
after Livingstone's death, has, in a short space of twenty years,
seen wild, warlike tribes, whose chief concern was warfare and
slaughter, settle down into hard-working Christian communities.
In Uganda, the Mission founded by the Church Missionary Society a
little later, has seen the growth of a Church of 98,000 Native
Christians supporting its own 3,000 Native Christian workers and
sending its own missionaries into the heathen countries around.
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But in each place they were only just in time; and other regions
which were not occupied, the Moslem is winning to-day. Thirty years
before Livingstone's death, the great German Krapf, working for the
Church Missionary Society, had seen the danger, and had challenged
the Church to forge a chain of Mission stations from east to west to
bind the Moslem to the north.
Many links of that chain have not yet been forged, and the Moslem has
streamed down into the Southern Continent till there is hardly a
section of Africa in which he may not be found.
[Sidenote: The Niger and Hausa Land.]
Away in the West in the vast Niger districts the same unequal race is
going on, but Christendom was later in the field. In 1899, before
our British troops had subdued the Hausa states, a little party led
by Bishop Tugwell had penetrated 700 miles, even up to Kano. Here
the Moslem ruled the land and brooked no interference with his
raiding or his slavery. He was engaged in bringing the simple
unorganized pagan tribes to heel. Christian missionaries were the
last people he wanted. For many months the little defenceless party
{172} found no rest for the soles of their feet. If they pitched
their tent they were quickly ordered to remove it, the alternative
being the executioner's sword. At last, in a little village, they
pitched their camp in simple faith among a people of whom not one but
wished them gone. Death, and the many fevers of West Africa have
worked sad havoc in their ranks, but bravely they kept on, though
often one man alone 'held the fort' in Gierku.
A language to be learned and reduced to Roman writing, the Bible to
be translated, the suspicions of a hostile people to be allayed, the
very _meaning_ of the words truth and purity to be taught, learned
Moslem Mallams[1] to be dealt with, men and women, boys and girls, in
a bondage to sin, such as we have never thought of in Europe, to be
led out into the liberty with which Christ alone makes free--that was
the task before them.
That was ten years ago: what is found to-day?
[Sidenote: A Hausa Convert.]
'Last summer a Hausa convert, only one year after his baptism, was
travelling, for business purposes, to the old and fanatical city of
Katsina, 140 {173} miles from our C. M. S. station in Zaria, almost
the earliest stronghold of Islam in this land. He was a young man of
considerable ability and well known for his learning; his conversion
and baptism had caused some consternation in orthodox circles, where
it had been freely said that whatever we might succeed in doing among
the illiterate, we should never convert a _Mallam_!
'Soon after his arrival in Katsina, he was sent for by the Emir, who
said to him, "We have heard of you, and your reputation has reached
here. Why did you leave your own faith and that of your fathers, and
become a Christian?" Seeking for God's guidance, our friend quietly
gave his reasons, and spoke of his joy and rest in Christ. He then
asked permission to expound the Christian faith, that those assembled
(a few of the leading men, including the chief religious Mohammedan
official and judge) might understand what he had received in exchange
for Islam. This was permitted, and for a long time he preached
Christ to them.
'From that time, during the rest of his stay in the city, not one day
passed but he was invited to the houses of the leading Mallams and
chiefs, to explain the Christian faith and read the Scriptures in
Arabic. So the gospel was faithfully preached to many in this city
where no white missionary has been allowed, by one who had been a
learned Mohammedan and whom Christ had saved. This same man and
others are fearlessly proclaiming Christ, and with ceaseless energy
are seeking and praying to bring in their fellow-countrymen to the
Light.'
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So wrote Dr. Miller in June, 1909. It is but a corner of the
picture--but it must suffice us.
[Sidenote: Egypt.]
The strength of Islam in Africa is Egypt. The great Moslem
University of Al Azhar 'is the centre, literally, from a
geographical, and actually from a spiritual point of view of the
world of Islam,'--a Moslem University which exists to teach the
Moslem faith, with thousands of students, and a training that often
covers twenty years, to which men come from every outpost of the
Moslem world. 'Far the oldest of the medieval Universities, it is
the only one which has remained, and remains, medieval in its
curriculum, its methods, its whole aspect'--such is the head and
heart of Islam to-day.
Shall this citadel of Islam be left unassailed while the Church
passes on to easier work? Or is it a challenge for _picked men_, the
best our Western learning can produce, to outlearn the learned, to
love the hardest hearts and have patience over wooden heads, to
believe in spite of all appearances that Truth is great and will
prevail? To-day, through the many {175} pillared porticoes into the
great University Court where for long centuries no Christian could so
much as enter, Christian missionaries, true enough, men enough for
this, pass freely, welcome friends and visitors. From this Moslem of
Moslem Universities, 'students and ex-students have been converted to
Christianity, and not a few have, as they paced or sat apart, studied
there not the Korân, but the Injil Yasu'a al Masih (Gospel of Jesus
Christ)'!
[Sidenote: Asia.]
And what of the problem in Asia, the struggle with Islam and its many
and various forms there--Islam in undisputed power, Islam plus
European influence, Islam under British rule, Islam under Dutch, and
French, and Chinese governments, Islam sealing itself against the
world, Islam caught in the rush of twentieth-century movements? What
is the Church of Christ attempting? What trophies has she won?
[Sidenote: Henry Martyn.]
Just a hundred years ago Henry Martyn, a young brilliant scholar,
Senior Wrangler of Cambridge, went out to India as a Chaplain of the
East India Company. He was only in India four years before he {176}
moved on to Persia, but he left behind him a translation, of the
Bible into Hindustani. His life was 'cut short,' as men said, at
thirty-one.
The fact of his going out at all was staggering enough for
intelligent men of his day. But when it transpired that his purpose
in taking the post was that he might work among Hindus and Moslems,
they had no words to describe his action but 'madness.' 'Absolutely
throwing his life away!' said some. 'Of all the ridiculous ideas!'
said others. 'Well, of all the impossible tasks!' said the more
thoughtful, to whom, in those days, the conversion of a Moslem to
Christianity was unimaginable. Possibly if he had stayed at home he
might have lived to grey hairs, a life of learning, wealth, and
honour. Instead, he planted a tiny living seed in the field of
Islam. Was it worth while?
It is reported that he left in India one, and only one, convert,
Abdul Masih, the keeper of the jewels at the Court of Oudh. He lived
for fifteen years after Martyn's death, labouring among his Moslem
compatriots, the first Mohammedan ordained to the Christian ministry.
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[Sidenote: Imad-ud-Din.]
To-day among the native pastors and Christian preachers and teachers
in North India, there are at least 200 who were once followers of
Islam.[2]
Let one speak for himself. His name is Moulvie Imad-ud-Din, he is a
lineal descendant of the famous Mohammedan saint, Qutab Jamal, who
traced his descent from the ancient royal house of Persia: he was
born near Delhi, in 1830, and died at Amritsar, in 1900.
'When I was fifteen years of age, I left my friends and relatives for
my education, and went to Agra, where my brother, Moulvie
Karim-ud-Din, was the Headmaster in the Urdu language. I remained
there a long time under him.... As soon as I had leisure from the
study of science, I began to wait on Fakirs and pious and learned
men, to discover the advantages of religion. I frequented the
mosques and the houses set apart for religious purposes, and the
homes of the Moulvies and carried on my studies in Mohammedan law,
the ceremonies of the Korân and the traditional sayings of Mohammed,
and also in manners, logic and philosophy. I knew nothing of the
Christian religion. I had some doubts in my mind respecting
Mohammedanism in consequence of intercourse I had had with some
Christians, but the taunting curses of the Moulvies and Mohammedans
so confounded {178} me that I quickly drew back from all such
thoughts.... I gave up all thought of disputation, and controversy,
and began to take great pains in acquiring knowledge. Without
troubling myself about any other concerns, I read steadily night and
day and continued doing so for eight or ten years.
When the necessary attainments in the outward knowledge of religion
had been acquired, and I had become brimful of Mohammedan bigotry
from it, I became entangled in another snare which the learned
Mohammedans have placed in the path of the seeker after truth....
The Mohammedans always at first, and for a long period of time, set
forth before enquirers the outward rites of their law, and their
bodily exercises and unprofitable stories and the affinities of words
used in their controversies. They then tie him by the leg with a
rope of deceit, in order to make him sit down and rest contented, by
telling him that what he has already learned consists merely of the
outward ordinances of Mohammedanism, but that if he wishes to
prosecute his studies and investigate the realities of religion he
must go to the Fakirs and the Mohammedan saints, and remain in
attendance on them for many years because they possess the secret
science of religion.
'As soon as I was entangled in this subtle science, I began to
practise speaking little, eating little, living apart from men,
afflicting my body and keeping awake at nights. I used to spend
whole nights reading the Korân. I put in practice ... all the
various special penances and devotions {179} that were enjoined. I
used to shut my eyes and sit in retirement, seeking by thinking on
the Name of God to write it on my heart. I constantly sat on the
graves of holy men, in hopes that, by contemplation, I might receive
some revelation from the tombs. I went and sat in the assemblies of
the elders and hoped to receive grace by gazing with great faith on
the faces of the Sufies. I used to go even to the dreamy and
intoxicated fanatics, in the hope of thus attaining union with God.
And I did all this, besides performing my prayers five times a day,
and also the prayer in the night and that in the very early morning,
and always was I repeating the salutation of Mohammed and the
confession of faith....
'The thought of utterly renouncing the world then came into my mind
with so much power that I left everybody and went into the jungles
and became a Fakir, putting on clothes covered with red ochre and
wandered here and there, from city to city, and from village to
village, step by step alone, without plan or baggage.
'In addition to the above I wrote the name of God on paper 125,000
times, and I cut out each word separately with scissors and wrapped
them up each in a little ball of flour and fed the fish in the river
with them in the way the book prescribed....
'I had got into the same state of mind that many learned Mohammedans
have been in under similar circumstances. I once had thought that
Mohammedanism was the best of all religions on earth. I had,
therefore, believed Christianity to {180} be untrue: in short, I was
a vehement opponent of the Christian religion. I therefore became
convinced in my own mind that all religions were but vain fables, and
that it was better for me to live in ease and comfort myself, to act
honestly towards everybody, and to be satisfied with believing in the
unity of God. For six years my mind remained afflicted with these
foolish thoughts....
'I came to Lahore. I here heard of the conversion to Christianity of
Moulvie Safdar Ali at Jubbulpore, which greatly amazed me ...
gradually I remembered that Ali was a true and just man, and I began
to ask myself how he could have acted in such a foolish manner as to
leave the Mohammedan religion. I then thought that I ought to begin
to dispute with him by letter about it. With this object I procured
the Old and New Testaments and asked an English Christian missionary
to read the English Testament with me. When I read as far as the 7th
Chapter of St. Matthew, doubts fixed themselves upon my mind
respecting the truth of Mohammedanism. I became so agitated that I
spent whole days, and often also whole nights, in reading and
considering the books, and began to speak about them both with
missionaries and Mohammedans. Within a year I had investigated the
whole matter, chiefly at nights, and I discovered that the religion
of Mohammed is not of God, and that Mohammedans have been deceived,
and that salvation is assuredly to be found in the Christian religion.
'As soon as this had become evident to me, I made everything known to
my Mohammedan {181} friends and followers. Some of them became
angry; but some listened in my private chamber to the proof I gave
them. They said quite plainly that they knew that the religion of
Mohammed is not true; but they asked me what they could do, when they
were afraid of the opposition of the world and of the reproaches and
curses of ignorant men. In their hearts they said they certainly
believed Christianity to be true, and that Mohammed could not be the
Mediator of the men of his religion, but they were unwilling to lose
the esteem of the world. They urged me not to make my faith public,
but to call myself outwardly a Mohammedan, and yet in my heart to
believe in Christianity.... The extent of their faith became thus
evident to me by their own confessions. I committed them all to God
for, besides praying for them, I knew not anything else I could do
for them, and I went myself to Amritsar and received baptism.'
[Illustration: HON. ION KEITH-FALCONER. REV. IMAD UD-DIN D.D.
'_Strong men, missionary and convert._']
Imad-ud-Din entirely omits any reference to his noble decision to
decline a lucrative Government position which was offered to him,
that he might be ordained to the Christian ministry, and devote his
life to the spread of Christian truth among his fellow-countrymen.
'Since my entrance into the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, I have
had great peace in my soul.... By reading the Word of God I have
found enjoyment in life. My friends and acquaintances and {182} my
disciples and followers and others, have all become my enemies.... I
therefore pray for them. May God give them grace and open the eyes
of their minds that they may be partakers of the everlasting
salvation of the Lord, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.'
Shortly after Henry Martyn arrived in India he had written, 'Even if
I should never see a native converted, God may design by my patience
and continuance in the Word to encourage future missionaries.'
Again, was it worth while?
[Sidenote: Dutch East Indies.]
In the Dutch East Indies alone there are to-day 24,000 Christian
converts from Islam, and from 200 to 300 are baptized every year--the
fruit of the labours of stout-hearted Dutchmen.
[Sidenote: Persia.]
We have so far been meeting strong men, missionary and convert. Let
us take a look at a very different Moslem whom we meet in a Christian
Hospital for women in the heart of Persia. The English lady worker
has just completed her round of the wards, and we greet with her a
former out-patient, one of a group of women converts.
'The first of these was Sakîneh, who entered the Women's Dispensary
with her aunt, who was ill. At that time Sakîneh was a bigoted
Moslem, but {183} gradually the message touched her heart. A year
later she came for treatment for herself, her husband's cruelty
having made her ill, for which reason he divorced her. Sakîneh was
then eager to learn more of Christ's love. Her father beat her
cruelly, but this seemed to increase her desire for teaching.... She
declared her faith in Jesus as the only Saviour ... and was baptized.
Shortly after she began to try and tell her own family and
neighbours.... The news spread in her village, Hoseinabad, that she
was a Christian. Then a system of boycotting and persecution began.
Her friends no longer saluted her in the streets, she was pelted with
mud and stones, hooted at, called infidel, Nazarene, Christian dog,
etc. At the Public Baths a woman noticed she had no Moslem charms
on, and charged her publicly with being a Christian. At first she
was afraid to reply, then answered "Yes." At once she was cast out,
and the place declared defiled by her. She was followed down the
street by an angry mob, and beaten with a chain used for whipping
donkeys.... Her fellow-villagers declared either Sakîneh must be put
to death or she and her parents must leave the village. As night
came on the mob surrounded the house, threatening to take her life.
Her brother-in-law got her over the wall of the village into the
desert, and brought her to our house. Sakîneh was unnerved, but kept
on repeating, "I have not denied Christ; I want to live and die a
Christian."'
It was just twenty years ago that Sakîneh bore her brave witness for
Christ.
{184}
[Sidenote: The Christian Church in Persia to-day.]
It is a beautiful picture, and one full of hope, that remains with us
as we leave the sad, inert, decadent land of Persia. There among a
people, sinful, sensuous, corrupt, and apparently loveless, at almost
every place where in school or hospital, in gaudy harem or in humble
cottage, the Gospel of purity and love is preached to-day, are little
companies of Persian Christians, men and women who, disowned,
impoverished, persecuted, in peril of imprisonment and death, count
it a joy to suffer for Christ's sake. Truly in Persia are heroic
outposts of the Christian Church.
[Sidenote: Ion Keith-Falconer and Arabia.]
We close this chapter with a short picture of one of the noble men
who have given their lives to win the way into Arabia.
'See, in the purpose of God for Arabia, that lad of promise, lovable,
thoughtful, strong in mind and body, in his noble Scottish home. See
him at Harrow, then at Cambridge, rising above his fellows,
many-sided, full of fire and life. Watch him at work, passing
rapidly from form to form at Harrow, taking a first in one Tripos and
then another at Cambridge, good at mathematics, brilliant at
languages, a born teacher, so exact in his working that he masters
Dutch Grammar in three weeks {185} rather than leave a book in that
language, which bore upon a lecture, unread. Watch him at
play--bicycling from John o' Groats to Land's End, and winning the
Bicycling Championship of England, a man of superb physique and
training, "as hard as nails." Watch him at his special
hobby--shorthand, an expert verbatim reporter, the chosen writer on
phonography in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_. Down in the slums of
Cambridge, or in the East End of London, you may find him too, now
raising, or himself giving, funds for some enterprise, now addressing
a great meeting, now sitting beside a man who seeks a way to Christ.
'For Ion Keith-Falconer is more than student and athlete--beyond the
power of brain and muscle there lies a heart which beats true to its
Master, "fervent still after all the turmoil of a great Public School
and the more subtle temptations of a great University."
Surely scholarship and Cambridge claim such a man as this? At
nine-and-twenty we find him a learned professor in Cambridge, at
thirty a missionary to Arabia, at thirty-one, only six months after
he left England, we stand by his grave, the black mountainous rocks
of Aden lie behind us, and the white sandy shore of Arabia edges the
limitless stretch of the ocean beyond.
From one point of view, Keith-Falconer's missionary career was
disastrous and a dislocation. From another, his going was the most
natural thing in the world. Young, strong, free, a master of Arabic,
he had the constraining love of Christ within him, and a vision of
the Moslem {186} world--especially Arabia--before. Speaking for the
last time before he left Scotland, he said:
'"_While vast continents are shrouded in almost utter darkness, and
hundreds of millions suffer the horrors of heathenism, and of Islam,
the burden of proof lies upon you to show that the circumstances in
which God has placed you were meant by Him to keep you out of the
foreign mission-field._"
'The purpose of the strong man to spend and be spent in the Cause
shines out in those last short months. We see him building at Sheikh
Othman a centre for his work, talking with patients in the
mat-verandah, dropping into coffee-shops to meet in friendly
intercourse with the Moslems he loved, picking up and carrying with
the aid of his devoted colleague a sick man left to die in the
street. Then the fever-mists gather, and the scholar-missionary's
death claims Arabia for her true Lord.
'The missionary chapter of Ion Keith-Falconer's life closed quickly,
but the eyes of Christians were opened to the land for which he died.'
Is there such a thing as waste in God's economy? Is it not written
'whoso loseth his life, the same shall find it'?
QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER XI
1. Of the heroes mentioned in this chapter, whom do you consider the
greatest, and why?
2. What answer would you give to the assertion that Ion
Keith-Falconer's life was wasted through his going to missionary work
in Arabia?
{187}
3. Estimate the extent of the work done for Africa by Livingstone.
How far is it being followed up adequately now?
4. Give some account of the perplexities, hindrances, and
difficulties which make it hard for a Mohammedan to become a
Christian.
5. Which parts of the Moslem world seem to you in most need of
Christian missionaries to-day? Why? What sort of men would you send
to each?
[1] i.e. Teachers.
[2] Dr. Wherry, _Islam and Christianity in India._
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