FOOTNOTES:[16]A remarkable coincidence of prediction, Christian and Mohammedan, has been pointed out to me in Rohrbacher's History of the Church, published in 1845, where by an elaborate calculation based on the Old Testament prophecies he arrives at the conclusion that the Turkish Empire will fall in 1882, the date assigned it also by the Mohammedan prediction quoted in my last chapter—that is to saya.h.1300.[17]This claim has been endorsed by Abd el Mutalleb, who is issuing aResalat rayiyeh, or pastoral letter, this year to the pilgrims in support of Abd el Hamid's Caliphate.
[16]A remarkable coincidence of prediction, Christian and Mohammedan, has been pointed out to me in Rohrbacher's History of the Church, published in 1845, where by an elaborate calculation based on the Old Testament prophecies he arrives at the conclusion that the Turkish Empire will fall in 1882, the date assigned it also by the Mohammedan prediction quoted in my last chapter—that is to saya.h.1300.
[16]A remarkable coincidence of prediction, Christian and Mohammedan, has been pointed out to me in Rohrbacher's History of the Church, published in 1845, where by an elaborate calculation based on the Old Testament prophecies he arrives at the conclusion that the Turkish Empire will fall in 1882, the date assigned it also by the Mohammedan prediction quoted in my last chapter—that is to saya.h.1300.
[17]This claim has been endorsed by Abd el Mutalleb, who is issuing aResalat rayiyeh, or pastoral letter, this year to the pilgrims in support of Abd el Hamid's Caliphate.
[17]This claim has been endorsed by Abd el Mutalleb, who is issuing aResalat rayiyeh, or pastoral letter, this year to the pilgrims in support of Abd el Hamid's Caliphate.
Nothing now remains for me but to point the moral which these essays were designed to draw. It will have been observed that hitherto I have avoided as much as possible all allusion to the direct political action which Christendom is exercising, and must ever more and more exercise, upon the fortunes of Islam; and in this I have been guided by two motives. I have wished, first, to give prominence to the fact that in all great movements of the human intellect the force of progression or decay should be looked for mainly from within, not from without; and, secondly, to simplify my subject so as to render it more easily intelligible to the reading public. We have reached, however, the point now when it will be necessary to take different ground, and look at Islam no longer as regards her internal economy, but as she is being affected by the world at large. We mustinquire what influence the material pressure of Europe is likely to have on her in the Levant, and what in Africa and Central Asia; and, above all, we must examine closely our own position towards her, and the course which duty and interest require us to pursue in regard to the vast Mussulman population of our Indian Empire.
I take it the sentiment generally of Continental Europe—I do not speak of England—towards Mohammedanism is still much what it has always been, namely, one of social hostility and political aggression. In spite of all the changes which have affected religious thought in Catholic Europe, and of the modern doctrine of tolerance in matters of opinion, none of the nations by which Islam is immediately confronted to the north and west have really changed anything of their policy towards her, since the days when they first resolved on the recovery of "Christian lands lost to the infidel." It is true that most of them no longer put forward religious zeal as the motive of their action, or the possession of the Holy Sepulchre as its immediate object; but under the name of "civilization" their crusade is no less a continuous reality, and the direction of their efforts has not ceased to be the resumption by Europe of political control in thewhole of the provinces once forming the Roman Empire. The sentiment in its origin was a just one, and, though now become for the most part selfish with the various Christian states, who see in the advantage to Christendom only an advantage to themselves, it appeals to an ancient and respectable moral sanction which is in itself no inconsiderable power. It is certain that the national conscience neither of France, nor Spain, nor Italy, nor Austria would repudiate an aggression, however unprovoked, upon any of the still independent Mussulman states of the Mediterranean, and that the only judgment passed on such an act by public opinion would be one dependent on its failure or success.
Thus in estimating the future of Islam as a political body, and in view of the disparity proved to exist at all points between modern Europe and its ancient rival in the matter of physical strength, we must be prepared to see the latter submit at no distant date to great territorial losses along the whole line of its European frontier. Few, I think, to begin from the extreme west, will be inclined to doubt that, should the French succeed in thoroughly crushing the Arab movement which they have provoked in Tunis, and which will inall probability be extended next summer to Morocco and Tripoli, the beginning of the next century will see what is left of the Barbary Coast in their possession, or in that of Spain or Italy; and the greater part of the cultivable lands fronting the Mediterranean occupied by their immigrants. What France has done or attempted to do in Algiers her two neighbours may possibly achieve with even more success in Morocco and western Tripoli, for the Spaniards and Italians are both eminently colonizing races, and the hill country of Barbary is little different in climate from their own. Tripoli, on the break up of the Ottoman Empire, will certainly tempt Italian statesmen, and Spain has already a footing on the African coast in Tetuan. It is therefore conceivable that the better lands on the seaboard will receive a flood of such agriculturists from either country as now seek their fortunes on the River Plate and elsewhere. Should such be the case, the Mohammedan population may be ousted from their possession of the soil, and driven southwards, at least for a time, and a considerable decrease of the political strength of Islam be witnessed in that quarter. I do not, however, conceive that Europe will ever obtain a sure colonial footing south of the Atlas, or that theMussulmans of the Sahara will lose anything of their present religious character. At worst, Southern Morocco and Fezzan will always remain independent Mohammedan States, the nucleuses of religious life in Barbary, and links between the Mussulmans of Northern and Central Africa, while further east the growing influence of Egypt will make itself felt intellectually to the advantage of believers. It is, however, to Central Africa that Islam must in the future look for a centre of religious gravity westwards. There, in the conversion of the negro race of the Tropics, already so rapidly proceeding, she has good prospect of compensation for all losses on the Mediterranean coast; and, screened by the Sahara and by a climate unsuited to European life, she may retain for centuries her political as well as her religious independence. The negro races will not only be Mohammedanised; they will also be Arabised; and a community of language and of custom will thus preserve for Soudan its connection with Mecca, and so with the general life of Islam. The losses, then, to Islam in Africa will be rather apparent than real, and may even in the end prove a source of new strength.
Nor must we lose sight of the possibility of aFrench defeat I believe that at no time during the past forty years has the military position of "our allies" been in a graver peril in their colony than now, or the resources of their antagonists greater. It is a weakness of the French system in Africa that it has made no attempt to assimilate the native population; and it is the strength of that population, in as far as it is Arab, that it does assimilate French thought to its own advantage. It is far from certain whether the conquest of Algiers may not some day have for its effect the renewal of Mohammedan political vitality in all the Barbary Coast.
A more absolute and immediate loss must be anticipated in Europe and Western Asia. There it is pretty certain that in a very few years Ottoman rule will have ceased, and the Turkish-speaking lands composing the Empire been absorbed by one or other of the powerful neighbours who have so long coveted their possession. Austria, in person or by deputy, may be expected by the end of the present century to have inherited the European, and Russia the Asiatic, provinces of Turkey proper, while the fate of Syria and Egypt will only have been averted, if averted it be, by the intervention of England. That a dissolutionof the Empire may and will be easily accomplished I have myself little doubt. The military power of Constantinople, though still considerable for the purposes of internal control, will hardly again venture to cope single-handed with any European State, nor is it in the least probable that the Sultan will receive further Christian support from without. The fall of Kars has laid Asia Minor open to the Russian arms, and the territorial cessions of San Stefano and Berlin have laid Roumelia open to the Austrian. On the first occasion of a quarrel with the Porte a simultaneous advance from both quarters would preclude the chance of even a serious struggle, and the subjugation of the Turkish-speaking races would be effected without more difficulty.
The weakness of the Empire from a military point of view is, that it is dependent wholly on its command of the sea, a position which enables it to mass what troops it has rapidly on the points required, but which even a second-rate Mediterranean power could wrest from it. Its communication cut by a naval blockade, the Empire would almost without further action be dissolved. Whatever loyalty the Sultan may have lately achieved outside his dominions, there is not only no spiritof national resistance in Asia Minor itself, but the provinces, even the most Mussulman, would hail an invading army as a welcome deliverer from him. Left to themselves they would abandon without compunction the Sultan's cause, and the next war of an European state with Turkey will not only be her last, but it will in all likelihood hardly be fought out by her.
Nor do I conceive that the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the annexation of its Turkish provinces would be a mere political loss of so much territory to Islam. It would involve moral consequences far greater than this for the whole Mussulman world of North-Western Asia. I have the authority of the most enlightened of modern Asiatic statesmen in support of my opinion that it would be the certain deathblow of Mohammedanism as a permanent religious faith in all the lands west of the Caspian, and that even among the Tartar races of the far East, the Sunite Mussulmans of Siberia and the Khanates, and as far as the Great Wall of China, it would be a shock from which Sunism in its present shape would with difficulty recover. What has hitherto supported the religious constancy of orthodox believers in those lands, formerly Ottoman, which have becomesubject to Russia, has been throughout the consciousness that there was still upon the Russian border a great militant body of men of their own faith, ruled by its acknowledged spiritual head.
The centre of their religious pride has been Constantinople, where the Sultan and Caliph has sat enthroned upon the Bosphorus, commanding the two worlds of Europe and Asia, and securing to them communication with the holy places of their devotion and the living body of true believers. Their self-respect has been maintained by this feeling, and with it fidelity to their traditions. Moreover, the school of St. Sophia has been a fountain-head of religious knowledge, the university at which the Ulema of Kazan and Tiflis and Astrachan have received their spiritual education; while at all times religious personages from Constantinople have travelled among them, keeping alive the recollection of their lost allegiance. On this basis their faith has retained what it has of loyalty in spite of the political Russianising they have undergone; but with their political centre destroyed, they would be as sheep without a shepherd, scattered in little groups here and there among a growing Christian population, and shut out from the fold of their belief.
Constantinople is the assembling place of pilgrimage for all Mohammedans west of the Ural Mountains, who reach it by the Black Sea, and could never be replaced to them by any new centre further south among the Arab races, with whom they have little sympathy or direct religious connection. A Caliph at Mecca or in Egypt could do little for them, and the Turkish-speaking Sunites would have no university open to them nearer than Bokhara. In this respect they would find themselves in a far worse position than the Moors, however universally these may become subject to Europe, and their religious disintegration would be a mere question of time. I believe, therefore, that Islam must be prepared for a loss, not only of political power in Europe and in Western Asia, but also of the Mohammedan population in the Ottoman lands absorbed by Russia. It will be a strange revenge of history if the Ottoman Turks, whom Europe has for so many centuries held to be the symbolic figure of Mohammedanism, shall one day cease to be Mohammedan. Yet it is a revenge our children or our grandchildren may well live to see.
How far eastward the full results of this religious disintegration may extend, it is perhaps fanciful tospeculate. The north-western provinces of Persia, which are inhabited by Mussulmans of mixed race speaking the Turkish language and largely interfused with Christian Armenians, would, I am inclined to think, follow the destiny of the West, and ultimately accept Christianity as a dominant religion. But, east of the Caspian, Sunite Islam, though severely shaken, may yet hope to survive and hold its ground for centuries.
The present policy of Russia, whatever it may be in Europe, is far from hostile to Mohammedanism in Central Asia. As a religion it is even protected there, and it is encouraged by the Government in its missionary labours among the idolatrous tribes of the Steppes, and among the Buddhists, who are largely accepting its doctrines in the extreme East. Hitherto there has been no Christian colonization in the direction of the Khanates, nor is there any indigenous form of Christianity. Moreover, Central Asia, though connected by ties of sympathy with Constantinople, has never been politically or even religiously dependent on it. It has a university of its own in Bokhara, a seat of learning still renowned throughout Asia, and it is thither and not to St. Sophia that the Sunite Mussulmans east of the Caspian proceed for their degrees.
Mohammedanism, therefore, in Eastern Asia is not exposed to such immediate danger as in the West. Bokhara may lose its political independence, but there is no probability for many generations to come of its being Christianized as Constantinople certainly must be, and it may even on the fall of the latter become the chief centre of Sunite orthodoxy of the existing Hanefite type, remaining so perhaps long after the rest of Islam shall have abandoned Hanefism. It is obvious, however, that cut off geographically as the Khanates are from the general life of Islam, Bokhara can but vaguely represent the present religious power of Constantinople, and will be powerless to influence the general flow of Mohammedan thought. Its influence could be exerted only through India, and would be supported by no political prestige. So that it is far more likely in the future to follow than to lead opinion. Otherwise isolation is its only fate.
The future of Shiite Mohammedanism in Persia proper is a still more doubtful problem. Exposed like the rest of Central Asia to Russian conquest, the Persian monarchy cannot without a speedy and complete revolution of its internal condition fail to succumb politically. The true Irâni, however,have an unique position in Mohammedan Asia which may save them from complete absorption. Unlike any Mohammedan race except the Arabian, they are distinctly national. The Turk, conqueror though he has always been, repudiates still the name of Turk, calling himself simply a Moslem, and so likewise do the less distinguished races he has subjected. But the Persian does not do this. He is before all things Irâni, and to the extent that he has made for himself a Mohammedanism of his own. He boasts of a history and a literature older far than Islam, and has not consented to forget it as a thing belonging only to "the Age of Ignorance." He runs, therefore, little risk of being either Russianised or Christianised by conquest; and being of an intellectual fibre superior to that of the Russians, and, as far as the mass of the population is concerned, being physically as well gifted, it may be supposed that he will survive, if he cannot avert, his political subjugation.
There is at the present moment, I am informed, a last desperate effort making at Teheran for the re-organization of the Empire on a liberal basis of government, and though it would be folly to count much on its success, it may conceivably succeed. Mohammedanism would not there, as at Constantinople, be found a barrier to reform, for Persian Shiism is an eminently elastic creed, and on the contrary may, it is thought, be made the instrument of a social reformation; only, as I have said it would be folly to count on its success; and there are certain moral defects in Persian character which do not encourage lookers-on. Shiite Mohammedanism, however, whether Persia be absorbed or not by Russia, is of little importance in a general review of Islam's future, and may safely be dismissed as not directly relevant to the main question before us.
Admitting, then, the probability, nay, the certainty, of considerable political and territorial losses northwards, caused by the violent pressure of a hostile Europe, let us see what yet remains to Islam as her certain heritage, and how the changes foreshadowed may affect her general life. I cannot myself find any cause of despair for Mussulmans in the prospect of a curtailment of their religious area in the directions indicated, or any certain reason of exultation for their enemies in the thought that with the fall of Constantinople Islam, too, will have fallen. On the contrary, I see in the coming destruction of the Ottoman supremacy, and in the exclusion of the northern races, even at the cost oftheir religious support, from the counsels of the faithful, an element of hope in the future far outweighing the immediate chagrin which may be caused by loss of sovereignty or loss of population.
The Mohammedan population which the fall of Constantinople would conceivably cut off from the main body could not at most number more than some twenty millions, and when we remember that this is no more than a tithe of the whole Mussulman census, and that the proportion is a constantly decreasing one, it will be evident that there is little ground for looking at the loss as one necessarily fatal to religion. The northern races still give to Mohammedanism an appearance of physical strength; but it is an appearance only, and it is given at the cost of its intellectual vigour. The political success of the Turks has for centuries thrown Islam off its moral equilibrium, and their disappearance from its supreme counsels will give weight to races more worthy of representing religious interests. Constantinople will be replaced by Cairo or Mecca, and the Tartar by the Arab—an exchange which, intellectually considered, no lover of Islam need deplore.
One great result the fall of Constantinople certainly will have, which I believe will be a beneficialone. It will give to Mohammedanism a more distinctly religious character than it has for many centuries possessed, and by forcing believers to depend upon spiritual instead of temporal arms will restore to them, more than any political victories could do, their lost moral life. Even independently of considerations of race as between Turk and Arab, I believe that the fall of the Mussulman Empire, as a great temporal dominion, would relieve Islam of a burden of sovereignty which she is no longer able in the face of the modern world to support. She would escape the stigma of political depravity now clinging to her, and her aims would be simplified and intensified. I have already stated my opinion that it is to Arabia that Mussulmans must in the future look for a centre of their religious system, and a return of their Caliphate to Mecca will signify more than a mere political change. It is obvious that empire will be there impossible in the sense given to it at Constantinople, and that the display of armies and the mundane glory of vast palaces and crowds of slaves will be altogether out of place.
The Caliph of the future, in whatever city he may fix his abode, will be chiefly a spiritual and not a temporal king, and will be limited in theexercise of his authority by few conditions of the existing material kind. He will be spared the burden of despotic government, the odium of tax-gathering and conscription over unwilling populations, the constant struggle to maintain his authority in arms, and the as constant intrigue against rival Mohammedan princes. It is probable that all these would readily acknowledge the nominal sovereignty of a Caliph who could not pretend to coerce them physically, and that the spiritual allegiance of orthodox believers everywhere would accrue to him as other Mohammedan sovereignty relaxed its hold. Thus the dream of what is called Pan-islamism may yet be fulfilled, though in another form from that in which it is now presented to the faithful by Abd el Hamid and the Ulema of Constantinople.
That Islam in this spiritual form may achieve more notable triumphs than by arms in Eastern and Southern Asia we may well believe, and even that it may establish itself one day as the prevailing religion of the Continent. Its moral advance within recent times in the Malay Archipelago, in China, in Tartary, and in India, encourages the supposition that under alien rule Mohammedanism will be able to hold its own, and more than own,against all rivals, and that in the decay of Buddhism it, and not Christianity, will be the form under which God will eventually be worshipped in the Tropics. Its progress among the Malays under Dutch rule is certainly an astonishing phenomenon, and, taken in connection with a hardly less remarkable progress in Equatorial Africa, may well console those Mussulmans who see in the loss of their temporal dominions northwards signs of the decay of Islam. Could such a reformation as was suggested in my last chapter be indeed effected, the vigour of conversion would doubtless be redoubled, independently of any condition of political prosperity in the ancient seats of Mohammedan dominion. I do not, therefore, see in territorial losses a sign of Islam's ruin as a moral and intellectual force in the world.
It is time, however, to consider the special part destined to be played by England in the drama of the Mussulman future. England, if I understand her history rightly, stands towards Islam in a position quite apart from that of the rest of the European States. These I have described as continuing a tradition of aggression inherited from the Crusades, and from the bitter wars waged by the Latin and Greek Empires against thegrowing power of the Ottoman Turks. In the latter England took no part, her religious schism having already separated her from the general interests of Catholic Europe, while she had withdrawn from the former in the still honourable stage of the adventure, and consequently remained with no humiliating memories to avenge. She came, therefore, into her modern relations with Mohammedans unprejudiced against them, and able to treat their religious and political opinions in a humane and liberal spirit, seeking of them practical advantages of trade rather than conquest. Nor has the special nature of her position towards them been unappreciated by Mohammedans.
In spite of the deceptions on some points of late years, and recent vacillations of policy towards them, the still independent nations of Islam see in England something different from the rest of Christendom, something not in its nature hostile to them, or regardless of their rights and interests. They know at least that they have nothing to dread from Englishmen on the score of religious intolerance, and there is even a tendency with some of them to exaggerate the sympathy displayed towards them by supposing a community of beliefs on certain points considered by themessential. Thus the idea is common among the ignorant in many Mussulman countries that the English areMuwahedden, or Unitarians, in contradistinction to the rest of Christians, who are condemned asMusherrakin, or Polytheists; and the Turkish alliance is explained by them on this supposition, supplemented in the case of the Turks themselves with the idea that England is itself a part of Islam, and so its natural ally.[18]These are of course but ideas of the vulgar. Yet they represent a fact which is not without importance, namely, that England's is accepted by Mussulmans as a friendly not a hostile influence, and that her protection is sought without that suspicion which is attached to the friendly offices of other powers. Even in India, where Englishmen have supplanted the Mussulmans as a ruling race, the sentiment towards British rule is not, as far as I can learn, and compared with that of other sections of the Indian community, a hostile one.
The Mussulmans of Delhi and the Punjab would no doubt desire a resumption by themselves of practical authority in the country where they weretill lately masters; but they are conscious that they are not strong enough now to effect this, and their feeling towards English rule is certainly less bitter than towards the Hindoos, their former subjects, now their rivals. Were they in any way specially protected in their religious interests by the Indian Government, they would, I am confident, make not only contented but actively loyal subjects.
As things stand, therefore, it would seem natural that, in the general disruption which will follow the fall of Constantinople, it is to England the various nations of Islam should look mainly for direction in their political difficulties. The place of adviser and protector, indeed, seems pointed out for her. With the disappearance of the Ottoman Sultan there will be no longer any great Mussulman sovereignty in the world, and the Mohammedan population of India, already the wealthiest and most numerous, will then assume its full importance in the counsels of believers. It will also assuredly be expected of the English Crown that it should then justify its assumption of the old Mohammedan title of the Moguls, by making itself in some sort the political head of Islam. Her Majesty will be left its most powerfulsovereign, and it will be open to her advisers, if they be so minded, to exercise paramount influence on all its affairs. I do not say that they will be so minded, but they will have the power and the opportunity to a degree never yet presented to any Christian Government of directing the tone of thought of Mussulmans throughout the world, and of utilizing the greatest religious force in Asia for the purposes of humanity and progress. I am myself profoundly convinced that on England's acceptance or refusal of this mission the future of her dominion in India will mainly depend, and with it the whole solution of the problem she has set to herself of civilizing Southern Asia.
Let us see what our actual relations with Mohammedanism are, and what is the value of its goodwill to us in Asia. And first as to India. I find inHunter's Gazetteer, our latest authority, the following figures:—
Mussulman Census of India.
These are large figures taken merely as they stand, but in point of fact they represent far more than is apparent. To understand them at their full value it must be remembered—First, that the Mussulman population is a largely increasing one, not only in actual numbers, but in its proportion to the other races and sects of the Peninsula, a fact which I believe the census returns of 1881, when published, will amply prove. Secondly, that its geographical distribution coincides pretty closely with that of the political life and energy of the country. The Punjab and the North-West Provinces alone contain an aggregate of thirteen million Mussulmans. Thirdly, that it is homogeneous to a degree shown by no other Indian community. Though less numerous by two-thirds than the whole Hindoo population, it is far more so than any coherent section of that population,and is thus the largest body of opinion in the Empire. Fourthly, it is also the most generally enlightened. It is the only section of the community which knows its own history and preserves the tradition of its lost political importance; and if it has held itself aloof hitherto from competition with other races for the public service, it has been through pride rather than inability. What Mussulmans there are who have entered the service of Government have been men of distinguished capacity. And lastly, it is no isolated body, but remains in close communication with the mass of its fellow-believers throughout the world. The Mohammedan population of India is, therefore, an exceptional as well as a large one.
Our second interest in Mohammedanism lies in Egypt. Here, standing at the threshold of our commerce with the East, we find another large community almost wholly Mussulman, for whose well-being we are already to a certain extent pledged, and in whose political future we perceive our own to be involved. A hostile Egypt we rightly hold to be an impossibility for our position; and religious antagonism at Cairo, even if controlled by military occupation, would be to us a constant menace. Nor must it be supposed thatEgypt, like the Barbary coast, will, into whose hands soever it falls, change its religious aspect. The population of the Delta is too industrious, too sober, and content with too little, to fear competition as agriculturists with either Italians, Greeks, or Maltese; and the conditions of life under a torrid sun will always protect Egypt from becoming an European colony. The towns may, indeed, be overrun by foreigners, but the heart of the country will remain unchanged, and, like India, will refuse to remodel itself on any foreign system of civilization. Mohammedanism, therefore, will maintain itself in Egypt intact, and its good-will will remain our necessity.[19]
A third interest lies in Asiatic Turkey. This we have guaranteed by treaty against foreign invasion; and though our pledge is nominally to the Sultan, not to the people of the Empire, and though that pledge is contingent upon an impossibility, administrative reform, and is therefore not strictly binding, it is impossible to escape the admission that we have a moral obligation towards the Mussulmans of Asia Minor and Syria. How far we may be disposed or able to fulfil it remains to be seen. I do not myself anticipate any further intervention on the part of England in defence of the Turkish-speaking lands. These, from their geographical position, lie outside our effective military control, and, dishonourable as a retreat from our engagements will be to us, it may be a necessity.
It is difficult to understand how an English army could effectively protect either Asia Minor or Mesopotamia from Russian invasion. The occupation of Kars has given Russia the command of the Tigris and Euphrates, and with them of Armenia, Kurdistan and Irak, so that our protection could hardly be extended beyond the sea-coast of Asia Minor and the Persian Gulf. No such inability, however, applies to Syria. There, if wewill, we certainlycancarry out our engagements. A mere strip of seaboard, backed by the desert, and attackable only from the north on a narrow frontier of some hundred miles, Syria is easily defensible by a nation holding the sea. It is probable that a railway run from the Gulf of Scanderun to the Euphrates, and supported by a single importantfortress, would be sufficient to effect its military security at least for many years; and Syria might thus have given to it a chance of self-government, and some compensation for misfortunes in which we have had no inconsiderable share. But this is an interest of honour rather than of political necessity to England; and he must possess a sanguine mind who, in the present temper of Englishmen, would count greatly on such motives as likely to determine the action of their Government. If, however, it should be otherwise, it is evident that the success of such a protectorate would depend principally upon the Mohammedan element in Syria, which so greatly preponderates over any other.
A fourth interest, also a moral one, but connected with an accepted fact of English policy, is the attempted abolition of the African slave trade. Now, though it is unquestionable that Mohammedanism permits, and has hitherto encouraged, slavery as a natural condition of human society, it is no less true that without the co-operation of the various Mussulman princes of the African and Arabian coasts its abolition cannot be effected. Short of the occupation by European garrisons of all the villages of the Red Sea, and from Gardafui southwards to Mozambique, or, onthe other hand, of the subjection of all independent Moslem communities in Arabia and elsewhere, a real end, or even a real check, cannot be put on the traffic except through the co-operation of Mussulmans themselves. The necessity has, indeed, been completely recognized in the numerous treaties and arrangements made with the Sultans of Turkey, Zanzibar, and Oman, and with the Viceroy of Egypt; and, though I am far from stating that these arrangements are wholly voluntary on the part of any of the princes, yet their good-will alone can make the prevention efficient. An excellent proof of this is to be found in the case of the Turkish Government, which, since its quarrel with the English, has given full license to the traffic in the Red Sea, which no means at the disposal of the latter can in any measure check.
At no modern period has a larger number of slaves been imported into Hejaz and Yemen than during the last eighteen months, and until friendly relations with the Porte, or whatever Mussulman authority succeeds the Porte in those provinces, are restored, slave-trading will continue. I do not myself entirely sympathize with anti-slave-trade ideas as applied to Mohammedan lands, knowing as I do how tolerable and even advantageous thesocial condition of the negroes is in them. But still I wish to see slavery discontinued, and I believe that a firm but friendly attitude towards Mussulmans will have completely extinguished it in another two generations. A rupture with them can only prolong and aggravate its existence.
Lastly, we may perhaps find a prospective interest for England in the probability of a Caffre conversion to Mohammedanism at no very remote period, and the extension of Islam to her borders in South Africa. It is of course premature to be alarmed at this, as it is a contingency which can hardly happen in the lifetime of any now living; but Mohammedanism is not a creed which a hundred or two hundred years will see extinguished in Africa or Asia, and already it has passed considerably south of the Equator. Cape Colony at this day numbers some fifteen thousand Mussulmans.
It would seem, then, on all these grounds difficult for England to ally herself, in dealing with Islam, with what may be called the Crusading States of Europe. Her position is absolutely distinct from that of any of them, and her interests find no parallel among Christian nations, except perhaps the Dutch. For good as for evil, she has admitteda vast body of Mohammedans into her social community, and contracted engagements from which she can hardly recede towards others among them, so that it is impossible she should really work in active antagonism to them. As Christians, Englishmen may regret this; but as practical men, they would surely be wise to recognize the fact, and to accept the duties it entails. Nor can these be discharged by a mere policy of inaction. England should be prepared to do more than assert a general doctrine of tolerance and equality for all religions in respect of this one. Mohammedanism is not merely an opinion; a certain political organization is a condition of its existence, and a certain geographical latitude; and, moreover, it is a force which cannot remain neutral—which will be either a friend or a foe. To do nothing for Mussulmans in the next ten years will be to take cause against them. The circumstances of their case do not admit of indifference, and they are approaching a crisis in which they will, on two points at least, require vigorous political protection. Their Caliphate in some form of temporal sovereignty, though perhaps not of empire, will have to be maintained; and short of securing this to them, and their free access as pilgrims to Mecca,it will be idle to pretend to Mussulmans that we are protecting their interests, or doing any part of our sovereign duty towards them. It can hardly be argued that the Indian doctrine of religious equality will suffer from doing political justice to Mohammedans.
On the downfall, therefore, of the Ottoman Empire, whenever that event shall occur, therôleof England in regard to Islam seems plainly marked out. The Caliphate—no longer an empire, but still an independent sovereignty—must be taken under British protection, and publicly guaranteed its political existence, undisturbed by further aggression from Europe. On the Bosphorus no such guarantee can now be reasonably given, because there it lies in a position militarily indefensible. England is a naval power, and the seat of the Caliphate must be one secured from all attack by land. It will then be for Mohammedans, and especially for the Mohammedans of India, to decide upon the new metropolis of their faith, the conditions of their choice lying within the narrow limits of their still independent lands. If Syria be still free, that metropolis may be Damascus; if Irak, Bagdad; or it may be in Egypt, or Arabia, or Central Asia.
It is manifest, however, that as far as British protection against Europe is concerned, the further it is removed from Christendom the better, and the more easily accessible by sea. I have already given it as my opinion that the move, when made will be one southwards, and ultimately to Arabia. But it may well happen that its first stage will be no further than Cairo. The Caliphate reached Constantinople through Egypt, and may return by the same road, and there are certain quite recent symptoms which seem to point in the direction of such a course being the one taken. The events of the last year in Egypt are significant. For the first time in its modern history a strong national party has arisen on the Nile, and has found full support from the Azhar Ulema, who are now the most powerful body of religious opinion in Islam. They are politically hostile to the Sultan, and though they have no design as yet of repudiating his Caliphal title, they are unlikely to be faithful to his broken fortunes, and on the downfall of Constantinople will doubtless proclaim a Caliph of their own. The family of Mohammed Ali, if popular, may then hope for their suffrages, or it may be some seyyid, or sherif, of the legitimate house of Koreysh. In any case, a Caliphate at Cairois a possibility which we must contemplate; and one which, under the political direction and sole guarantee of England, but enjoying full sovereignty there, might be a solution of the difficulty acceptable to Mohammedans, and not unfavourable to English interests. It seems to me, however, that it would be but a make-shift arrangement, not a permanent settlement, and this from the complexity of foreign interests in Egypt, which would keep the Mohammedan pontiff there under restraints irksome to the religious sense of Mussulmans. It would be in fact but the prelude to that final return to Arabia which Arabian thought, if no other, destines for the Caliphate. The Sherif of Mecca would hardly tolerate any further subjection to an Emir el Mumenin shorn of his chief attributes of power, and unable, it might be, any longer to enforce his authority. Sooner or later the Caliphate, in some form or another, would return to its original seat, and find there its final resting-place.
Established at Mecca, our duty of protecting the head of the Mussulman religion would be comparatively a simple one. Hejaz for all military purposes is inaccessible by land for Europeans; and Mecca, were it necessary at any time to givethe Caliph a garrison of Mussulman troops, is within a night's march of the coast. In Arabia no Christian rights need vindication, nor could any European power put in a claim of interference. Yemen, the only province capable of attracting European speculation, would, I know, gladly accept an English protectorate, such as has been already given with such good results to Oman; and other points of the Arabian shore might equally be declared inviolable. Arabia, in fact, might be declared the natural appanage of the Caliphate, the Stati Pontificali of the supreme head of the Mussulman religion. In its internal organization we should have no cause to interfere; nor would its protection from without involve us in any outlay.
It has already been shown how favourable an action an Arabian Caliphate may be expected to exercise on the progressive thought of Islam. That it could not be a hostile power to England is equally certain. Whether or not the Caliph reside at Mecca, the Grand Sherifate must always there exist and the pilgrimage be continued; and we may hope the latter may then be principally under English auspices. The regulation of the Haj is, indeed, an immediate necessary part of ourduty and condition of our influence in the Mussulman world; and it is one we should be grossly in error to neglect. It will have been seen by the table given in the first chapter that nearly the whole pilgrimage to Arabia is now made by sea, and that the largest number of pilgrims sent there by any nation comes from British territory. With the protectorate, therefore, in the future of Egypt, and, let us hope, of Syria, England would be in the position of exercising a paramount influence on the commercial fortune of the Holy Cities.
The revenue of Hejaz derived from the Haj is computed at three millions sterling, a figure proved by the yearly excess of imports over exports in her seaports, for she produces nothing, and the patronage of half, or perhaps two-thirds, of this great revenue would make England's a position there quite unassailable. An interdiction of the Haj, or the threat of such for a single year, would act upon every purse among the Hejazi and neutralize the hostility of the most recalcitrant of resident caliphs or sherifs; while a systematic development of the pilgrimage as a Government undertaking, with the construction of a railway from Jeddah to Mecca, and the establishment ofthoroughly well-ordered lines of steamers from the principal Mohammedan ports, all matters which would amply repay their cost, would every year add a new prestige to English influence. This might be still further enhanced by the very simple measure of collecting and transmitting officially the revenue of the Wakaf property, entailed on the sherifs, in India. This is said to amount to half a million sterling, and might, as in Turkey, take the form of a government subsidy. At present it is collected privately, and reaches the sherifs reduced, as I have been told, by two-thirds in the process of collection, so that the mere assumption of this perfectly legitimate duty by the Indian authorities would put a large sum into the hands of those in office at Mecca, and a proportionate degree of power into the hands of its collectors. This, indeed, would be no more than is being already done by our Government for the Shia Shrines of Kerbela and Meshed Ali, with results entirely beneficial to English popularity and influence.
With regard to the pilgrimage, I will venture to quote the opinion of one of the most distinguished and loyal Mohammedans in India, who has lately been advocating the claims of his co-religionists on the Indian Government for protection in thisand other matters. Speaking of Sultan Abd el Hamid's Pan-islamic schemes, which he asserts have not as yet found much favour in India, he continues, "I may, however, add that by far the most formidable means which can be adopted for propagating such ideas, or for rousing a desire for Islamic union, would be the distribution of pamphlets to the pilgrims at Mecca. The annual Haj at Mecca draws the more religious from all parts of India, and the Hajjis on their return are treated with exceptional respect and visited by their friends and neighbours, who naturally inquire about the latest news and doctrines propounded in the Holy Cities; so that for the dissemination of their views the most effective way would be for the propagandists to bring the Hajjis under their influence. I call iteffective, because the influence of what the Hajjis say goes to the remotest villages of the Mofussil." He then advocates as a counter-acting influence the undertaking by Government of the transport of the Haj to Jeddah, and the appointment of an agent, a native of India, to look after their interests while in the Holy Land. "By making," he concludes, "the arrangements I have suggested, the English Government will gain, not only the good-will of the whole Mohammedanpopulation of India, but they will also inspire the Hajjis with the wholesome feeling that they owe allegiance to, and can claim protection from, an empire other than that to which the people of Arabia are subject (the Turkish).
"The proposed help would stand in very favourable contrast to the sufferings which the pilgrims undergo from maladministration at Mecca and in their journey to Medina. Moreover, practically the assistance rendered by the Government would be the most effective way of resisting such influences as the propagandists might bring to bear upon the Hajjis with a view to animate them with hostility to the British supremacy in India.... I believe if the Indian Government only wished to make some such arrangement it would pay its own way. I am absolutely certain that it would have a disproportionately beneficial effect on the political feelings of the Mohammedans towards British rule."
Such, or some such, is the line of action which England, looking merely to her own interests, may, it is hoped, pursue in the next century, and begin in this. Her Asiatic interests she must recognize to be peace and security in Mussulman India, good-will in Egypt, and the healthy growth of thehumaner thought of Islam everywhere; and these she can only secure by occupying the position marked out for her by Providence of leading the Mohammedan world in its advance towards better things. The mission is a high one, and well worthy of her acceptance, and the means at her disposal are fully sufficient for its discharge. Nor will her refusal, if she refuse, be without grave and immediate danger. The Mohammedan world is roused as it has never been in its history to a sense of its political and moral dangers, and is looking round on all sides for a leader of whatsoever name or nation to espouse its cause. We can hardly doubt that the position of directing so vast a force, if abandoned by England, will be claimed by some more resolute neighbour.
The British Empire in Asia is cause of envy to the world at large, and its prosperity has many enemies, who will certainly make the distress of Islam an engine in their hands against it. Neglected by the power which they hold bound to protect their interest, the Mussulmans of India will certainly become its bitterest enemies, and though they may not immediately be able to give effect to their hostility, the day of embarrassmentfor us can hardly fail to come, and with it their opportunity. At best the enmity of Islam will make the dream of reconciling the Indian populations to our rule for ever an impossibility. Leaders they will look for elsewhere—in Russia, maybe, in Germany, or even France, jealous of our interests in Egypt—not leaders such as we might have been for their good, but for our evil, and in pursuance of their own designs. The Caliphate is a weapon forged for any hand—for Russia's at Bagdad, for France's at Damascus, or for Holland's (call it one day Germany's) in our stead at Mecca. Protected by any of these nations the Caliphate might make our position intolerable in India, filling up for us the measure of Mussulman bitterness, of which we already are having a foretaste in the Pan-islamic intrigues at Constantinople.
But enough of this line of reasoning, which after all is selfish and unworthy. The main point is, that England should fulfil the trust she has accepted of developing, not destroying, the existing elements of good in Asia. She cannot destroy Islam, nor dissolve her own connection with her. Therefore, in God's name, let her take Islam by the hand and encourage her boldly inthe path of virtue. This is the only worthy course, and the only wise one, wiser and worthier, I venture to assert, than a whole century of crusade.
In conclusion, I would say to Mohammedans that if I have drawn a gloomy picture of their immediate political fortunes, it is not that I despair even of these. Their day of empire in the world seems over, but their day of self-rule may well dawn again, though under changed conditions from any we now witness. I foresee for them the spiritual inheritance of Africa and Southern Asia, and as the intelligence of the races they convert shall have risen to the level of their present rulers, and Europe, weary of her work, shall have abandoned the task of Asiatic and African government, the temporal inheritance too. How long this shall be delayed we know not. Their prophet has foretold that Islam shall not outlive two thousand years before the Móhdy shall come, and the thirteen hundredth is just commencing; nor do I believe their deliverance will be so very long delayed. A "man of justice" may yet restore their fortunes; but it will hardly be by present violence or by wading to Mecca through seas of blood; and when the end of their humiliationshall have come, it may be found that his true mission has commenced already, and that the battle he was to fight has been long waging in the hearts of those who have striven to reform their ways and purify their law, rather than lament their broken power and the corrupt vanities of their temporal empire.