The Disintegration of Islam

STUDENTS' LECTURES ON MISSIONS Princ6tonTkeolo(P,Cal SemiMl"fl MCMXV THE DISINTEGRATION OF ISLAM BY SAMUEL M. ZWEMER, F.R.G.S. A.UTBOB. OF "Childhood in the Moslem World," " Arabia, the Cradle of Islam,'' ''The Moslem Christ,'' ''Zig-ZagJoW'neya in the Camel Country," "Topsy-Turvy Land," etc., etc. ILLUSTRATED NEwYouc Cmc.. ao Toaoaro Fleming H. Revell Company MAI:'\ :\Il:"\AHET (H' EL AZIIAU l\10SQl7E, CAIRO. El .\zlrn.1 l"nne1slly dates from the time of the Fatimids. The original mosque \\as bmlt by Jauhar rn U72 AD. It is said to have about 10,000 students and a HJ.>1·ary of 19,000 volumes. Copyright, 1916, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY THESE lecture• were delivered in Miller Chapel, Princeton Theologi cal Seminary, October, 1915. They were 1ub1equently alao delivered at the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church in America, New Brun1wick, N. J.; and at the Theological Seminary of the American Miaaion, Cairo, Egypt. New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 N. Wabash Ave. Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street PREFACE From heaven fought the stars, From their courses they fought aga,inst SiBera. That river Kishon swept them away, "The harvest is not benefited by confounding weeds with The ancient river, the river Kishon. wheat. Harmony is not enhanced by a premature recourse to 0 my soul, march on with strength. -The Song of Deborah.-Judges 5:20-22. synthesis, before due scope has been given to discriminating analysis. God is not honoured by attributing to His causation IKE all other non-Christian systems and what He only overrules, in working out His sovereign designs. T God is greater in permitting the exercise of free action, even LJ philosophies Islam is a dying religion; if opposed to His own will, and in yet finally accomplishing from the outset it had in it the germs His purpose, than if He were to exercise His sovereignty to the of death-neither the character of the Koran extent of rendering every counter-current impossible, and monopolizing the whole channel of history by the unchecked nor of its Prophet have in them the promise or flow of His own volition."-S. W. KOELLE: "Mohammed and potency of life that will endure. Even Carlyle, Mohammedanism." whose "The Hero as Prophet" is often quoted as an apology for Islam, admitted this. In his ''It surely is altogetber false, if some, in modern times, assert that Islam has a mission in this world, namely, of serv· lecture on "The Hero as Poet" he said: "It ing as a preparation of idolatrous nations for the faith in the was intrinsically an error that notion of one true God. History most positively contradicts this as Mahomet's, of his supreme Prophethood; and sertion. Islam has never operated to prepare the way for Christianity, and least does so today."-C. H. SoHABUNG of has come down to us inextricably involved in Copenhagen. error to this day; dragging along with it such a coil of fables, iniquities, intolerances, as makes it a questionable step for me here and now to say, as I have done, that Mahomet was a true Speaker at all, and not rather an ambi tious charlatan, perversity and simulacrum; no Speaker, but a Babbler l Even in Arabia, as I compute, Mahomet will have exhausted himself and become obsolete, while this Shakspeare, 7 8 PREFACE PREFACE 9 this Dante may still be young. His books are more and more surprised that Islam Korrui has become a stupid piece of prolix itself is not conscious of its strength but of its absurdity; we do not believe, like him, that God weakness and decay, andthat everywhere Mos wrote that!" lems are bemoaning a day of opportunity that Moreover, at the present time there are in is lost. The Moslem pulpit and the Moslem Islam many evidences of decay. In 1899, a press in the great centres of Islam unite in a company of delegates from the Moslem world wail of despair. "0 ye servants of God," said assembled in Mecca and gave fourteen days to a Cairo preacher last year, "the time has come investigate the causes for the decay of Islam. for Moslems to look after their affairs and to Fifty-seven reasons were given, including fatal regard their religion and conduct as a sick man ism, the opposition of science, the rejection of looks toward his remedy and the man who is religious liberty, neglect of education and in drowning toward dry land." activity due to the hopelessness of the cause Moslems have long realized that the dead itself. A leading Moslem editor in India wrote weight of formality called tradition, the ac in 1914 :-"We see that neither wealth nor cumulation of many centuries, is an intolerable 'education' nor political power can enable the burden. Frantic efforts have been made in Muslims to achieve their national salvation. many quarters to save the ship by throwing Where then lies the remedy T Before seeking overboard much of this cargo. Others in their the remedy we must ascertain the disease. But despair have sought for a new pilot. Messiahs the Muslims are not diseased, they have reached and Mahdis have arisen and founded new sects a worse stage. A diseased man has still life or started new movements. The progress of in him." western civilization and its impact has been We :findthe same note of despair in the recent felt everywhere in the economic and social life volume of essays by an educated Indian Mos of Islam. We must add to all this the utter lem, S. Khuda Bukhsh, M.A. He speaks of the collapse of Moslem political power in Africa, "hideous deformity" of Moslem society and of Europe, and Asia. The stars from their courses "the vice and immorality, the selfishness, self are :fighting against Sisera, and the future is seeking, and hypocrisy which are corrupting it dark for those who believe that Islam is the through and through." Those who live among hope of the world. We, however, believe that Moslems and read Moslem newspapers and when the crescent wanes the Cross will prove 10 PREFACE dominant, and that the disintegration of Islam is a divine preparation for the evangelization of Moslem lands and the winning of Moslem hearts to a new allegiance. Jesus Christ is sufficientfor them as He is for us. "When that CONTENTS which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away." I. The purpose of the lectures here given is THE DEAD WEIGHT OF TRADITION 17 distinctly missionary, and in setting forth the II. THE REVOLT AND !Ts FAILUBE 63 present-day conditions and needs of these mil ID. THE POLITICAL COLLAPSE lions, many of whom are groping toward the 107 light, our prayer is that the message may lead IV. THE NEW ISLAM: HAs IT A F'uTUBEf 141 to the surrender of life for the work of missions. v. THE PRESENT-DAY ATTITUDE TO From all the seminaries where these lectures CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY . 181 were given a number of graduates have already gone to the forefront of the battle in the Moslem world, in Syria, Persia, India, Arabia, Egypt, North Africa, and China. Their unfinished task awaits fulfilment. CAIBO, EGYPT. S. M. Z. ILLUSTRATIONS Main Minaret of El Azhar Mosque, Cairo Fronti.spiece FACING .AGE Interior of Main Court, El Azhar University, Cairo 20 Facsimile Reproduction of a Page from El Bokhari 28 The Ceremony of El Dausa, Cairo, 1880 . 38 One of the Prayer-Niches (Mihrab) of El Azhar (8 Mosque of the Prophet'• Tomb, Interior, El Medina . 108 Railway Station and Terminus of the HejasRail- way, El Medina . 134 Type of Modern Moelem School, Nampalli, India 152 Portion of a Curious Diagram Bridging Chasm Between the CrOBBand the Crescent . 176 Mosque of the Prophet's Tomb, Exterior, El Medina . 2H St. David's Building, Cairo, 1910 • 224 I THE DEAD WEIGHT OF TRADITION I THE DEAD WEIGHT OF TRADITION And it came to pa,88 the same night, that Jehovah. said unto him, Arise, get thee down in.to the camp,· for I have delivered it into thy hand. But if thou featr to go down, go thou with Purah thy aen,ant "The entire Dar ul Islam, or Islamic community, dis down to the camp: and thou shalt hear what tMy united and dismembered for generations, has now sunk into sa,y; and afterward shall thy hands be strength<mod such a. state of spiritual torpor and political iinpotence that , to go down into the oamp.-JUDGES 7: 9-11. apart from fitful outbursts of fanaticism and spasmodic paroxysms of savagery, any serious aggressions against Chris tian nations are out of the question, and the signs of its HE yoke of Islam is not easy and its bur approaching complete disintegration are rapidly multiplying. den is not light. A religion of ritual If in some far-off places, such as the continent of Africa, Islam T and outward forms always demands has of ]ate been spreading to some extent; this has been effected by the notorious means of its propagandism, and can punctilious observance from its devotees. Its only remind one of those sparse green twigs sometimes still demands, if not high as regards moral stand appearing at the extreme ends of half-dried-up boughs in ards, are heavy with cumbrous detail and con trees whose core has for long been decaying from old age." S. W. Koi:LI.Ji:: u Moha.mmid and Mohammedaniam." stant repetition.

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