Samuel Marinus Zwemer

“ In scenery and climate, Yemen fares worst of all the provinces. The two gateways to Arabia Felix are very infelix. What could be more dreary and dull and depressing than the “gloomy hills of darkness” that form the background to Aden as seen from the harbor? There is no verdure, no vegetation visible; everywhere there is the same appearance of a cinder heap. And where can one find a more filthy, hot, sweltering, odorous native town than Hodeidah? Yet these two places are the gateways to the most beautiful, fertile, populous and healthful region of all Arabia. ”

“ But Arabia, although it has all this wealth of promise, is not a field for feeble faith. Yet we can learn to look at this barren land because of these promises with the same reckless, uncalculating, defiant confidence in which Abraham “without being weakened in faith, considered his own body now as good as dead” (R. V.) “but waxed strong through faith giving glory to God.” The promises are great because the obstacles are great; that the glory of the plan as well as the glory of the work may be to God alone. Arabia needs men who will believe as seeing the Invisible. ”

“ Surgery is worth infinitely more than medicine among a people like the Arabs, where fatalism and neglect of the sick make the science of medicine of doubtful result in so many cases. “Kill or cure” rather than prolonged treatment, suits the Moslem palate. But a skillful surgeon with a Turkish diploma holds the key to every door in the entire peninsula. There is not one mission-hospital in Arabia! Surely such centres as Bagdad, Busrah, Bahrein, Sana, Jiddah, Hodeidah and Hofhoof should have these acknowledged powerful methods of evangelization. ”

“ The fertility of the whole region is wonderful and in striking contrast with the barren rocks of so large a part of the coast. With a semi-tropical climate, an elevation of 3,000 to 5,000 feet and abundant springs the wadys and oases of Oman have awakened the delight and amazement of every traveller who has ventured to explore them. Water, the one priceless treasure in all Arabia, here issues in perennial streams from many rocky clefts and is most carefully husbanded by the ingenuity of the people, for wide irrigation, by means of canals or watercourses called faluj. ”

“ Since that date there have been new attacks and new apologies both from the Moslem side and from that of the missionary. As a plough breaks up the soil before the seed is sown so this kind of literature and argument will often break up the fallow ground of Moslem hearts for the seed of God’s Word. Even awakened fanaticism or active opposition is more hopeful than absolute stagnation of thought and petrifaction of feeling. ”

“ God favored him above all creatures. He dwells in the highest heaven and is several degrees above Jesus in honor and station. His name is never uttered or written without the addition of a prayer. “Ya Mohammed” is the open sesame to every door of difficulty, temporal or spiritual. One hears that name in the bazaar and in the street, in the mosque and from the minaret. Sailors sing it while raising their sails; hammals groan it to raise a burden; the beggar howls it to obtain alms; it is the Bedouin’s cry in attacking a caravan; it hushes babies to sleep as a cradle song ”

“ A lonely worker among Moslems in North Africa recently wrote: “Yes it is lives poured out that these people need—a sowing in tears—in a measure that perhaps no heathen land requires; they need a Calvary before they get their Pentecost. Thanks be unto God for a field like this: in the light of eternity we could ask no higher blessedness than the chance it gives of fellowship with His Son.” ”

“ A lighter or smaller foot would leave no tracks, but the camel’s foot leaves data for the Bedouin science of Athar—the art of navigation for the ship of the desert. Camel tracks are gossip and science, history and philosophy to the Arab caravan. A camel-march is the standard measure of distance in all Arabia; and the price of a milch-camel the standard of value in the interior. When they have little or no water the miserable nomads rinse their hands in camel’s water and the nomad women wash their babes in it. ”

“ The feature of Bagdad is of course the river Tigris, with its swift-flowing tide ever washing the mud banks and watering the gardens for miles around. The houses come down close to the water’s edge and some of them have pretty gardens almost overhanging the stream and terraces and verandas—oriental and picturesque. The British Residency is perhaps most beautiful in its location and its frontage on the river; but the other consulates vie with it in displaying to the traveller the strength and hospitality of European States. The European community is larger than at Busrah. ”

“ Family life among the Arabs is best studied by looking at child-life in the desert and at the position of women among the Bedouin and the town-dwellers. In no part of the world does the newborn child meet less preparation for its reception than among the Bedouin. A land bare of many blessings, general poverty and the law of the survival of the fittest, has made the Arab mother stern of heart. In the open desert under the shade of an acacia bush or behind a camel, the Arab baby first sees the daylight. ”

“ O merciful God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that Thou hast made, nor wouldest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live: have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of Thy Word, and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to Thy flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, and be made one fold under one Shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. ”

“ The first view is that of those who are themselves outside of the kingdom, and who shut its doors against the Moslem, saying: Experience has proved it to be not only useless but dangerous to meddle with the Moslem and his religion. Their faith is good enough for them; it is suited to their ways. They do not worship idols and have a code of morality suitable to the Orient. Mohammed was a prophet of God and did all that could be done for these kind of people. Every attempt to convert them ends in failure. Let them alone. Islam will work out its own reformation. ”

“ It is a common mistake to consider the Arabs democratic in their ideas of society. The genuine Arab was and is always an aristocrat. Feuds originate about the precedence of one family or tribe over another; marriage is only allowed between tribes or clans of equal standing; the whole system of sheikh-government is an aristocratic idea; and as final proof there still exists a species of caste in South Arabia, while in North Arabia the Ma’adan Arabs of Mesopotamia and the Suleyb of the desert are little better than Pariahs as regards their neighbors. ”

“ Frequent attacks of fever prostrated him, unsanitary and unpleasant conditions surrounded him, the heat, constant and intense, often overwhelmed him; still he clung heroically to his post, uttering no word of complaint, and quitting it only when mission business made it necessary, or tours were to be undertaken along the coast or in the interior, or when prolonged attacks of fever and the preservation of life made a limited absence imperative. When one considers all that he endured, the wonder is not that he died, but that he lived as long as he did. ”

“ There are those who desire to see England assume a protectorate over all Yemen, and if ever the Arabs should turn out the Turks, England would be almost compelled to step in and preserve peace for her allied tribes near Aden. Long since the army at Aden has felt the need of a hill-station and only the Crescent keeps the English troops penned up in an extinct crater where life at best is misery.
The southern part of Arabia is of such a character geographically and the coast so barren that it offers no attractions to the most ambitious land-grabber. ”

“ There may be monotony in these long groves and rows of well-proportioned columns with their tops hidden in foliage, but there certainly is nothing wearisome. A date garden is a scene of exceeding beauty, varying greatly according to the time of the day and the state of the weather. At sunrise or sunset the gorgeous colors fall on the gracefully pendant fronds or steal gently through the lighter foliage and reflect a vivid green so beautiful that once seen, it can never be forgotten. ”

“ Is it not of extreme importance in connection with the evangelization of all Southern Arabia that the gospel should be preached and the Word of God brought to these hardy mountaineers? They are mostly Zeidiyeh, a sect akin to the Shiahs in doctrine, but I saw no trace of fanaticism among them, rather they seemed everywhere willing to listen to the truth. For the most part I suspect they are but poor observers of the prescribed religious practices of Islam. During the whole of my travels in Yemen I never once saw a man at prayer, and in only a few of the larger villages is there a mosque. ”

“ Mohammed is reported to have said of Mecca, “What a splendid city thou art, if I had not been driven out of thee by my tribe I would dwell in no other place but in thee. It is not man but God who has made Mecca sacred. My people will be always safe in this world and the next as long as they respect Mecca.” (Mishkat book XL., ch. xv.)
The sacred boundaries of Mecca and Medina not only shut out all unbelievers, but they make special demands of “purity and holiness” (in the Moslem sense) on the part of the true believers. ”

“ Gross ignorance coupled with equal conceit seems to be the universal characteristic of the people of Mecca. Modern science is laughed at and everything turns, on the Ptolemaic system, around the little world of the Koran. Jinn are exorcised; witches and the evil-eye are avoided by amulets; in short all the superstitious practices of the Moslem world are cultivated in this centre of world-wide pilgrimage. Astrology still usurps the place of astronomy and it is considered blasphemy to profess to know the hour of an eclipse or the day of the new moon before it is revealed from heaven. ”

“ The religion of Arabia has made its people fanatics, although according to Nöldeke, “fanaticism is characteristic of all Semitic religions.” But he forgets the real distinction between intolerance of another religion on ethical grounds as in the case of Judaism, and the infinitely hard, one-sided, crude exclusiveness of Islam.
The Arabs rarely have the power of taking in complex unities at a glance; the talent for arrangement is absent. An Arab carpenter cannot draw a right angle, nor can an Arab servant lay a tablecloth square on the table. ”

“ The old Arab temple called a cube (Kaaba) has none of its sides or angles equal; their houses show the same lack of the “carpenter’s eye” to-day. Streets are seldom parallel, even the street, so-called, was not straight in Damascus. The Arab mind loves units, not unity; they are good soldiers, but poor generals; there is no partnership in business; and no public spirit; each man lives for himself. That is the reason why Yemen cannot shake off the yoke of the Turk, and this explains why the smallest towns in Arabia have a great many little mosques. ”

“ In Yemen there are two rainy seasons, in spring and in autumn, so that there is generally an abundance of water in the numerous reservoirs stored for irrigation. Yet, despite the extraordinary fertility of the soil and the surprising industry of the inhabitants, the bulk of the people are miserably poor, ill-fed and rudely clothed, because they are crushed down by a heartless system of taxation. Every agricultural product, implement and process is under the heavy hand of an oppressive administration and a military occupation that knows no law. ”

“ To the Bahrein Arabs Bombay is the centre of the world of civilization, and he who has seen that city is distinguished as knowing all about the ways of foreigners. So anxious are the boys for a trip on the British India steamer to this Eldorado of science and mystery that they sometimes run from home and go as stowaways or beg their passage. ”