Muslim world

“ To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.
To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.
To those...
(APPLAUSE) To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist. ”

“ The sight of the Muslim engaged in his devotions is, I think, most interesting; the attitudes are particularly striking and impressive; and the solemn demeanour of the worshipper, who, even in the busy market-place, appears wholly abstracted from the world, is very remarkable. The practice of praying in a public place is so general in the East, and attracts so little notice from Muslims, that we must not regard it as the result of hypocrisy or ostentation. ”

“ Muḥammad the type of the Muslim missionary. Account of his early efforts at propagating Islam, and of the conversions made in Mecca before the Hijrah. Persecution of the converts, and migration to Medina. Condition of the Muslims in Medina: beginning of the national life of Islam. Islam offered (a) to the Arabs, (b) to the whole world. Islam declared in the Qurʼān to be a universal religion,—as being the primitive faith delivered to Abraham. Muḥammad as the founder of a political organisation. The spread of Islam and the efforts made to convert the Arabs after the Hijrah. ”

“ These are the fundamental principles of Islam. It does not claim to be the religion of one prophet, but the Religion of God and therefore of all prophets. Truth can only be one, and religion is truth. It is the fault of men if they have divided it into different religions, sects and churches. It is the sin of men that they have, in doing so, turned religion from its most useful earthly purpose: that of establishing the oneness of humanity, the brotherhood of all believers.
“The Muslim religion succeeded in doing this during the first centuries of its inception. ”

“ If we could close our eyes, our memories, our knowledge, and open them on the Mediterranean sea-board in those days—no more history written, no more history {114} made—looking out upon the elaborate administration of the empire and upon its splendid pomp, what a future we should have predicted! Islam had a fair field before it, if ever religion had. How in the slow march of the centuries strongly and progressively it could work out its faith! To what sublime heights could it not lead a civilized world in six centuries of time! ”

“ In spite of the rise of younger nations, the magnificence of medieval Europe, the growth of science and the arts of civilization and of war, in spite of many rival empires in the modern 'scramble for the world,' Islam still holds with its tenacious grip the thoughts and hearts of men. It dominates to-day one-seventh of mankind, moving still to fresh conquests of the Faith. We have traced that Faith in history and seen it settling like a deadly blight upon the nations, chilling and paralyzing the moral life of man. ”

“ Every sin, every falsehood, every injustice, every cruelty, every wrong, may challenge but they do not deny that Kingdom—Islam does.
Bringing its ideals down to the level of our nature, it denies the best in man, and denies the Christ of God—the One who alone has triumphed and in whose triumph lies man's only hope. Give the world to Islam, and man's highest vision is gone for ever. ”

“ They were the depositaries of the sacred text of the Qurʼān, which they alone knew by heart; they were the jealous guardians of the memory of every word and bidding of the Prophet, the trustees of the moral heritage of Muḥammad. These men formed the venerable stock of Islam from whom one day was to spring the noble band of the first jurists, theologians and traditionists of Muslim society.”28
But for such men as these, so vast a movement could not have held together, much less have recovered the shock given it by the death of the founder. ”

“ The Koran was the immediate consequence of his concentration and communion with Nature and Nature’s God: Islam the natural result. In other words, Islam is the devotion of Moslems to Mohammed and the Koran—his work, plus their patient resignation and entire submission to God, His will and His service! The man of fixed and unchanging purpose has a supreme contempt for obstacles. But when, as in Mohammed’s case, that purpose is the glorification of God, he has at hand a lever that can move the world. In this peculiar sense the great Prophet of Arabia was self-contained. ”

“ An Arab has no excellence or superiority over a barbarian than that which is secured to him by his God-fearing and righteousness. Ye are all the progeny of Adam, and Adam himself is of the Earth.”
No caste and no priestcraft does Islam recognise. Every Muslim is his own priest and every spot of land is his mosque to pray and to worship Allah. For no other purpose than to keep alive the sense of corporate unity of the Muslims did the prophet declare the superiority of the public prayer over prayer by oneself and establish the institution of pilgrimage. ”

“ In the preceding pages it has already been shown how closely connected many of the modern Muslim missions are with this wide-spread revival: the fervid zeal it has stirred up, the new life it has infused into existing religious institutions, the impetus it has given to theological study and to the organisation of devotional exercises, have all served to awake and keep alive the innate proselytising spirit of Islam. ”

“ There is nothing in Islam which is in any way revolting to our reason or our scientific discoveries, and I have been surprised and pleased in recent years to find so many people in all classes in England who have entirely abandoned a belief in any necessity for the dogmas. I have, for example, frequently described our simple Faith, and I have been gratified by the remark: "Why, that is my belief. Is that really Islam? If so, then I must be a Muslim." ”

“ With experience and facts such as these before me, I for one find it impossible to forget, and only natural to acknowledge with candour, the great and magnificent part that Islam has occupied in the history of the world. In the intellectual strife of heroes who have wrestled and fought for the truth and who for many centuries led the world, in the arena of battle and of conquest where warriors have led the van, the sons of Islam stand on a pedestal of their own making, that as the world grows older and more enlightened, will stand out in all the greater prominence. ”

“ It is to the proselytising efforts of these Arab and Indian merchants that the native Muhammadan population, which we find already in the earliest historical notices of Islam in these parts, owes its existence. Settling in the centres of commerce, they intermarried with the people of the land, and these heathen wives and the slaves of their households thus formed the nucleus of a Muslim community which its members made every effort in their power to increase. ”

“ When now the apostle of God was speaking with these men and calling on them to believe in God, they said one to another: “Know surely that this is the Prophet, of whom the Jews have warned us; come let us now make haste and be the first to join him.” So they embraced Islam, and said to him, “Our countrymen have long been engaged in a most bitter and deadly feud with one another; but now perhaps God will unite them together through thee and thy teaching. Therefore we will preach to them and make known to them this religion, that we have received from thee.” ”

“ In recent years, too, Islam has found adherents in England, in North America, Australia and Japan.
The spread of this faith over so vast a portion of the globe is due to various causes, social, political and religious: but among these, one of the most powerful factors at work in the production of this stupendous result, has been the unremitted labours of Muslim missionaries, who, with the Prophet himself as their great ensample, have spent themselves for the conversion of unbelievers. ”

“ Writers have indeed been found who, dwelling Is Islam suitable for any nation?upon the benefits conferred by Islam on idolatrous and savage nations, have gone so far as to hold that the religion of Mohammed may in consequence be suited to certain portions of mankind—as if the faith of Jesus might peaceably divide with it the world. But surely to acquiesce in a system which reduces the people to a dead level of social depression, despotism, and semi-barbarism would be abhorrent from the first principles of philanthropy. With the believer, who holds the Gospel to be "good Luke ii, 10. ”

“ We stand upon a pinnacle of 1200 years, looking out upon the world, and looking back upon the history of twelve centuries of Islam. Can we not find some features, so common that we may call them characteristic features, of Mohammedanism, which will help us in forming an estimate of the influence of Islam upon mankind?
Fruits of Islam.
Let us then try to bring Islam to the test, as we are able to examine its influence in this twentieth century. For after all the ultimate test of a religion must be its continuous fitness to elevate the faith and character of man. ”

“ Among all these insistent problems, the problem of Islam is this: That in this modern world of renaissance, reform, movement, and progress, one-seventh of mankind turns to one physical and spiritual centre, a black stone in the Kaaba at Mecca, a city of the past. In that holy city, alas! notorious the world over for its sin and wickedness, [2] pilgrims meet from half the {155} races of the earth—Tartars and Malays, Russians and Negroes, Indians and Chinese, Arabs, Afghans, Persians, Egyptians, and many more. All this crowd of races, peoples, nationalities, and tongues own one Faith. ”

“ Peter viewed them when he said (Acts x. 34-5) : "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." The same is the spirit of the oft-repeated definition of 'Muslims' in the Qur'an: الذين آمتواوعملوا الصلحت "those who believe and work righteousness." "Trust in the Lord and do good," as the Psalm says.
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Note 3.
I.—What is Religion?
have said that true Islam is the best religion in the world. I must prove my assertion. In order to do so I have to explain:—
I.—Religion, God and Nature. ”

“ The answer to this is that our actions are judged good or evil according to our intentions, if we have faith: good actions or intentions, it should be added, only increase, and do not cause, our happiness if we are believers; and evil actions or intentions only increase our misery if we are unbelievers or irreligious: for the Muslim holds that he is to be admitted into heaven only by the mercy of God, on account of his faith, and to be rewarded in proportion to his good works. ”

“ Though in no way so significant as the other, still this trend of thought gives a powerful stimulus to missionary labours; the effort to realise in actual life the Muslim ideal of the brotherhood of all believers reacts on collateral ideals of the faith, and the sense of a vast unity and of a common life running through the nations inspirits the hearts of the faithful and makes them bold to speak in the presence of the unbelievers. ”

“ These then; namely, the unity of God, the belief in the Divine mission of the prophet, five daily prayers, fasting in the month of Ramadhan and the pilgrimage, are the essentials of Islam. The one supreme mission of the prophet was to create and to maintain an absolute brotherhood in faith. All Muslims were declared equal, irrespective of birth, rank or profession; and the world has never seen, perhaps, a more perfect democracy than the one called into being by the prophet. Truly, the most worthy of honour in the sight of God, says the Qur ́an, is he who feareth Him most ”

“ The rise of Islam is perhaps the most amazing event in human history. Springing from a land and a people alike previously negligible, Islam spread within a century over half the earth, shattering great empires, overthrowing long-established religions, remoulding the souls of races, and building up a whole new world—the world of Islam. ”

“ Islam had made millions of converts, and had digested those millions very imperfectly. Cities, nations, whole sects and races, Arab pagans, Jews, Christians, Manichæans, Zoroastrians, Turanian pagans, had been swallowed up into this new vast empire of Muhammad’s successors. It has hitherto been the common characteristic of all the great unifying religious initiators of the world, the common oversight, that they have accepted the moral and theological ideals to which the first appeal was made, as though they were universal ideals. ”

“ And, in truth, the very soul of Islam sprang from these solitary hermits, scattered here and there throughout the desert, consecrating their lives to God, and fleeing from the wrath to come. Even in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry we feel how strong was the impression made on the Arab mind by the gaunt, weird men with their endless watchings and night prayers. ”

“ An invitation to embrace Islam was sent in this year to the Emperor Heraclius, the king of Persia, the governor of Yaman, the governor of Egypt and the king of Abyssinia. The letter to Heraclius is said to have been as follows:—“In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, Muḥammad, who is the servant of God and His apostle, to Hiraql the Qayṣar of Rūm. Peace be on whoever has gone on the straight road. After this I say, Verily I call you to Islam. Embrace Islam, and God will reward you twofold. If you turn away from the offer of Islam, then on you be the sins of your people. ”