Several paragraphs from the pen of Samuel " M. Zwemer, a great, modern missionary to Moslems will be helpful at the beginning of this brief summary of Mohammedanism. On page 185 of his book The Cross Above the Crescent, he says:
"Arabia is one of the great Bible lands, has an area of a million square miles, and is the probable cradle of that Semitic race which has given the world its three great theistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
"It is from Arabia as cradle that Islam arose and spread its power across the seven seas. The Arabs ex plored Africa by their slave trade and visited China and Malaysia in their sailing ships centuries before Colum bus discovered America. Yet their own land remained undiscovered."
Mohammed, "The Praised One," is the prophet and founder of Islam. Of him the Encyclopedia Americana says:
"As a political leader and a religious reformer, Mohammed undoubtedly ranks among the greatest. Whether a real prophet or a charlatan, or a mixture of both, we cannot strip him of the qualities of greatness. His name has survived thirteen centuries, and his followers today number over a 9,000,000 souls."—Article "Mohammed.'
Mohammed was born about the year 570 at Mecca or Medina, Arabia. Abdullah, his father, died before his birth. At the age of six he was left an orphan by the death of his mother, Aminah. His wealthy grandfather, Abdal-Mottalib, adopted the boy. But two years later he, too, died, and the boy's uncle, Abu Talib, took him into his house and remained his best friend and protector through out his whole life. In his youth he mingled with the Bedouins of the desert and seems to have accompanied Meccan traders to Syria and south Arabia, and perhaps to Egypt and Mesopotamia.
His marriage at twenty-five years of , age, to Khadija, a wealthy widow fifteen years his senior, probably terminated his career as a caravan con ductor. Mohammed continued his merchant's trade at Mecca to some extent, but spent most of his time in solitary contemplations.
Meanwhile he had acquired a reputation for great practical wisdom, although it is probable that he could neither read nor write. It is well to note here that during the first centuries of the Christian propaganda, religious doctrines were very numerous. Both Christianity and Judaism had crept into Arabia. The many distorted stories in the Koran indicate that the new religion Mohammedanism was greatly influenced by Christian and Jewish practices. There was much religious strife in the country. Many were being exhorted to accept Judaism, while others were embracing Christianity, and others still were falling away altogether. The time was ripe for a change, and Mohammed launched the faith of Islam.
His first convert was his wife, to whom he told the particulars of an interview which he claimed to have had in a vision with the angel Gabriel, who declared him to be the apostle of God. A number of his close relatives readily joined him. After four years Mohammed's converts numbered but forty, and they were obliged to hold their meetings in secret in a cave near Mecca. His efforts to re store the religion of Abraham proved fruitless. The Jews not only would not accept his teachings and reforms, but used every means to make him a laughingstock. This so incensed him that he changed the place of accepted prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca.
Mohammed encountered many difficulties in his efforts to abolish the idolatry of Mecca. His doctrine, "There is no God but Allah," with the assertion, "And I am his prophet," aroused the op position of the Meccans, who had one idol for every day in the year. By later acknowledging the effectiveness of the Meccan goddess as well as Allah, he was able to restore peace, thus greatly strengthening his influence. However, in the year 622, just ten years after he began his role as the prophet of Allah, Mohammed was forced to flee. With the five hundred who had joined him, he fled to the city of Medina 250 miles distant. Undaunted, he continued his teachings and again re turned to Mecca eight years later with three thou sand adherents. Here Mohammed died in the year 632, just two years after his return to the city where he had begun his new religion.
The city of Mecca is the generally accepted headquarters of Islam today. There are strong centers in India, China, Malaya, Java, Turkey, and Egypt, as well as throughout the Middle East. Dr. Charles R. Watson placed the number of Moslems in the world at 250,000,000 in his book, What Is This Moslem World? (Friendship Press, New York.) It is said that one in every seven persons of the world's population is a Moslem, and this truly presents a challenge to modern Christian missions.
Early Developments and Education
The faith of Mohammed was sufficiently estab lished to be carried forward by his ardent follow ers. Early development was manifested in the building of fine mosques, largely in the areas im mediately surrounding Arabia. Notable among these was the original Mosque of Omar at Jerusa lem in the seventh and eighth centuries, of which the present "Mosque of Omar" is a much later suc cessor. As Mohammedanism spread, many and more magnificent mosques were built. The domes and minarets so common in present-day Moslem architecture had their origin in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. But these are nonessentials, for in poor communities a bare, whitewashed room may suffice for the public wor ship of the faithful.
Famous among the more elaborate mosques is the Azhar, in Cairo. The finest of mosques in Constantinople is Saint Sophia, at one time a Christian church.
Nyh er ev er the Mohammedan faith prevailed, from Spain to India, beautiful ex amples of these buildings exist.
The glory of Moslem education was its university system. Established for higher learning, it did not serve everyday needs. Its primary system was very poor, and technical education had never been developed. In Islam primary teachers are despised as ignorant and foolish. What technical education prevails is given through the apprentice system, teaching mechanical arts and crafts.
The mosques serve as schools and seats of learn ing. Thousands of students are regularly in attendance at the most important mosques. Moslem education, like all Moslem science, revolves around theology. From the earliest times independent scholars instructed classes in mosques in the com mon places of meeting, and gave their pupils personal certificates. Their subjects were the reading and interpretation of the Koran, the body of traditions from their prophet, their system of theology, and the canon law. But the interpretation of the Koran involved grammatical studies of early Arabic literature. Therefore those eager to teach attended the established universities in the larger mosques. Regarding the influence of the Koran on the unification of Islam, we read in the book Islam Today:
"It was Marshall Lyantey who compared the world of Islam to a resonant box : the faintest sound in one cor ner of the box reverberates through the whole of it. In deed, the Muslims represent a homogeneous unity unpar alleled in the annals of history. The mainspring of their unity is the faith and the language in which the Koran was written, For thirteen hundred years hundreds of millions of men and women, different in race, national ity, intellectual, and social standards have been held together by these two socially independent yet mutually complementary and indessociable forces."
Islam is divided by the theologians into two heads : doctrine and practice. The separate articles of both are determined by the Koran, the traditions and faith of Mohammed, and the decisions of learned offcials. The six cardinal points of doctrine are listed as follows : belief in God and His unity; belief in angels and good and bad spirits; belief in the Koran and revelation; belief in the prophet; belief in the resurrection and the judgment day; belief in God's absolute rule of the world, "There is no God but Allah, and Moham med is His envoy." Islam's conception of the Deity is stressed above all else. Such phrases as "He is powerful over all things," "He knoweth all things," and "There is no God but He; the living, the self-subsisting; neither slumber nor sleep seiz eth Him; to Him belongeth whatsoever is in Heaven or on earth," frequently appear in the Koran and indicate firm belief in Allah.
The second head, or religious practice, is oblig atory on the believer. Chief among these practices are the recital of the creed; the performance of di vine worship five times a day; fast in the month of Ramadan; payment of legal alms; and pilgrim age to Mecca. The specified times for prayer are at dawn, just before noon, before sunset, after sunset, and at night. The "Call to Prayer" is readily rec ognized by the high, loud note, prolonged for at least two minutes. Weird sounds of the Moslem drum greet the traveler's ear early in the morning, and the last thing at night. During the daytime it is not an uncommon sight to find a Moslem kneel ing on his mat, face toward Mecca, with head bowed to the ground in solemn prayer.
The spirit in which Moslems spread their faith is readily understood from a paragraph in Dr.- Zwemer's book, The Cross Above the Crescent, in the following words:
"In 1919 Robert Griffith states: 'Islam is making headway by leaps and bounds in Northwest Madagascar. Mohammedan missionaries from Zanzibar and Arabia go about from village to village and port to port preaching their religion, and let it be clearly understood that Islam is not a steppingstone to Christianity; it is its greatest and most bitter rival.' "—Page 117.
SECTS.—There are at present three main Islamic sects. The Sunni, by far the largest in number, hold that the caliphate (successor to Mohammed) is an elective office and must be occupied by a member of a certain tribe (Quraysh, the probable tribe from which Mohammed was a descendant.)
The Shi'ites regard Ali and his descendants as the only rightful caliphs. For them the caliphate was a God-given office, therefore not one to be given by human appointment. They are next in number, but their numbers have shrunk to about twelve million.
The Khawarij sect held that the office of cali phate was open to any believer whom the faithful might consider fit for it.
Apart from these important groups, which had their origin in primitive times and exist to the , present day, there have been many theological sects through the years, but the majority have now ceased to exist.
Panislamism—linification of Islam
As far back as the early eighties of the nine teenth century the word Panislamism was first used in an effort to bring about some unity of ac tion in opposition to the Christian powers of Eu rope. Widespread propaganda was credited to Sultan Abdul Hamid 11 (1876-1909), who desired to gain for himself recognition as the spiritual head of all Moslems throughout the world, what ever might be the government to which they owed temporal allegiance. Because of ill-chosen emis saries by Abdul Hamid, their success was slight. Their efforts toward Panislamism were mainly confined to journalistic denunciations of the op pression of Moslems by Christian governments, and exhortations to promote the unity of Islam.
After Abdul Hamid was deposed, an attempt to adopt a definite scheme of Pan-Islamic propaganda was made by the Committee of Union and Prog ress at the Salonika Congress of 1911. At this congress it was suggested that delegates from all Moslem countries of the world ought to meet an nually in Constantinople to discuss questions of interest to all Moslems.
In 1911 a letter was published by a number of Ottoman and Persian jurists, who asserted that there was no difference of principle between the two sects Sunni and Shi'ah. During the years 1911 and 1912, talk about the need for union be tween Moslems was renewed in the Mohammedan press throughout the world. All efforts in this direction were halted by the outbreak of the World War of 1914. Because of the reduction of Turk ish territory after the close of the war, a feeling of depression among Islamic peoples was pro duced. This was aggravated by the apparent in difference of the Turkish republic to concern it self with the fate of Moslem populations in other countries.
Thus in 1919 the Pan-Islamic movement was revived by Moslems in India who started a caliphate movement, thus seeking to gain support for one head in Turkey. By the abolition of the cali phate in 1924 as a result of political changes in Turkey, Indian Mohammedans were compelled to adopt a new program. Accordingly, at a meeting of the Central Caliphate Committee, in May, 1924, at Bombay, it was resolved to endeavor in the fu ture to promote friendly relations between the var ious Moslem countries and to exchange communi cations regarding a settlement of the caliphate question.
These new problems were much discussed in Egypt and Java also, and as a result two separate congresses were held in 1926—the Caliphate Con gress in Cairo and the All-Moslem Congress in Mecca. No practical decisions were arrived at or anything specific accomplished toward unification. Apparently Islam is confronted with problems sim ilar to those with which Protestantism is wrestling in its efforts toivard federation.
Attitude Toward Advent Hope
Moslems generally are very hostile toward Christianity. The Christian belief of the trinity of the Godhead is absurd to every Moslem, and forms the basis for many a heated argument. To Mos lems there is but one God, Allah, and Christ is a prophet, but He cannot be the Son of God, because there is but one God and not three, as the Chris tians believe.
Notwithstanding these hindrances to accepting Christianity, Seventh-day Adventists have one ef fective approach, in that they, in common with the Moslems, do not eat swine's flesh. This often so arouses interest that the Moslem desires to inves tigate this new religion, and it frequently results in converts to the advent message.
Minan Direda, a Javanese Moslem, was the first outstanding convert to do much translating of ad vent literature into the Malay and Javanese lan guages through the years. More recently he ed ited the Malay Signs of the Times. Anna Mandias, who denounced the faith of Mohammed in 1919, has done much to teach her own people the truth of the Bible. Her husband, K. Mandias, has had charge of the Netherland East Indies Union Mission of Seventh-day Adventists during the time of the war, when all foreign missionaries were in terned. Together they have done a good work for the peoples of those islands.
Other converts have joined these first fruits through the years. The future of advent missions is bright indeed. With the Voice of Prophecy Bible school lessons going to the millions of Java in the near future, there will soon be many more accepting the third angel's message.
