BOOKS.
THE NEW WORLD OF ISLAM.* [SECOND NOTICE.]
WE showed last week how Mr. Stoddard helps us to understand the Moslem problem and to estimate the forces at work in the great religious and racial revival which we are at present witnessing. We must now say something of the masterly way in which he deals with the problem of how to reconcile Western ideals with those of the East. Here the practical and also the essential trouble is the way in which the Mohammedan world clings to its ideal of despotism in spite of the gross inefficiency of that system of government. To us it seems absolute madness, and yet there can be no question that the Mohammedan likes the wayward rule of an individual better than any form of constitu- tionalism, just as he likes the after-luncheon decisions of a fat L'adi under a palm-tree better than any system of intelligible law and justice. Here is Mr. Stoddard's description of the attitude of the ordinary Mohammedan to personal rule :- "Now, manifold human experience has conclusively proved that despotism is a bad form of government in the long run. Of course, there is the legendary benevolent despot —the ' father of his people,' surrounded by wise counsellors and abolishing evils by a nod or a stroke of the pen. That is all very well in a fairy-tale. But in real life the ' benevolent despot ' rarely happens and still more rarely succeeds himself. The father of his people' usually has a pompous son and a vicious grandson, who bring the people to ruin. The melan- choly trinity—David, Solomon, Rehoboam—has reappeared with depressing regularity throughout history. Furthermore, even the benevolent despot has his limitations. The trouble with all despots, good or bad, is that their rule is entirely personal. Everything, in the last analysis, depends on the despot's personal will. Nothing is fixed or certain. The benevolent despot himself may discard his benevolence over- night, and the fate of an empire may be jeopardized by the monarch's infatuation for a woman or by an upset in his digestion. We Occidentals have, in fact, never known ' despotism ' in its Simon-pure, Oriental sense ; not even under the Roman Empire. When we speak of a benevolent despot we usually think of the enlightened autocrats ' of eighteenth-century Europe, such as Frederick the Great. But these monarchs were not despots ' as Orientals understand it. Take Frederick, for example. He was regarded as absolute. But his subjects were not slaves. Those proud Prussian officers, starched bureaucrats, stiff-necked burghers, and stubborn peasants each had his sense of personal dignity and legal status. The unquestioning obedience which they gave Frederick was given not merely because he was their king, but also because they knew that he was the hardest-working man in Prussia and tireless in his devotion to the state. If Frederick had suddenly changed' into a lazy, depraved, capricious tyrant, his ' obedient ' Prussians would have soon showed him that there were limits to his power. In the Orient it is quite other- wise. In the East there lies upon the eyes and foreheads of all men a law which is not found in the European decalogue ; and this law runs : Thou shalt honor and worship the man whom God shall set above thee for thy King : if he cherish thee, thou shalt love him ; and if he plunder and oppress thee, thou shalt still love him, for thou art his slave and his chattel.' The Eastern monarch may immure himself in his harem, casting the burdens of state upon the shoulders of a grand vizier. This • The Eno World of Islam. By Lothrop Stoddard. London : Chapman and BAIL ties, wt.] vizier has thenceforth limitless .power ; the life of every subject is in his hands. Yet any evening, at the pout of a dancing-girl, the monarch may send from his harem to the vizier's pekoe a negro mute,' armed with the bowstring. And when that black mute arrives the vizier, doffing his robe of office, and with neither question nor remonstrance, will bare his neck to be strangled. That is real despotism---the despotism that the East has known."
The intellectual Moslem who read this would probably acquiesce, but he would probably also answer in the spirit, if not in the words which Lord Houghton in a moment of inspira- tion placed in the mouth of the old Moslem in his memorable poem, " The Turk at Constantinople "
• " Men of the West ! Ye understand us not, We you no more : ye take our good for ill ; Yo scorn what WO esteem man's happiest lot—
Perfect submission to creative will ; Yo would rejoice to watch from us depart Our ancient temperance—our peace of heart.
Let us return ! if long we linger here Ye will destroy us, not with open swords, Not with such arms as bravo mon must not fear, But with the poison'd shafts of subtle words : Your blank indifference for our living creed Would make us paltry—Infidels indeed.
What can Ye give us for a Faith so lost ? For love of Duty, and delight in Prayer How are we wiser that our minds are test By winds of knowledge on a sea of care How are we better that we hardly fear To break the laws our fathers held most dear ? "
What is the answer to it all ? How are we to reconcile East and West, or rather, for this must come first, what is it that prevents the reconciliation and makes us oil and water ? There are two things. The first is Fatalism. The Moslem
really believes, though it is probably not an essential part of the creed of Mahomet, that everything is ordained. " It is written" is always in the mind of the Mohammedan. The Western may pretend to be a Fatalist, but he always believes at heart that if you show sufficient energy anything can be unwritten. The other cause for the incompatibility of soul between East and West is that the Oriental Moslem is a true absolutist, while the Western believes that you must not push anything to extremes, that you can very easily have too much of a good thing, and that you can upset a boat by leaning too much to the proper side, i.e., to the side which wants
trimming. Halifax would have had no followers had he lived in the East.
Then, too, the Moslem, like all men of the East, loves, oven when he is an Intellectual or a Puritan, to live an easy, slippered, down-at-heel, happy-go-lucky existence. He loathes to be on schedule time, and regards the punctual as mere barbarians. Rag-bag Pasha is not a squalid joke to him but almost an ideal
figure. That is a thing we must never forgot. Tho Mohammedan does not want to live like a European, though he may like some sides of European culture. You cannot conciliate him by a punctual tram service or a pure water supply or a housing scheme. He cares for none of these things, and if you push them too far he will rise in insurrection.
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