Arizona republican., 1903-04-12

. early at prayer. The stern prophet would not accept the apology. Though you had camels enough to fill the road from Mecca to Medina, all loaded with : jewels, and should give the cargo to the poor. the blessings would not equal those of beginning nemaZ with the imam. Should you kill all the enemies of Islam, the great rewards would not compare with those of him who is prompt at the beginning of prayer. Ii by word the heavens and earth could become paper. the sea be turned into ink. and all angels stand as scribes. ye, they would be unable to write all the blessings you may enjoy for beginning prayers with the imam.
 The people simply rush to their mosques, and when are about to step within the shrine they take off their shoes. instead of their hats. and go through a series of pious movements. Strange to say that the koran is unin- | telligible to most the people, as it is written in the Meccan dialect of the Arabic, yet their tradition teaches tha: merely to hear the sacred book read has a mira culous effect. beneficial to soul and body. and so they are made
 
 ingless words.
 The MCslem's belief in a paradise be- yond the grave is all that could be desired The prayers that he has said will light up his grave as a lamp; no sin will remain to be imputed to him ac the resurrection: angel wings will bear him aloft. If he has children their in- nocence will admit him. and their grief at leaving their father behind will take him through the gates, Peter or no ! Peter. In eternity the momentary | pleasures of time are to be extended q | thousand years, and once in paradis;- he has but to express his wishes and they are immediately granted. Hi' food is served on a golden plate, ana the bones of the bird that has been devoured will again assume full plu | mage and fly away to sing as of yore in the leafy bowers. Wine, which is denied to the faithful here, will be abundant there, but will not intoXicate. The humblest in rank will hav- seventy-two virgins of immortal youth and angelic beauty. In brief, an ideal temporal paradise, based on the pleas ures of earth. is to be rnagnified thou- sand fold beyond the utmost limit 0: even an oriental imagination to depicr. Such is their Elysium.
 If the Mohammedan description of heaven abounds in sensual imagery We should remember that it makes no essential difference how We describe the land of the hereafter, if only We make that description conform to our ideas of true and pure happiness, ae all conceptions employing the material as symbols of the spiritual must neces sarily fall short of the true glory of | heaven, whether we make it a city with , walls of jasper and streets of gold echoing to the joy of happy hearts, or see with tranquil vision an infinite paradise clothed with wonder and peo. pied with creations of eternal love Neither is heaven: both are faulty me,- aphors. halting figures, imperfect sym bols.
 If the rewards Of fidelity are ideal , according to sensual standards ot pleasure. the punishment of the doomed are cruel to the other extreme. sur passing in horror Dante's best descrip- tion of the Plunotic realm. The gravee of this class are beds of hot coa1s where the bones are piled one upon the other for want of room, and fused al white heat. without loss of the sense oi
 
 scourgings, will add the spice of variety to this roasting process, until the res urrection, when Satan will assume full control of them forevermore.
 I have intimated the importance O. the idea of God as influencing and moiding a nations religion. Lookine l back over history we cannot but be i'm pressed by the fact that culture ana , religion have ever eXerted a reciproca influence on each other. The peculiar :. conception which a people may hold O1 : God determines not only it's religion but it's civilization. Locking at Mo hammedanism from this point of view , what is the character of the civiliZa tiol 3 we should naturally expect as a result . What is the civilizing potency of Mo , hammedanism
 ? We have seen that the Moslem Got ? is an impersonation of arbitrary will that he is synonymous with cold, love ; less authoritative supremacy; that tht first. last and only duty of his subject! is slavish obedience. in a word, that tht idea of liberty. in any true sense, E f practically excluded. Now what is tnt
 first requisite of high civilization? i:
 it not a consciousness of personal ir r dependence, of liberty? This principi . has been at the basis of all great de velopments of individual genius. With , out it. in one form or another. no na
 ton has ever really fourished an(
 come to high state of culture.
 The first point, then, that we observ is the utter absence of the principle o Q liberty in the Mohammedan religion a If we look at the Islam conception O I God from a moral standpoint, we fint
 it's effects just as baneful. The be :, liever does right because Allah com mands it. and because it is his to obey
 This is placing moral obligation on
 low basis-on no higher ground thar the divine will.
 The doctrine of predestinatiCn, also
 which is really a corollary of a panthe i istic will, does away in a measure wit. . mans free moral agency and divcst - him of that attribute which. of Gll oth | CTS, contributes to his nobility. Let 1
 be remembered that correct concep ' ton Of duty and an appreciation O