The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1909-06-07
sun do move" proved it by the Bibl,
and dafiad science

American missionaries. Those young
Ter people who do not intend to enter
the priesthood have a keen desire for
knowledge, and even the conserva-
tives have permitted the introduction
Of primary school students into the
"kuttabs,' or village schools attached
to the mosques, where nothing but
the Koran was formerly taught. But
the same families which send their
sons and daughters to a foreign
school to get business education
will resist with might and main the
introduction of infidel science into
the great religious institution of FL
Azhar That university is at once
the the strongest citadel of the faith,
and the place where that faith is
being slowly but surely strangled to
death.
+ There is Mohammedan journal
published in Russia which is devoted
to reforming Islam and bringing the
Faith of the Prophet into touch with
the advancing world. The movement
has received no encouragement ex-
| cept from EuropeaniZed Moslems who
have been trained in religious thought
on the boulevards of Paris, who are
/ agnOstics at heart, and whose only
regard for Islam is political and not
+ devotional. The late Moustafa
Kamel Pasha, leader of the patriotic
nationalist party in Egypt, was de-
vout Moslem, who earnestly desired
to reform his faith and to free it
from the shackles of 10 centuries of
priestly tradition, which has quite
covered over the original doctrines
and teachings of Mohammed Once
in a while a man will arise in the
faculty of El-Azhar who strives to
adjust the inelastic code of the sew
enth century to the rapid and con-
slant change of the twentieth. But
the body of Islam is conservative
and ignorant 1t will not be moved.
Will Not Become Christians.
1t has been proved in various por-
tions of the world that the Moham-
medan religion can not adopt occi-
dental civilization and survive. To
EurOpeanize a MOslem means to rob
him of all faith. That is a serious
thing to DO, for while one agnostic
may be an exemplary man, a people
without a sheet anchor of faith is
certain to sink So few MOslems have
been converted to Christianity that
the record is not worth repeating. In
Turkey, in Syria, in Egypt. in India,
in Central Africa, wherever the mis-
sionaries of the Cross have gone,
they have made many converts, but
not from Islam. The MOhammedan
is a monotheist and he believes in
one God. The Trinitarian theory of
orthodox Christianity offends his
mOnotheistic sense If Christian civ
ilization shakes his faith in Islam it
leaves him without any belief what
ever. What the second and third gem
erations will be or will do remains
for time to show.
Many of the more enlightened and
devout Moslems lament the decay of
their Faith, but admit that they are
powerless to arrest it. They know
that the code of religion, social
ethics and civil law prepared to meet |
conditions existing in Arabia 1900
years ago can not be adjusted to
present conditions. They know that
the Faith is inelastic, that the holy
men have taught for uncounted gen.
erations that the whole law must be
obeyed, that the traditions must be
obeyed, and that none but God can
change the rules in the slightest de-
gree. They know that they can not
change the law without pulling down
the whole structure. They know that
they can not square the circle They
realize that the Crescent of the True
Faith Is being dimmed in the firma-
ment by the still rising sun of an
advancing civilization, nurtured by a
religion which is elastic and which is
ever-changing to meet new cOndi-
TONS They do not believe in the
Christian faith, but the yare power
less to answer the defiance of the
modern soldier of the cross when he
cries I'm hoe signo vinces."
Women Degraded.
Furthermore, the civilization of
the goth century will not brook the
degradation of women. which is
concomitant of the Mohammedan re-
1ipion The nrOnhet himself said