THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND ISLAM.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1
Sin,—We are witnessing now in Europe the repetition of a scene familiar to the world ever since 1,300 years ago the name of Mohammed became famous throughout the then- known East and West. The forces of parts of Christendom and of Islam are arrayed the one against the other, but the heart at any rate of Christendom is not united. That of Islam is, it would seem. We have proof that the great Mussulman population of India is heart and soul with Turkey, and even Shi's. Persia sounds no inharmonious note. Looking back we must fain recall that, even so far back as the days of the Crusades, the Christian principalities of Syria allied them- selves with the Saracen against their co-religionists ; and, to name only one instance in more recent times, when Francis L had freed himself from the clutches of Charles Y. and the debacle of Pavia (tout est perdu fors l'honneur), he did not scruple to come to an understanding, if indeed he did not conclude a formal alliance, with the then Sultan of Turkey. Christendom deemed that honour was lost there. Once we get behind the scenes at the Vatican in the 15th and 16th centuries
we find proof enough, coupled too with all the witchery and devilry of romance, of an entente 'twist Porte and Papacy.
So, too, at this moment, when Bulgaria, Servia, Greece, and Montenegro raise the Standard of the Cross on behalf of their shamefully maltreated brethren of Macedonia and Albania, they know that they do so with no message of " Grod-speed and good-will from any one of the great Christian Powers except Russia. Indeed, we might mention more than one whose sympathy is with the Turk, and that in heartless defiance of the dictates of justice and humanity. Even Italy stands correctly aloof, though the heart of King and Queen and people cannot but beat in unison with that of Montenegro.
With the lapse of five or six hundred years comes great change. In the earlier centuries of Islamic aggression Christendom had to reckon not only with the Mussulman Powers bordering the Mediterranean, but also with the Central Asian hordes, which added to their inborn savagery the fanaticism of the convert. To-day millions on millions of Moslems sit helpless away in the East, praying fervently for Islam and passing "resolutions," but powerless to lend a hand. Can we not imagine the cry going up from them. " Oh, for one day of Taimur Lang ! " P And what is the cry of the Concert of Europe P " The Identic Note."
The Mohammedan movement of the moment which means most for the British Empire is that attributed to the Ruler of a rising Moslem monarchy which for the last seventy years has lain, except during restless fits, beneath the wing of the Viceroy of India. Under that tutelage it has so prospered that it is now the only absolutely independent Mohammedan State of any importance in the world. Seeing Turkey and Persia to be little more than the plaything of the ambitions of Christendom, and sixty millions of Moslems in India to be as sheep without a shepherd, the Amir Habibullah Khan sends his missioners abroad to preach this gospel: "Be of
good cheer. Though the dominions of Sultan and Shah be in the throes of war and anarchy, I am free and will be
your leader. Look to me." This is no gospel for the King-
Emperor's dominions. It is one thing to respect the long- established rights of the Sultan as Caliph in Egypt and Tripoli, and another to allow a parvenu prince to acquire over millions of Moslems in India an influence which may ultimately tend to undermine their whole-hearted allegiance to their lawful Sovereign. The millions of his Majesty's subjects be
whom the Koran is gospel stand more in need at this critical juncture of the care of his Majesty's Government than the
Nonconformists of Wales.—I am, Sir, &c., A. C. YATE. Beckbury Hall, Shifnal.
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