Page 119 - Neglected Arabia Vol 1 (3)_Neat

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NUGLLCTUU AKA HI A II
iUml in some measure why the Arab holds fast to his religious tenets
when our Gospel seems to bring not more abundant life but to rob him
of the light he enjoys. So also he is repelled by the higher moral
itandards of Christianity which cut directly across much of his daily
life and practice. •
The Arab may or may not feel that the Christian would rob him of
his Cod, but in any case he docs know that accepting the Christian
message entails a turning of his back on much to which he has been
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accustomed and which is dear to his fellow Arabs. His religious con­
victions may not be very deep but he feels the pressure of the social
solidarity of Islam. Everyone about him is a Moslem. All his life \ :
(ram earliest infancy to the last rites of his funeral are prescribed by
the religion of all of those about him. He may belong to any one of
the three classes mentioned above as far as his learning is'concerned,
but he knows that any diversion from the accepted standard of life and
thought meets with prompt opposition from his fellows. Conformity is l •
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the law of his world and ostracism the price of independence. We are Cl
accustomed to a certain amount of conformity in things of lesser im­ '4
portance. So convention dictates that a man wear a white collar and
oecktie when appearing in polite society. But, conventionally clad, he
cin go anywhere and announce himself a Russellite or an Eddyite and
pothing happens. Not so with the Arab. His religion determines what
hind of trousers are orthodox, what he must do at specified hours of the
day and what he must think about the stars and the floods. Let him
declare by word or deed that these things are ncm-cssculiuU uud itn- 3
ucillulcly bo Is ail outcast, llo loses his pusilluu, shopkeepers refuse to
k11 to hmi, the coffee shop, that center around which the social life of 1
llie Arab revolves, is closed to him. He has become a social leper. Nay,
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more, if he goes so far as to accept Christianity, as Dr. Zwemer has so o
convincingly shown in his recent book, “The Law of Apostasy in Islam,”
bis life is forfeit and whoever kills him renders a service to God.
The solidarity which regulates the local society goes further and repre- . i
Kjits Islam as arrayed against the world. This came out very strikingly
during the recent war of France and Spain with the Riff. During those
days a civil war, affecting those most sacred Moslem cities, Mecca and ;<
Medina, was also in progress. One would have thought that interest in
ibc domestic struggle would have eclipsed all else. Not so. One could
icam scarcely a word in the bazaar about that, but everyone had up-to-
ihc-minutc information about what was happening in the Riff. And
shy? Abdul Kerim represented Islam as arrayed against, not France
ooly, but the West and hence Christianity. And I was told in so many '
«urds that this was a religious war—Christianity versus Islam! And
oery Arab in Basrah with intelligence enough to know what was going
oo in the world, felt himself a part of that crusade against Christianity.
All of these are elements in the. problem of Moslem evangelization. *
But when we have listed them all and faced them all we have not yet
*iuwcred the question with which we started. Deeper than all of these
a the conflict of the spiritual and in that conflict we know that, although
•r do not seem to be winning at present, Islam eventually cannot win
ti ill. And there is greater danger that we shaH fail in faithfully pro­
claiming the message than that God will fail in His mercy for the world
J Islam.

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