This may seem to some too bold an assertion. Let us see. According to the Koran, the woman must be veiled lest any man look at her and lust after her. She is not to talk with any man other than her nearest relatives. A Moslem must not drink wine or liquor at all, in order that he may not drink too much. There should be no liberty of Press, nor of speech, nor of association, lest any seditious utterance or movement be the outcome. In a word, man must be watched from above, governed, repressed, in order that he may not have any occasion to sin. He is not to be left free, he is not to govern himself, but remain under tutelage, like a child. The consequence is that the Moslem is condemned to perpetual infancy as a moral creature; his individuality, his will power remain undeveloped. Compare that with the moral law of Christianity. Christianity is the fight of man's deeper, true nature against his animal or lower nature. It is a healthful exercise by which his soul grows in grace and strength and will power, building up a Christlike character, that is the ideal of his life. The more he fights, the greater and surer becomes the supremacy of his higher nature over the lower. Just the reverse of this is the spiritual course of a Moslem. He does not aspire at all at purity or moral freedom, but, on the contrary, he believes that by certain acts he can so please Allah and become his friend as to get the privilege of indulging in things forbidden to the common "faithful." I know this to be the belief among the learned Moslems. It has its ground in the Koran itself--in the fact that Mohammed the "Prophet" was granted such privileges. "O Prophet!" says the Koranic oracle, "we have allowed thee thy wives, unto whom thou hast given their dower, and also the slaves which thy right hand possesseth, of the booty which God hath granted thee; and the daughters of thy uncle, and the daughters of thy aunts, both on thy father's side and on thy mother's side, who have fled with thee from Mecca, and any other believing woman, if she give herself unto the prophet; in case the prophet desireth to take her to wife. This is a peculiar privilege granted unto thee, above the rest of the true believers. (Koran, Chapter XXXIII.) Another privilege, necessitated by the above, is thus declared: "Thou mayest postpone the turn of such of thy wives as thou shalt please, in being called to thy bed; and thou mayest take unto thee her whom thou shalt please ..., and it shall be no crime in thee." A further affirmation of the peculiar privilege: "O Prophet, why holdest thou that to be prohibited which God hath allowed thee, seeking to please thy wives?" (Chapter LXVI.)