To say, then, that Islam has always been inflexibly opposed to the influence of foreign science, or law, or philosophy, or theology when these elements enabled it “to mould its intellectual heritage” and adjust itself to an alien spirit or a new environment is not in consonance with the facts of history. So far, indeed, is this from the truth that “it may safely be said that there is nothing more extraordinary in the whole history of Islam than the way in which the theory of the verbal inspiration of the Koran and the consequent stereotyped and unalterable nature of its precepts have, by ingenuity, by legal fictions, by the ‘Sunna,’ or traditional sayings of Mohammed or by _responsa prudentum_ been accommodated to the changing circumstances and the various degrees of civilization of the nations which profess it.”[256] Such being the case, one is not surprised in finding so distinguished a writer as Stanley Lane-Poole making the categorical assertion that “the faith of Islam has passed through more phases and experienced greater revolutions than perhaps any other of the religions of the world.”[257] No less misleading and mischievous are the continuously repeated statements that the days of Mussulman missionary activity have long since passed; that Mussulman zeal for propagating the teachings of the Koran and the Prophet no longer exists; that Pan-Islamism, as a religious force with which Christianity must reckon, was long ago dealt its death blow in the Gulf of Lepanto by Don Juan of Austria and under the walls of Vienna by the immortal Sobieski. But still, again, what are the facts? It is true that Moslem canon law still divides the world into _Dar al-Islam_--Abode of Islam--and _Dar al-harb_--Abode of war, according as these two parts are in the possession of Mohammedanism or are yet to be won to it by the sword, yet it is, nevertheless, equally true that this distinction is now practically a dead letter and that the Christian Powers of the world are now able to curtail Islam’s schemes of territorial expansion and render forever impossible all hopes of world conquest. But, although Islam as a political and military power is no longer to be apprehended--at least for the present--it is not true that she has discontinued her missionary activities or that her propaganda in behalf of the religion of the Prophet is less determined than it was in the days of Saladin or Solyman the Magnificent. We have only to scan the authentic tokens that come to us from every quarter of the globe to be convinced that Pan-Islamism is to-day a greater missionary force--peacefully aggressive but fanatically persistent--than it has perhaps ever been in any period of her history.[258]