Many there are who account for the wide spread of Islam, which now numbers two hundred and fifty million adherents, by declaring that it is an easy and sensual religion. But even good Padre Marracci, who was one of the first to make an exhaustive study of the religion of Mohammed, saw that this explanation was not satisfactory.[275] The obligation incumbent on every Mussulman to give liberal alms--which is imposed both by the Koran and by tradition; to observe the strict and very trying fast of Ramadan,--abstaining during the day from water and tobacco even though engaged in the severest kinds of manual labor, and to make at least once during his lifetime the arduous and perilous pilgrimage to Medina and Mecca, would seem rather to act as an effective deterrent to the acceptance of the religion of the Prophet. To those who account for the success of Islam on the theory that “it attracts by pandering to the self-indulgence of men,” Voltaire addresses the pertinent question: Were there imposed upon you a law that you should neither eat nor drink from four in the morning until ten at night through the whole month of July; ... that you should abstain from wine and gaming under penalty of damnation; that you should make a pilgrimage across burning deserts; that you should bestow at least two and a half _per cent_ of your revenue on the poor; and that having been accustomed to eighteen wives, you should suddenly be limited to four--would you call this a sensual religion?[276] Those who lay such stress on self-indulgence as a factor in the success of Mohammedanism forget that “a motive of sensuality could never, of itself, make the fortune of a religion.” They forget what a strong appeal the very simplicity of the Moslem creed makes to a man naturally religious. For, reduced to its simplest expression, Mohammedanism embraces but two fundamental dogmas--belief in God and belief in a future life. “A creed so precise, so stripped of all theological complexities and consequently so accessible to the ordinary understanding, might be expected to possess and does indeed possess a marvelous power of winning its way into the consciences of men.” They forget that proselytism is to every Mussulman in a certain measure innate; that every follower of Mohammed is by nature a missionary; that in the pursuit of this avocation he spares neither labor nor expense; that so intense is his conviction that one is forced to “notice and admire the kind of chivalrous pride which the average Mohammedan takes in his faith.”[277]