In the eighth and last chapter Major Leonard speaks of the debt Europe owes to Islam, and endeavours to show that the religion of Mohammed, far from being antagonistic to human development, has materially helped in the progress of the world. It is part of Major Leonard’s thesis that Christianity and Islam belong to “different spheres of influence”; in other words, whilst Christianity is suited to certain races, Islam is peculiarly suited to others. Races and peoples adapt their religions to their own respective advancement, and the same religion varies among different communities according to the stage of their development. The Christianity of the barbarous South American Gaucho is not the same as that of the cultured Englishman, nor is the Islam of the cultivated Moslem identical with that professed by ignorant followers of the Faith. But it would be hard to say that philosophical Christianity exactly answers the needs of the lower strata of Christendom to whom the positive directions of a simple practical faith might appeal with greater force. Might not Islam, with its emphatic prohibition of drink, the primary cause of all the vice and crime in Europe, prove a far greater civilizing agency in the slums of European cities, and do far more good in reclaiming the debased, than a religion which does not possess that positive character and is only adapted for idealistic minds? Whatever view a rationalist may hold on this point, I feel that Major Leonard has laid the world of literature under a debt for his admirable monograph on a peculiarly interesting subject. AMEER ALI. CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I THE SO-CALLED MOSLEM MENACE! 13 CHAPTER II AN OUTLINE OF MOHAMMED’S TEMPERAMENT AND CHARACTERISTICS 23 CHAPTER III THE ENVIRONMENT THAT MOULDED MOHAMMED 51 CHAPTER IV MOHAMMED’S PRINCIPLES AND BELIEFS 71 CHAPTER V THE MATERIAL AND OTHER SIDES OF THE PROPHET’S CHARACTER 84 CHAPTER VI A BRIEF SUMMARY OF MOHAMMED’S WORK AND WORTH 101 CHAPTER VII MOSLEM MORALITY AND CHRISTENDOM’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS ISLAM 121 CHAPTER VIII EUROPE’S DEBT TO ISLAM: ETHNIC SPHERES OF INFLUENCE 142 CHAPTER I THE SO-CALLED MOSLEM MENACE!