[4] I make a difference between Islam and Muhammadanism. The latter is not pure Islam. It has forgotten the _spirit_ of Islam and remembers only the _letter_ of its law. "The dry bones of a religion are nothing; the spirit that quickens the bones is all." See Note 5. [5] There is no place in Islam for either priests or monks. Yet the Muhammadanism of to-day has both. There are Tartuffes and Pecksniffs in this religion as well as in any other religion. [6] This is the real reason of the political and social weakness of most Islamic countries of our own times. [7] The teaching of Muhammad has been admirably summarised by a Christian writer as follows:-- "There is no deity but God. He created the Universe and rules it with love and mercy. He alone is to be worshipped; in Him confidence is to be placed in time of adversity. There must be no murmurings at His decrees; life--your own and others dearer than your own--must be placed in His hands in trust and love." I do not believe that there is any monotheistic religion in the world which will dissent from this teaching. The writer (in the _Harmsworth Encyclopedia_) goes on to say:-- "The fatalism which has come to be regarded as part of the Moslem creed had no place in the system established by Muhammad who again and again distinctly and emphatically repudiated the idea. Muhammad taught _reform_, not _revolution_." In these days of political unrest I cannot impress on you too strongly the meaning of the last sentence in which I have italicised two words. [8] See p. 33 para. 6. [9] The Author has not kept copies of these letters.--_Ed._ [10] The Qur'an speaks very highly of Jesus:-- [Arabic: smuhu lmasīḥu ʾīsā bnu maryama waǧīhan fī d-dunyā wa-l-ʾāḫirati wa-mina l-muqarrabīn] "His name is Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, illustrious both in this and in the next world. He is one of those who have near access to God."--iii. 40. [11] Published and sold by the Rationalistic Press, London for 6d. [12] The translation of the Sura in this analysis is slightly different from that given in the succeeding page.--_Ed._ [13] "It is strange": says Havelock Ellis, "men seek to be, or to seem, atheists, agnostics, cynics, pessimists; at the core of all these things lurks religion.... The men who have most finely felt the pulse of the world and have, in their turn, most effectively stirred its pulse, are religious men."--_New Spirit, 228._ [14] The word "religion" also means a system of beliefs and rites pertaining to them. I do not use the word in that sense here. [15] _i.e._, the world such as we perceive and conceive it. [16] "I know that even the unaided reason, when correctly exercised, leads to a belief in God, in the immortality of the soul, and in a future retribution"--_Cardinal Newman._