When we also consider how early in Islamic history the Caliphate split as a temporal power, and the difficulty which even the early Caliphs (with all their prestige) had to keep order in Arabia, it should engender caution in experiments toward even partial centralisation of control: apart from the fact that they might develop along lines diverging from the recognised principles of self-determination in small States, they could land us into a humiliating _impasse_ or an armed expedition. We parried the Turco-German efforts to turn pan-Islam against us, thanks to our circumspect attitude with regard to Moslems, but a genuine movement based on any apparent aggression of ours in Arabia proper might be a more serious matter. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote B: "_Arabia Infelix_," Macmillan.] CHAPTER IV MOSLEM AND MISSIONARY Having weighed the influence which pan-Islam can wield as a popular movement, we will now consider the human factors which have built it up. Just as we used Christendom as a test-gauge of pan-Islam, so now we will compare the activities of Moslems (who do their own proselytising) with those of Christian missionaries, grouping with them our laity so far as their example may be placed in the scales for or against the influence of Christendom. To do this with the breadth of view which the question demands we will examine these human factors throughout the world wherever they are involved in opposition to each other. We shall thus avoid the confined outlook which teaches Europeans in Asia Minor to look on Turks as typical Moslems to the exclusion of all others, or makes Anglo-Egyptians talk of country-folk in Egypt as Arabs and their language as the standard of Arabic, or engenders the Anglo-Indian tendency of regarding a scantily-dressed paramount chief from the Aden hinterland as an obscure _jungliwala_ because, in civilised India, an eminent Moslem dresses in accordance with our conception of the part. We can leave the western hemisphere out of this inquiry, for though the greatest missionary effort against Islam is engendered in the United States, it manifests itself in the eastern hemisphere, and the Moslem population in both the Americas is too small and quiescent to be considered a factor. We will begin with England and work eastward to the edge of the Moslem world. At first glance the idea of England as an arena where two great religious forces meet seems rather far-fetched, but there is more Moslem activity in some of our English towns than people imagine. Turning over some files of the _Kibla_ (a Meccan newspaper), one comes across passages like the following:--