This utterance ever again obtrudes itself on my memory in connexion with the events that are taking place at present. Large groups of men, kept apart by varying political and economic interests, have for years and years consumed an important part of their intellectual and material resources in devising means by which, in the fulness of time, they might destroy each other; and now, at last, the long-expected spark has fallen on the accumulated fuel. Every one of the belligerents is horrified by the idea of responsibility for the crimes against mankind which they are perpetrating in common. The culture they shared with each other has been shelved and finds its only expression in a dull series of contentions where each one charges the other with the guilt of what they have all carefully planned together. The sceptical irony of my Turkish friend was not unjustified. Not that it teaches us anything new. Only in this respect might his utterance be somewhat surprising to those of us who are not familiar with the Mohammedan world, that it shows a Turk recognizing without restriction general religious peace and freedom of thought as an undisputed possession. Considered from this point of view the words quoted here are the more valuable, as they express with tolerable accuracy the opinion of all Turkish intellectuals on the problem of religion. This tolerance seems irreconcilable with the prescriptions of the Mohammedan law concerning the attitude towards the adherents of other religions. For, according to this law, which as a whole claims divine authority, the whole world of man is to be subjected to the Mohammedan community and is also, as far as possible, to be incorporated by it in a spiritual sense. That this aim may be attained, the community of the faithful is to do _jihâd_, _i. e._, carry on a _holy war_ against all that are still living outside the circle of its authority. The leadership in the _jihâd_, the determination of time, place, and means, is one of the chief duties of the head of the community, the Caliph, the successor of Mohammed as supreme governor, supreme judge, and supreme commander of all the Moslims. As the interests of Islâm in his opinion require it, he is to carry on this war with more or less energy or even temporarily to desist from it. Under no circumstances may he agree to a suspension of the offensive against a nation of unbelievers for more than ten years. Provided they subject themselves to the Mohammedan state-authority and are satisfied with the position of subjects without civic rights, adherents of the Jewish and of the Christian religion, and of such religions as obtain equal recognition with those, are granted the exercise of their religion, though with certain restrictions. In the case of real heathens subjection must be accompanied by conversion.