A Challenge from West Africa '_Where Moslem mosque and pagan temple are side by side._' Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer and Dr. Imad-ud-Din '_Strong men, missionary and convert._' Moslem Boy-Faces (Tunis) '_What have we Christians that we can say to them?_' The Mohammedan World To-day (_map_) {1} THE STORY OF ISLAM CHAPTER I 'YOUTH AND ITS SCHOOLING' 'The boy is father of the man.' 'Islam was born in the desert.' EDWIN ARNOLD. [Sidenote: Mecca.] Close to the focus of three great continents, where East meets West and North meets South, Asia almost touching both Africa and Europe, lies the great unknown country of Arabia, the 'Land of the Desert.' The long, low coast-line of its western shore is familiar enough to all who travel to the East. About seventy miles behind that coast lies a wild chain of desert mountains. Here, in a valley snuggling among massive peaks, is an Arab town, a kind of mountain fastness, lying in an amphitheatre of rugged hills. It marks the spot, so the Arab legend runs, where long years ago Hagar the {2} bondwoman laid her son, parched and dying of a desert thirst, while she drew away out of reach of his cries, and 'lifted up her voice and wept.' Here, too, is the well from which she filled her bottle and gave the lad to drink, reverenced to-day by all good Arabs as the sacred well of Zemzem. [Sidenote: Mohammed's Birth 570 A.D.] In this town of Mecca there lived in the year 570 A.D. a young Arab widow mother. She had not been married long when her husband Abdallah joined a caravan on a long trading journey up to Syria. On his way back he sickened of some desert fever and died, and a son was born to her after the father's death. The child's grandfather was a person of considerable importance, the patriarchal head of the ruling clan, the Koreish. He took the boy in his arms and went to the sacred temple of Mecca, and gave thanks to God. The child was named Mohammed. [Sidenote: Childhood.]