"Ishmael Ameer is a Koranist—that is to say, one who takes the Koran as the basis of belief and keeps an open mind about tradition." "I know," said Gordon. "We have people like that among Christians—people who take the Bible as the basis of faith and turn their backs on dogma." "Ishmael Ameer reads the Koran by the spirit, not the letter." "We have people like that too—the letter killeth, you know, the spirit maketh alive." "Ishmael Ameer thinks Islam should advance with advancing progress." "There again we are with you, O Sheikh—we have people of the same kind in Christianity." "Ishmael Ameer thinks slavery, the seclusion of women, divorce, and polygamy are as much opposed to the teaching of Mohammed as to the progress of society." "Excellent! My father says the same thing. _Wallahi_! (I assure you!) Or rather, he holds that Islam can never take its place as the religion of great progressive nations until it rids itself of these evils." "Ishmael Ameer thinks the corruptions of Islam are the work of the partisans of the old barbaric ideas, who are associating the cause of religion with their own interests and passions." "Splendid! Do you know the Consul-General is always saying that, sir?" "Ishmael Ameer believes that if God wills it (praise be to Him, the Exalted One!) the day is not distant when an appeal to the Prophet’s own words will regenerate Islam, and banish the Caliphs and Sultans whose selfishness and sensuality keep it in bondage to the powers of darkness." "Really," said Gordon, rising impetuously to his feet, "if Ishmael Ameer says this, he is the man Egypt, India, the whole Mohammedan world, is waiting for. No wonder men like the Cadi are trying to destroy him, though that’s only an instinct of self-preservation—but my father, the Consul-General ... What is there in all this to create ... Why should such teaching set Moslem against Christian?" "Ishmael Ameer, O my brother," the Chancellor continued with the same soft voice, "thinks Islam is not the only faith that has departed from the spirit of its founder." "True!" "If Islam for its handmaidens has divorce and polygamy, Christianity has drunkenness and prostitution." "No doubt—certainly." "Coming out of the East, out of the desert, Ishmael Ameer sees in the Christianity of the West a contradiction of every principle for which your great Master fought and suffered." Gordon sat down again.