To be frank, the present-day followers of the Prophet--those who have not been brought under the influence of European civilisation--have far less sympathy with the opinions expressed in the opening paragraph, than had Muhammad himself. Humanly speaking, the British crusade against slavery is not only beyond their comprehension--it is also above it. Their outlook on life, with its rights, its limitations, and its responsibilities, differs fundamentally from that of the followers of the Founder of Christianity. The Christian, who speaks of himself as “a child of God and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven,” believes, if we misinterpret him not, that the first step is with him, and the road with God. In other words, he holds the inspiriting belief, which is, indeed, the source of all his worldly progress and his prosperity, that God has given him the right to act of his own initiative, but not the power--or only a circumscribed power--to foresee whither his actions will lead him. Therefore, in calling himself “a child of God,” he has chosen the title that would best express his independence and his limitations. The Muhammadan, on the other hand, cannot admit that he has the power to move of his own free will, much less the right to do so. He holds that every true Muslim is, and must be, “the slave of God,” the theory of free-will being to the Muslim trend of thought so antagonistic that it has come to bear much the same meaning as lawlessness. Hence his aversion from Europe and all its ways. “How,” he asks, “can morality and law flourish in a continent, in which thought is free, in which women are free, in which God’s will is superseded by the will of man? Freedom? I say we are all the slaves of God, even when we are the slaves of other men. There is not one creature who is free to act. Only the Creator is free. It is our predestined lot to be submissive to His will.”