REFORM OF ISLAM
And what as to Islam? Is any fusion between this and the other great religions possible? A fusion between Islam and Christianity can only be effected if first of all these two religions (mutually so repugnant) are reformed. Thinking Muslims will more and more come to see that the position assigned by Muḥammad to himself and to the Ḳur'an implies that he had a thoroughly unhistorical mind. In other words he made those exclusive and uncompromising claims under a misconception. There were true apostles or prophets, both speakers and writers, between the generally accepted date of the ministry of Jesus and that of the appearance of Muḥammad, and these true prophets were men of far greater intellectual grasp than the Arabian merchant.
Muslim readers ought therefore to feel it no sacrilege if I advocate the correction of what has thus been mistakenly said. Muḥammad was one of the prophets, not the prophet (who is virtually = the Logos), and the Ḳur'an is only adapted for Arabian tribes, not for all nations of the world.
One of the points in the exhibition of which the Arabian Bible is most imperfect is the love of God, i.e. the very point in which the Ṣufi classical poets are most admirable, though indeed an Arabian poetess, who died 135 Hij., expresses herself already in the most thrilling tones. [Footnote: Von Kremer's Herrschende Ideen des Islams, pp. 64, etc.]
Perhaps one might be content, so far as the Ḳur'an is concerned, with a selection of Suras, supplemented by extracts from other religious classics of Islam. I have often thought that we want both a Catholic Christian lectionary and a Catholic prayer-book. To compile this would be the work not of a prophet, but of a band of interpreters. An exacting work which would be its own reward, and would promote, more perhaps than anything else, the reformation and ultimate blending of the different religions.
Meantime no persecution should be allowed in the reformed Islamic lands. Thankful as we may be for the Christian and Bahaite heroism generated by a persecuting fanaticism, we may well wish that it might be called forth otherwise. Heroic was the imprisonment and death of Captain Conolly (in Bukhara), but heroic also are the lives of many who have spent long years in unhealthy climates, to civilize and moralize those who need their help.