There are essential distinctions also in the ritual of the Eastern and Western Mohammedans. I doubt very much whether, even at Bagdad and Damascus, during the most brilliant period of Islamism, officers (Reis) were daily traversing the streets, stopping everybody in the midst of their daily occupations in order to hear them the prayer Farz-i-Ayin, and punishing the ignorant on the spot. This is actually being done in Bokhara at the present day. In the various ceremonies of circumcision, marriage, and burial, the Central Asiatics have several customs of their own, entirely heterogeneous to western Islam; their daily prayers, which have to be repeated five times, consist here of more Rikats (genuflexions) than in other countries; and it is curious, at the Ezan (call to prayer), the Turkestans most carefully avoid all tune or melody, and recite it in a sort of howl. The manner in which the Ezan is cried in the West, is here declared sinful, and the beautiful, melancholy notes, which, in the silent hour of a moonlit-evening, are heard from the slender minarets on the Bosphorus, fascinating every hearer, would be listened to by the Bokhariot with feelings only of detestation.
In addition to the above let us bear in mind the many mosques, medressas, all filled to overflowing with worshippers, the Karikhane, i.e. houses, where blind men recite the Koran the whole day long, the numerous Khanka, where fanatics roar out their Zikr day and night, and with which institutions every city is crowded; then let us picture to ourselves the various gestures, the severely earnest looks and the whole appearance of the Mollahs, Ishane, Dervishes, Kalenters, and ascetics, one of wild fanaticism, and it might perhaps be possible to form an idea of Bokhara, of this pillar of Islam, these headquarters of an over-strained religious zeal, and where the religion of the Arab Prophet has degenerated into a form, such as the founder no doubt never wished his work should assume. From here it has spread with the same tendencies over Afghanistan to India, Kashmir, and the Chinese Tartary, and northwards as far as Kazan. In all these places the spirit of Bokhara has taken firm root, for Bokhara is their teacher, and neither Constantinople nor Mekka, but Bokhara is looked up to as their sole guide. It is here that our civilization will encounter more serious obstacles than in Western Asia, and Russia most likely has already made this experience with respect to the Nogai Tartars. It would be a matter of regret, if the English Government should not as yet have felt this to be the truth with her 40 millions of Mohammedan subjects in India. The consequences would be sure and inevitable.
So much at present for the difference between Eastern and Western Mohammedanism, and without much research we shall find the principal causes to be as follows:
Firstly, Asia, the chief seat and fountain-head of religious fanaticism, is found, the more we advance eastward, the more true to its ancient type. As in general the inhabitants of India, Thibet, and China are more eccentric, more religiously fanatical, or, in other words, more Asiatic, than the followers of Islam, in the same measure the Eastern Mohammedans are more zealous than their Western co-religionists.
Secondly, the same eccentric fanaticism, which the Central Asiatics displayed when professing the doctrines of Zoroaster, has been the cause why their conversion to Islam cost the Arabs so much time and trouble. It took more than 200 years, before the religion of Mohammed had completely supplanted the old faith. No sooner had the conquerors left a town than the newly-converted inhabitants returned to their old faith, and the town had to be re-conquered and re-converted. But when the iron perseverance of the Arabs had at last succeeded in making them Mohammedans, they attached themselves to the new religion with the same fervour they had manifested in the old. As early as the beginning of the rule of the Samanides, we find in Transoxania men of high reputation, throughout Islam, for their learning and their exemplary piety. Belkh had already then acquired the name of Kubbetül Islam, the dome of Islam. The city and neighbourhood of Bokhara were crowded with the tombs of saints and learned men, and we can easily understand how it happened that these Turkestani cities had in piety and learning become successful rivals of Bagdad, the then centre of the Mohammedan world, where devotional zeal was eclipsed by the splendour of worldly grandeur.
After the extinction of the dynasty of the Samanides, but especially during the Mongol conquests, no doubt all religious life suffered a temporary check, but the edifice has never been shaken to its foundations as in Bagdad, where Helagu, in destroying the phantom caliphate of Motasimbillah, broke the chief strength of Islam and scattered it to the winds. In Transoxania, on the other hand, its energies were being silently strengthened and matured. Timur aimed at making his native home the chief seat of Mohammedan learning, and his work was continued, though in a different spirit, by the rulers of the Sheibani dynasty. It can therefore excite no wonder that Bokhara has been able to preserve to the present day, that precise standard of religious asceticism which characterized Islam in the middle ages.
Thirdly, the great body of the Sunnites has been separated by the schism of Persia practically, if not morally, into two distinct parts, and the separation is certain to continue. The pilgrimages to the holy cities of Arabia have by no means compensated for the undoubtedly greater intercourse, which, in the times of the caliphat, could be carried on without fear of disturbance from the Eastern to the Western frontier of Islam. Sectarian animosity has been purposely kept alive, and has rendered Persia a dangerous country to any Sunnitish traveller. Whilst great political changes, as well as constant intercourse with Christian Europe, combined to bring the western Sunnites under the influence of foreign social relations, the Eastern Sunnites, left entirely to themselves, had no opportunity offered them of introducing either changes or reforms. They looked with quite as much abhorrence as the Chinese and Hindoos upon heretical Persia, the only country which afforded them the means of communication with the West.
The observation which I have offered, that the influences of European Christianity have divided western from eastern Islam in many cardinal aspects of faith, may lead many of our readers to hope, that the ever-increasing communication and interchange of ideas will gradually effect a total transformation in Asia, or, as many sanguine travellers of modern times believe, that Asia will be Europeanised.
The question is naturally one of interest to every one who wishes (and who does not wish it) for an improvement of the social relations in Asia, and far too important for a mere passing examination. Nevertheless, in order to obviate certain misinterpretations or false constructions, we must remark, that the above observation is not to be regarded as offering an infallible test of Western Mohammedan advancement. We have to be careful, not to mistake for precious metal the tinsel of European civilisation and modes of thought, with which Young Turkey and Persia endeavour to garnish their innate barbarism. I must confess the result of European influence in these countries is hitherto alas! very small and ineffectual. The inexperienced eye of a tourist is deceived by their having partly adopted our dress and furniture, but all else is now just as it was in olden times, and will probably continue so for a very long time to come.
It is taken for granted that our relations, as Europeans with Asia, are those, as it were, between a son and his mother, the latter possessing a certain amount of superstition, with which she finds it difficult to part. From Asia we received our descent, mentally and materially, as well as our education, but nobody would reproach us with ingratitude or want of respect, if we reject the views and opinions of "our aged parent," and for her own benefit occasionally press upon her our ideas instead. I use purposely the expression "press upon," for whatever has been adopted of European civilisation in Asia up to the present day, has not been the result, either of conviction or a liking for our social relations, but simply that of fear. A forced love never lasts, and were we to base our speculations as to the future of the whole of Asia upon the changes hitherto effected in western Asia, they would inevitably prove fallacious.