[ [A] "The Land of Uz," Macmillan.
CHAPTER III
ITS STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS
To gauge the strength or weakness of pan-Islam as a world-force we may best compare it with its great militant rival, the Christian Church, choosing common ground as the only sound basis of comparison, and remembering that it is pan-Islam we are examining rather than Islam itself—the tree, not the root; and though we cannot study the one without considering the other, Islam has already been extensively discussed by men better qualified than myself to deal with it: the requirements of this work only call for comparison so far as the driving-power of pan-Islam is concerned as a material force.
First of all we must discard common factors. I set the great Shiah schism against the Catholic Church (omitting the word "Roman" as a contradiction in terms) and cancel both for the purposes of comparison. Catholicism, is not, of course, schismatic, otherwise there are points of resemblance, such as observances of saints and shrines, which have permeated the other sects to a certain extent; also the degree of antagonism is about the same. Therefore we can ignore the Catholic Church in this chapter, and when we are talking of pan-Islam we should consider it a Sunnite (or Orthodox) movement, and count the Shiites out, as they do not even recognise the same centre of pilgrimage.
Perhaps the strongest factor in pan-Islam as a political movement or a world-wide fellowship is the Meccan pilgrimage. I have already alluded to its cosmopolitan nature in the previous chapter, but never realised it so much till after the surrender of Jeddah, when stately Bokhariots, jabbering Javanese, Malays, Chinese, Russians, American citizens and South Africans were among those who beset me as stranded pilgrims. This implies a very wide sphere of influence, against which we can only set the well-known immorality and greed which pilgrims complain of at Mecca; a huge influx of cosmopolitan visitors to any centre will generally cause such abuses. On the feast of Arafat there are normally 100,000 pilgrims in the Meccan area who represent 100 million orthodox Moslems throughout the world, while the actual population of the city is only 50,000.
The Arabic language is another strong bond of brotherhood in Islam. I do not mean to say that it is generally "understanded of the people," any more than Latin is throughout the Catholic world; but it is the language of most Sunnites and is moderately understood in Somaliland, East Africa, Java and the Malay peninsula as the language of the Koran; in fact, it is the only written language in Somaliland, and Turkey uses the script though not the tongue.
The daily observances of prayer, with their simple but obligatory ceremonial, and the yearly fast for the month of Ramadhan unite Moslems with the common ties of duty and hardship, as in the comradeship which sailors and soldiers have for each other throughout the world.
Then, again, there is no colour-line in Islam; a negro may rise to place and power (he often does), and usually enjoys the intimate confidence of his master as not readily amenable to local intrigue. Difference of nationality is not stressed except by the Young Turks, who have slighted Semitic Moslems to their own undoing. Contrast this attitude with our Church and estimate the precise amount of Christian brotherhood between an Orthodox Greek, a Welsh Wesleyan, an Ethiopian priest, a Scotch Presbyterian, and an Anglican bishop (since the Kikuyu heresy). Even within the narrow limits of one sect there is nothing like the fellowship one finds in secular societies. Which is the stronger appeal, "Anglican communicant" or "Freemason"? Is a cross or the quadrant and compasses the more potent charm?