“That is all very well,” I said; “but our religion says that if you don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus you will also not go to paradise; that is why I am contending that people can not be judged by their respective faiths, but by their actions.”
“But your religion is wrong,” he said finally.
I was on the point of continuing the argument, but the look in his eyes made me desist. This belief, to him, was conclusive evidence.
And that is Islam, that is the Arab; his faith is absolute, and his opinion of other religions is quite simple—they don’t exist.
“Why,” they say, “we believe in Moses and Aaron and Jacob and Elijah and Jesus; they are all great prophets who preceded ours; what more do you want?”
A wall—a blank wall which no one can pierce without becoming a Mohammedan. Et encore. . . .
The more one lives with these people the more apparent this becomes, and if in this book the impressions given differ from those which have struck others, perhaps it is because only one side of the character has been seen, the character allowed to be seen by the Roumi.
I know the Arabs well, I know them intimately, but I have not the remotest idea what they think of me, and I never shall have.
There may be future developments of this book, with possible reversal of certain opinions, but as far as the working of the Arab brain is concerned, I know that I have penetrated as far as I ever shall. Let the reader, therefore, close this volume realizing the task which has been before the author—who, after spending over five years constantly studying these people, has arrived at this somewhat negative conclusion.
THE END