[[13]] One of the Moslem commentators on the Korân (Ibn Khaldun) says: 'Dieu a implanté le bien et le mal dans la nature humaine, ainsi qu'il l'a dit lui-même dans le Korân: la perversité et la vertu arrivent à l'âme humaine par l'inspiration de Dieu.'—French translation from the Arabic in Notices et Extraits de la Bibliothèque Impériale de France, vol. xix. p. 268.
[[14]] Dr. Porter, Five Years in Damascus, vol. i. p. 141.
CHAPTER IX
'THE CHALLENGE OF ISLAM'
'Man's part
Is plain, to send love forth, astray, perhaps,
No matter:—He has done his part.'
ROBERT BROWNING.
If this book has carried its readers along any distance at all they will have recognized two facts: Islam's tremendous power, not only as a sword, but as a creed, and Islam's failure to lift nations and men up to a higher life.
There is one truth yet which we must face, and perhaps we shall see its meaning best if we turn it into parable.
A Parable.
There was a great university once that numbered many teachers and a myriad scholars. The teachers were, for the most part, wise and good and apt to teach, but the wisest would confess that there was much he did not know, whole realms of knowledge he had never seen. Their teachings varied very greatly; but most of the wisest and best agreed in foretelling a Teacher to come, wiser and truer than them all, teaching not as they from their own little corners of the truth, but gathering up, as it were, the light of their shaded and coloured lanterns into the white light of a glorious sun. So they foretold Him, and so He came. And when He taught, the scholars said: 'Did ever man speak like this Man?' and as they read His life they saw the Truth in practice. Men were no more just creatures of this earth: they had come from God, and God had come from Heaven to win them back to Himself.