[FN#325] Of the doctrine of the Fall the heretic Marcion wrote: “The Deity must either be deficient in goodness if he willed, in prescience if he did not foresee, or in power if he did not prevent it.”
[FN#326] In his charming book, “India Revisited.”
[FN#327] This is the answer to those who contend with much truth that the moderns are by no means superior to the ancients of Europe: they look at the results of only 3000 years instead of 30,000 or 300,000.
[FN#328] As a maxim the saying is attributed to the Duc de Lévis, but it is much older.
[FN#329] There are a few, but only a few, frightful exceptions to this rule, especially in the case of Khálid bin Walíd, the Sword of Allah, and his ferocious friend, Darár ibn al-Azwar. But their cruel excesses were loudly blamed by the Moslems, and Caliph Omar only obeyed the popular voice in superseding the fierce and furious Khalid by the mild and merciful Abú Obaydah.
[FN#330] This too when St. Paul sends the Christian slave
Onesimus back to his unbelieving (?) master, Philemon; which in
Al-Islam would have created a scandal.
[FN#331] This too when the Founder of Christianity talks of “Eating and drinking at his table!” (Luke xxn. 29.) My notes have often touched upon this inveterate prejudice the result, like the soul-less woman of Al-Islam, of ad captandum, pious fraud. “No soul knoweth what joy of the eyes is reserved for the good in recompense for their works” (Koran xxxn. 17) is surely as “spiritual” as St. Paul (I Cor. ii., 9). Some lies, however are very long-lived, especially those begotten by self interest.
[FN#332] I have elsewhere noted its strict conservatism which, however, it shares with all Eastern faiths in the East. But progress, not quietism, is the principle which governs humanity and it is favoured by events of most different nature. In Egypt the rule of Mohammed Ali the Great and in Syria the Massacre of Damascus (1860) have greatly modified the constitution of Al- Islam throughout the nearer East.
[FN#333] Chapt. viii. “Narrative of a Year’s Journey through
Central and Eastern Arabia;” London, Macmillan, 1865.
[FN#334] The Soc. Jesu has, I believe, a traditional conviction that converts of Israelitic blood bring only misfortune to the Order.