The mass of the Ottoman Haj is made up of Kurds, Syrians, Albanians, Circassians, Lazis, and Tartars from Russia and the Khanates, of everything rather than real Turks. Nor are those that come distinguished greatly for their piety or learning. The school of St. Sophia at Constantinople has lost its old reputation as a seat of religious knowledge; and its Ulema are known to be more occupied with the pursuit of Court patronage than with any other science. So much indeed is this the case that serious students often prefer a residence at Bokhara, or even in the heretical schools of Persia, as a more real road to learning. Turkey proper boasts at the present day few theologians of note, and still fewer independent thinkers.
The Egyptian Haj is far more flourishing. Speaking the language of Arabia, the citizen of Cairo is more at home in the holy places than any inhabitant of the northern towns can be. The customs of Hejaz are very nearly his own customs, and its climate not much more severe than his. Cairo, too, can boast a far more ancient political connection with Mecca than Constantinople can, for as early as the twelfth century the Sultans of Egypt were protectors of the holy places, while even since the Ottoman conquest, the Caliph's authority in Arabia has been almost uninterruptedly interpreted by his representative at Cairo. So lately as 1840 this was the position of things at Mecca, and it is only since the opening of the Suez Canal that direct administration from Constantinople has been seriously attempted. To the present day the Viceroy of Egypt shares with the Sultan the privilege of sending a mahmal, or camel litter, to Mecca every year with a covering for the Kaaba. Moreover the Azhar mosque of Cairo is the great university of Arabic-speaking races, and its Ulema have the highest reputation of any in Islam. Egyptian influence, therefore, must be reckoned as an important element in the forces which make up Mohammedan opinion. The late Khedive, it is true, did much to impair this by his infidelity and his coquetteries with Europe, and under his reign the Egyptian Haj fell to a low level; but Mohammed Towfik, who is a sincere, though liberal Mussulman, has already restored much of his country's prestige at Mecca, and it is not unlikely that in time to come Egypt, grown materially prosperous, may once more take a leading part in the politics of Islam.[3] But of this later.
All three schools of theology are taught in the Azhar mosque, and Egyptians are divided, according to their class, between them. The Viceroy and the ruling clique, men of Ottoman origin, are Hanefites, and so too are the descendants of the Circassian Beys, but the leading merchants of Cairo and the common people of that city are Shafites, while the fellahin of the Delta are almost entirely Malekite. Malekite, too, are the tribes west of the Nile, following the general rule of the population of Africa.[4]
The Malekite school of religious thought differs widely from the Hanefite. If the latter has been described as the high Church party of Islam, this must be described as the low. It is puritanical, fierce in its dogma, severe in its morals, and those who profess it are undoubtedly the most fervent, the most fanatical of believers. They represent more nearly than any other Mussulmans the ancient earnestness of the Prophet's companions, and the sword in their hand is ever the sword of God. Piety too, ostensible and sincere, is found everywhere among the Malekites. Abd el Kader, the soldier saint, is their type; and holy men by hereditary profession abound among them.
The Malekites believe with earnest faith in things supernatural, dreaming prophetic dreams, and seeing miracles performed as every-day occurrences. With the Arabs of Africa, unlike their kinsmen in Arabia itself, to pray and fast is still a severe duty, and no class of Mussulmans are more devout on pilgrimage. In Algiers and Morocco it is as common for a young man of fortune to build a mosque as it is for him to keep a large stud of horses. To do so poses him in the world, and a life of prayer is strictly a life of fashion. With regard to morals he is severe where the Koran is severe, indulgent where it indulges. Wine with him is an abomination, and asceticism with regard to meat and tobacco is often practised by him. On the whole he is respectable and respected; but the reforms he would impose on Islam are too purely reactive to be altogether acceptable to the mass of Mohammedans or suited to the urgent necessities of the age. It is conceivable, however, that should the revival of Islam take the form of a religious war, the races of Africa may be found taking the leading part in it. Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco contain hardy races of fighting men who may yet trouble Europe; and fifty years of rule have not yet assimilated the French Sahara.
It is difficult to gain accurate statistics as to the proportion of pilgrims sent to Mecca by these various States, but it would seem the Algerian pilgrimage is the smallest. This is due mainly to hindrances raised by the French Government, whose policy it is to isolate their province from the rest of the Mussulman world. An Algerian pilgrim is called upon to produce the sum of 1000 francs before he is permitted to embark for Jeddah, and he is subjected to various other needless formalities. Still the number sent is large and their fervour undoubted, though the upper classes, from a fear of losing credit with the French authorities, rather hold aloof.
The mainstay of the Mogrebbin Haj are the Moors. These have an immense name for zeal and religious courage at Mecca, and for the great scrupulosity with which they perform their religious duties. There is too among the Moors a far wider level of theological education than among most Mussulmans. I made acquaintance while at Jeddah with a young Arab from Shinghiat in Senegal who, Bedouin as he was, was an Alem, and one sufficiently well versed in the Sheriat to be referred to more than once in my presence on points of religious law and literature. I expressed my surprise at finding a Bedouin thus learned, for he was evidently an Arab of the Arabs, but he told me his was no exceptional position, and that most Bedouins in Southern Morocco could read the Koran. The Moors would have a still higher position in Islam than that already given them were it not that they are on one point at variance with the mass of Sunites. They do not acknowledge the modern Caliphate. Those therefore of the Sunites who have acknowledged the Ottoman claim are at issue with the Moors. On all other points, however, the Moors are Sunites of the Sunites.
From the Moor to the negro is but a step, though it is a step of race, perhaps of species. The political and religious connection of Morocco with the Soudan is a very close one, and, whatever may be the future of the Mediterranean provinces fronting the Spanish coast, it cannot be doubted that the Moorish form of Mohammedanism will be perpetuated in Central Africa. It is there, indeed, that Islam has the best certainty of expansion and the fairest field for a propagation of its creed. Statistics, if they could be obtained, would, I am convinced, show an immense Mohammedan progress within the last hundred years among the negro races, nor is this to be wondered at. Islam has so much to offer to the children of Ham that it cannot fail to win them—so much more than any form of Christianity or European progress can give.
The Christian missionary makes his way slowly in Africa. He has no true brotherhood to offer the negro except in another life. He makes no appeal to a present sense of dignity in the man he would convert. What Christian missionary takes a negress to wife or sits with the negro wholly as an equal at meat? Their relations remain at best those of teacher with taught, master with servant, grown man with child. The Mohammedan missionary from Morocco meanwhile stands on a different footing. He says to the negro, "Come up and sit beside me. Give me your daughter and take mine. All who pronounce the formula of Islam are equal in this world and in the next." In becoming a Mussulman even a slave acquires immediate dignity and the right to despise all men, whatever their colour, who are not as himself. This is a bribe in the hand of the preacher of the Koran, and one which has never appealed in vain to the enslaved races of the world.[5] Central Africa then may be counted on as the inheritance of Islam at no very distant day. It is already said to count ten millions of Moslems.
The Shafite school, the third of the four "orthodox sects," is the most flourishing of all in point of numbers, and it has characteristics which mark it out as the one best adapted to survive in the struggle which is impending between the schools of religious thought in Islam. The Shafites may be compared to our broad Church, though without its immediate tendency to infidelity. With the Shafites there is a disposition to widen rather than to narrow the area of theology. The Hanefites and Malekites proclaim loudly that inquiry has been closed and change is impossible, but the Shafites are inclined to seek a new mujtahed who shall reconcile Islam with the modern conditions of the world. They feel that there is something wrong in things as they are, for Islam is no longer politically prosperous, and they would see it united once more and reorganized even at the expense of some dogmatic concessions. I know that many even of the Shafites themselves will deny this, for no Mussulman will willingly acknowledge that he is an advocate of change; but it is unquestionable that among members of their school such ideas are more frequently found than with the others.