THE PROBLEMS OF MUHAMMADANISM 523 



though the French Revolution had been matured and carried through 

 by an international secret association of philosophers and scientists, 

 with a view eventually to free the whole world from all other control 

 than that of philosophy and science? If we can imagine that the 

 Encyclopedists had not simply contributed explosive ideas to their 

 time, but had formed a vast and all pervasive society, honeycombing 

 the ground under the ancient institutions and ideas, we shall have 

 a close analogy to this hypothesis. In the atmosphere of the time, 

 there is much which points its way, and the evidence for it is steadily 

 growing, mad as it may seem. We have learned, for example, to 

 recognize in the Assassins, who sprang from the Fatimids, no simple 

 sect of stranglers, or Vehmgericht of peculiar ability and vitality, 

 but also a fraternity which, in spite of the truth of its name, cherished 

 experimental science and investigation in its mountain fortresses. 

 In contact, too, with both Fatimids and Assassins we find the purely 

 philosophic fraternity of the Sincere Brethren of al-Basra, which was 

 founded to promote study and education among the people. Nor is 

 this question simply of Muslim interest. It should lie close to every 

 student of medieval Europe. For it may be asked, what part in this 

 scheme had the Templars and the other knightly orders so freely 

 accused of heresy and unbelief? Were they, too, late pupils of the 

 Fatimid propagandists? Did the tentacles of the conspiracy run, in 

 half-unconscious growth, out into Europe? No one who has come 

 to recognize how closely Europe and medieval Islam were inter- 

 dependent, in strange, underground fashions, will venture to deny 

 this offhand. The question is there, and can be solved only by com- 

 bined studies. It would be hard to lay too great stress on the close 

 inter-relation of these fields of investigation and on the necessity of 

 united and cooperative efforts. 



Another penumbral patch in our knowledge of Islam, which may 

 be worth a bare mention because it, too, emphasizes the necessity 

 for a mutual understanding and cooperation, lies in the history of 

 the mystical development. Mysticism, in Islam, ran early to ascet- 

 icism; somewhat later to pantheism; later still to mingled schools 

 exhibiting now one, now the other side. As written in Arabic, it 

 tended to cling to the earlier, more conservative phase; in Persian 

 and Turkish which always follows Persian it drifted off in 

 fanciful dreams of the identity of the individual, lost in the One. 

 But it is comparatively rare to find a Persianist who is equally read 

 in Arabic, or an Arabist who can recognize at once the source of a 

 Persian reference or idea. As a consequence, the tendency has been 

 for these schools to be studied by different men, who were in little 

 touch with one another's labors, and their presentation of the differ- 

 ent phases has tended to one-sidedness. When students of Islam, 

 then, in its different languages come together; when they, further, 



