THE PROBLEMS OF MUHAMMADANISM 533 



plished it can be, there will be some hope of a permanent civilization 

 in Islam. 



We are now left with our third and last question. In what ways 

 and to what extent did the Muslim civilization affect that of Europe? 

 The stating of it is almost enough. The problem is there, and all that 

 I can do is to lay some stress upon its importance. In this country, 

 most unfortunately, the study of Muhammadanism and of Arabic 

 things generally has been treated as a subordinate department in 

 the study of the Bible. May I refer for illustration to the arrange- 

 ment of this Congress itself? We have this Section of ours in the 

 History of Religion given to Muhammadanism, and that is practically 

 all the recognition which the whole Muslim world has had, a world 

 in contact for centuries with Christendom and which deeply affected 

 it, a world which, at the present time, is going through a great 

 awakening, and which stands with Christendom and the civilization 

 of China as one of the three great existing and militant civilizations. 

 It is true that there is a Section for Semitic languages, but the names 

 of the leading speakers there show that what is meant is Semitic 

 in relation to the Bible. Nor is there a Section of Semitic literature, 

 though the Arabic alone is one of the richest literatures in the world. 

 This, let me say, is no criticism of the present Congress; the Congress, 

 as is only fitting, reflects faithfully the attitude of students in this 

 country. 



I need say nothing of Islam as it is at present. The news of the 

 day brings to us the evidence of its gigantic possibilities. But how 

 stand the facts in the earlier case? For the medieval world, let 

 Chaucer instruct us. His Wife of Bath had been three times at Jeru- 

 salem. His Knight had been a soldier of fortune in Muslim lands 

 from the Atlantic to Asia Minor. His Squire tells unhappily 

 only half tells a tale from the Arabian Nights. He himself puts 

 into English a Latin translation of an Arabic treatise on the Astrolabe. 

 Much in the same way we use translations of German treatises. His 

 mathematical vocabulary is Arabic; the names of half his authorities 

 in medicine are Arabic. The fact stands absolutely firm that in his 

 time the Mediterranean peoples were bound by closer ties of study 

 and intercourse than they have ever been since. Then students 

 went to Muslim schools in Spain and southern Italy to hear the 

 specialists in their subjects, and to pursue post-graduate study, as 

 ours go now to Germany. Now the learned editors of Chaucer do not 

 understand half of these allusions, and have to wait till a stray Arabist 

 comes round to explain them. What Von Ranke, the great master, 

 wrote long ago in a letter to his brother, that for the historian of 

 Europe the two indispensable languages were Latin and Arabic, 

 has yet to bear fruit. 



But, happily, in Europe this extreme ignorance and indifference is 



