OF CHRISTIANITY UPON OTHER RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 



49 



ill Him being the Light of men (John i, 4, 5 ; xii, 41), though 

 perhaps affected also by old Persian traditions of the Koyal 

 Glory which beamed on the brows of Jamshid and his 

 successors. 



Neo-Muhammadan sects are numerous; among these the 

 Ahmadls, or followers of Sayyid Ahmad, and the Qadiyanis are 

 specially well known in India. But, apart from any such, there 

 exists in India, Egypt and Turkey especially, a large and 

 increasing body of men who have in great measure broken with 

 Islam, though still retaining the name of Muslims. They claim 

 for Islam a great deal of Christian morality, denouncing 

 polygamy, concubinage, divorce, the veil and slavery as contrary 

 to Islam when rightly understood, and as tolerated by Muham- 

 mad only for a season. Some of these men strongly advocate 

 the education and freedom of women. They throw overboard 

 the Hadith and the Orthodox ancient Commentators on the 

 Qur'an, and endeavour to make the latter the foundation of their 

 faith. Even the Qur'an itself is "liberally" interpreted, — so 

 liberally, in fact, that they attempt to prove that Muhammad 

 was in no true sense a polygamist. 



Efforts are even made to whitewash their Prophet's moral 

 character, and to show that Islam was not propagated by the 

 sword. They assert that true Islam is consistent with modern 

 thought, civilization, and enlightenment. Their leaders, however, 

 are in general fanatically opposed to Christ's claims and to 

 Christianity, reading the Bible only to disprove it, and welcoming 

 as an ally every attack on the Christian Faith. Yet they adopt 

 Christian Missionary methods, such as schools, colleges, and the 

 use of the Press for controversial and educational literature. 

 They even send out Missionaries to oppose ours. The influence 

 of Christianity is seen in all this, though Western anti-Christian 

 influence is united with it to revive and defend Islam. Yet the 

 New Islam is further removed from the Old than from Christian 

 ethics at least. The movement to translate the Qur'an into other 

 languages is also due to imitation of Christian work. N"eo-Islam 

 already shows signs of having only the choice between turning 

 into Atheism and yielding to Christianity. 



E 



