THE FUTURE OF ISLAM. 



61 



city until the skill of non-Mohammedans is brought in to 

 supply the lack."* If this were so, i.e., if the characteristic 

 and essential doctrines of Islam led to inefficiency and 

 incapacity, we might prophesy that with the struggle for 

 existence constantly growing more acute, as the room for 

 expansion becomes smaller, Islam must wholly change so as 

 to become unrecognizable, or both ostensibly and really 

 disappear. There are, however, reasons for thinking the 

 question more complicated than the able writer who has 

 been quoted supposes. In one part of the world, where 

 neither Mohannnedans nor Christians were subject to the 

 influence of Europe, and where the former were subordinate 

 politically to the latter, in Abyssinia, competent observers 

 declared the Mohammedans both morally and intellectually 

 superior to the Christian population. 



According to Euppell,t writing in 1838, the Abyssinian 

 Mohammedans were more industrious, better educated, and, in 

 consequence of their own exertions, far more prosperous than 

 the Christians of that country. The same judgment was passed 

 by the traveller Von Heuglin,t in 1868. The judgment passed 

 on the Christian inhabitants of Mohammedan countries before 

 the active interference of Europeans is often exceedingly 

 harsh. 



It would be possible to adduce many other facts which 

 render it improbable that the profession of a creed has in itself 

 much to do with prosperity or efficiency — probably it has some 

 influence, but there is a tendency to overrate it. Other causes 

 must then be sought for the state of things described by 

 Pischon and D wight. And some of these are obvious. Com- 

 munity of religion with the nations of the West brings resident 

 Christians into closer relations with the dominant nations of 

 Europe, and they prosper not as Christians but as Westerns. 

 Similarly that accurate exponent of the affairs of Morocco, 

 Budgett Meakin,§ assures us that the treaties assuring pro- 

 tection in that country to the native agents of foreign officials 

 and merchants have l3een taken greater advantage of by Jews 

 than Moors; the Jews having ties with Europe which the 

 Moors lack, and also being better acquainted with the necessity 

 for those treaties than are the Moors. It is asserted that in 



* p. 81. 



+ Riippell, Reise in Abessinien^ i, 368. 



X V. Heuglin, Reise in Abessinieji, p. 253. 



§ The Moors, p. 460, cf. Cunninghame Graham, loc. citand., p. 51. 



