Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - Mohammedanism (1916).djvu/139

 132 would not disdain the use of material means to subdue spirits to what they consider the absolute truth

To judge such things with equity, we must remember that every man possessed of a firm conviction of any kind is more or less a missionary; and the belief in the possibility of winning souls by violence has many adherents everywhere. One of my friends among the young-Turkish state officials, who wished to persuade me of the perfect religious tolerance of Turkey of today, concluded his argument by the following reflection: "Formerly men used to behead each other for difference of opinion about the Hereafter. Nowadays, praise be to Allah, we are permitted to believe what we like; but people continue to kill each other for political or social dissension. That is most pitiful indeed; for the weapons in use being more terrible and more costly than before, mankind lacks the peace necessary to enjoy the liberty of conscience it has acquired."

The truthful irony of these words need not prevent us from considering the independence of spiritual life and the liberation of its development from material compulsion as one of the greatest blessings of our civilization. We feel urged by missionary zeal of the better kind to make the Mohammedan world partake in its enjoyment. In the Turkish Empire, in Egypt, in many Mohammedan countries under Western control, the