Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/157

Rh believe that all which we possess is the gift of Allah. In our Holy Book Allah ordered us to defend the caliphate. The white man believes that the strength of the mailed fist is a sufficient argument to overcome our faithfulness to Islam. Do you think that we are animals and can understand such reasoning only? Do you yourselves understand anything else? What have we to do now? We are waiting for you to change your ideas regarding us, to realize that you must alter your politics and relations toward us. If this does not come about, I am not sure that there is anywhere an individual or an organization throughout the Moslem countries that will have power enough to stay the explosion among the followers of the Prophet"

As the mullah was delivering himself of these strong feelings, I was trying to think where I had heard or read similar arguments. Had not Rabindranath Tagore written the same thoughts? Did not the Indian Moslem delegation voice the same in 1920 when it arrived in London to discuss the question of the caliphate? However my memory may have served me, I heard the argument delivered in unmistakable sincerity there in Fez el-Bali near the old medersa—and the French Staff!

"Since my arrival in Africa," I rejoined to the mullah, "I have nowhere seen persecution of the natives by the local authorities. On the contrary, it seems to me that France has, to a marked degree, a psychological policy that takes into consideration and builds for a future in which the population of the country will be able to share in the Western civilization, adapt its cult to the new life and collaborate with Europe."