Page:The Moslem World - Volume 02.djvu/233



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Editorial


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Real Christians are the best and truest friends of Moslems everywhere and always. It is only when Christian things have been done in an un-Christian way, or when un-Christian things have been done by Christians, that Christianity has appeared as a bitter foe to our Moslem brethren. Not the Crusades, but Raymund Lull represented the real spirit of Christianity toward Islam in the Middle Ages; not the bombardment of Jiddah in 1858, but the foundation of Robert College in 1864, expressed the real desire of Christians toward the Moslem world; not the Italian campaign in Tripoli, nor Russian executions in Teheran, but the work being done day by day in the seventy-two missionary hospitals in North Africa and the Nearer East alone, and the ministry of healing and friendship from Fez to Kerman, represent the spirit of the Gospel and of Christianity.

In the Koran chapter of The Table occurs a remarkable verse, the eighty-fifth, to which we call attention because it expresses this same truth, only half comprehended by the Prophet himself, and one that has never needed emphasis so much as it does to-day. "Thou wilt surely find the nearest in love to those who believe to be those who say. We are Christians; that is because there are among them priests and monks, and because they are not proud." Baidhawi comments on this text as follows: "Because of their gentleness and the tenderness of their hearts and their little desire for the present world, their much care for knowledge and labour; and to this the text has reference, that is because there are among them priests and monks and because they are not proud; i.e., to receive the truth when they understand it; or