Page:The Moslem World - Volume 02.djvu/44

 education offered to women is pearls thrown before swine."

Lord Cromer, in "Modern Egypt," writes : "Islam keeps woman in a position of marked inferiority. Islam, speaking not so much through the Koran as through traditions which cluster round the Koran, crj^stallises religion and law into one inseparable and immutable whole, with the result that all elasticity is taken away from the social system." Further, its intolerance of other faiths, its haughty pride engendered by the thought that it is the depository of the last revelation given by God to man, a revelation that supersedes ever}' past revelation, the fifteenth century method of dealing with all who do not conform to the belief in the Koran, combine in unfitting it for the reception of progressive ideas.

Christianity is conspicuous in its splendid adaptive - ness to every changing condition of the race. It is ready, even if its followers are not always ready, to incorporate every advance in scientific development that proves itself truly scientific. Islam is fixed forever in the mould given it by the prophet of Arabia. There is no room for progress, no possibility of adaptation. Stagnation is the word that most fittingly characterises it.

Logically, Islam denies all secondary causes. Fatalism is one of its important doctrines. God is the supreme cause of everything ; nature, animate and inanimate, is the stage upon which his functions are exercised. His prerogative controls every thought, every word, and every act. Every possible motion in the life of every man is written down in the Book of God. There can be no deviation from what is written, even in the smallest detail. This would preclude the exercise of the medical art, as it would be blasphemous for man to interfere in what is already settled and foreordained by God. While Christ is a prophet. He is not divine ; less, indeed, in the heavenly realm than Mohammed, who was guilty of the breach of nearly, if not every law in the decalogue.

Although ninety names are used in characterising God, Father is not one of them. Moslems have no con- ception of God in the capacity of fatherhood ; their idea is more that of an Oriental despot, merciful, if