Page:The Moslem World - Volume 02.djvu/7



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EDITORIAL


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is a day of world-wide vision and of world movements, both secular and religious. The imperial idea is dominant. The first effort" to hold a Conference of Missions with a programme as wide as the empire of Christ was the World's Congress of Missions, held in connection with the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893. These two gatherings, so diverse in their aim and nature, yet marked a new era. The East received a new impulse, while national movements and world conferences were introduced also into the Orient. A general conference, for example, with delegates from every part of the Moslem world was held at Mecca twelve years ago (A.H., 1316). The object of the gathering, as is evident from the printed report of the conference, was "to investigate into the causes for the decay of Islam." An account of it was written by Professor Margoliouth and published in "The East and The West." Among the causes assigned for the decline of Moslem influence and power were not only the loss of political prestige, but the defects of Islam itself from within, and the necessity for radical reforms. The report had a wide circulation, and many events in the Moslem world which have been tantamount to revolution, are probably the result of the Mecca Conference. The triumph of the Young Turks, the progressive efforts of the Constitutionalists in Persia, and pan-Islamic movements in other parts of the world were perhaps due to it no less than to other currents of thought hidden from the ordinary observer.

It was natural, therefore, that those long engaged in evangelistic work among Moslems should hold a world A