Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 4.djvu/139

MOULVEES. feel the continuous pressure of a firm Government, worked upon modern principles, to be intolerable. There are no revolutions which could raise a man of mark from an inferior to a superior position in a day. There is not even the capricious influence of patronage, to raise fortunate men at once to the highest ranks of life. Instead, there is the dull level of seniority, the vexations of competitive examinations, the certainty that nothing more than a subordinate post can be reached, and the loss of the prestige which once attached itself to Mahomedanism in India, as it does now to the once hated and despised "Franks" of the West. The rebellion of 1857 was a fitful attempt to regain a lost position, which had a miserable failure ; and the class of gentlemen represented, as they pass away, will, it is hoped, give place to a more truly loyal race of descendants ; one which, abandoning all hope of the reinstating of imperial dominion, will be content to take its place honourably and faithfully in the local administration of the country, and in the advancement of general civilization. It is to be feared, however, that national and sectarian bigotry will oppose this for many years to come. Wherever Mahomedans prevailed for a time, during the rebellion of 1857, their national peculiarities stood forth in distinct terms. They commenced persecution at once. Priests and Moulvees arose among them, as they had done among the original invaders of old, preaching the fierce "jehad," or religious war; and while English were massacred as at Delhi, the persecution of Hindoos began in Rohilcund. A little more delay in the final contest for supremacy, fought, as of old, at Delhi, and the land would have been deluged with Hindoo blood as well as English. Hindoo temples would have been desecrated, and the faith of Islam proclaimed—not, as before, mildly and peaceably, but with the fierce enthusiasm and fanaticism of a people long debarred from the exercise of what were once cherished privileges. Happily for all, this could not be. It was restrained by a firm and merciful Christian power, which holds all in its hand, and governs without distinction of creed.

There are no more strict or bigoted professors of the Mahomedan faith than the Moulvees of India. They surpass in these respects, in a great degree, the Ulemas of Turkey and Egypt, who occupy an equivalent position in social life. They are, as they believe they ought to be, consistent opposers of, and enemies to, all infidels; else they read the Koran and other holy books to little purpose. They believe there ought to be no rival to the creed of the prophet, and they tolerate none. It is not in regard to the departed glories of an imperial government only that they grieve, but that rival religions exist and progress. If possible, Hindooism may be tolerated, but Christianity never. The reforms, the admission to national privileges of Christians granted by the Sultan of Turkey, are by them considered heretical and abominable. He was no true man of Islam to make them, but a tool of the Christian princes of the West whom, they would cry, "may God confound."