The Dominion. TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1915. A MOHAMMEDAN CRITIC

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2362, 19 January 1915, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1915. A MOHAMMEDAN CRITIC

The spectacle of most of the leading white races of the world engaged in deadly strife has naturally done a great deal_ to stimulate criticism and speculation, especially amongst those people and races not immediately concerned. Even in the countries at war many cherished ideas have been shattered, and the most conservative thinkers have been compelled to cast theories once considered sound into the melting-pot, and reconcile themselves to the reconstruction of their ideas and opinions upon a new basis. The matter, however, does not end here/ The war has given food for thought also to members of those races which in a rough and ready working division are grouped outside the pale of white and Christian civilisation, and is bound to have its effect upon the future ..relations of these races with their Western contemporaries. It may be questioned, however, whether these effects will be quite so sweeping as is predicted by one outspoken critic of Christian civilisation, Sheikh Achmed Abdullah, a native of Afghanistan, and descendant of tho Prophet, and' the author of an indictment of the whjte races of the world recently published in the Forum. Looking through Mohammedan spectacles, as he himself puts it, at tho conflict of white races now in progress, Sheikh Achjied Abdullah finds it only material for unsparing invective. 'Evidently to him tho war is not so much a b6ld attempt to reconstruct civilisation and curoit of its ills as a symptom of the impending decay of Christian races. Christendom, he declares, is heaping -up material for a Jehad, a Pan-Islam, a Pan-Asian "Holy War," a gigantic day of reckoning. Fiercely as it is enunciated and urged, his strangely bizarre outlook upon tho future of races loses weight because of the absence of facts which would body it forth. His broad contentions aro clear enough. The Western nations, he declares, apo a superiority over those of the East for which there is no justification in fact,

''In material progress," ho remarks, "you have led tho world for the lost two or tliveo centuries. By tho True Prophet ... all of three hundred years! And, like all parvenus, you are so astonished at your success, so pleased with yourselves, that you. imagine your present hegemony in the race for material progress to be a guarantee for the. future. But there is not even the shadow of an excuse for 6uoh an assumption, unless it bo tho faot that Ithe Christian mind is dieoased with raoial and religious megalo--mania."

Continuing in this strain of highflown invective, Sheikh Achmed Abdullah predicts the downfall of the Christian races, and remarks that he would like to return to earth about three hundred years from to-day, just to observe how his descendants, "who will have inter-married .with Chinese and Japanese, will succeed in ruling their colonies in Europe and America." There is much more to the same effect, always the trasting picture of white and Ohristion races grown flaccid in fancied security, and of an impending great uprising of the .dark-skinned races fif the world before which' their white contemporaries will melt away like, snow. •

Clearly an "indictment" of this oharaeter is too sweeping, too little supported by fact, and reason, to command much attention for its own sake, but as affording a possible glimpse into the mind of one class of Mohammedan thinker it is not without interest; There is some reason to believe that Sheikh Achmed Abdullah expresses not so much the deep-felt convictions of his race and creed as the confusion of-thought to be expected in that limited section of its members who have come closely and suddenly into contact with Western thought* and culture. .Heading his impassioned but ill-supported criticisms of Western civilisation, it is difficult to avoid the reflection that but for the achievements of Western races in the realm of learning and scientific invention he would certainly have lacked any but a very limited audience. Sheikh Aohmed Abdullah, we are told, was eduoated in France, England, and Germany. Deprived of these advantages, he might conceivably have been the leader of some Mohammedan sect or faction, but could certainly not have scattered his f ulminations over the world as he has been enabled.to do by the aid of that AVestem'civilisation and culture which he so heartily condemns. Ungrateful to the races of whose beneficent, if indiscriminate, activities he is a living example,Sheikh Achmed Abdullah is equally astray in his estimate of the'attitude of the white and Christian races towards those of another creed and colour.. He has quite failed to realise that vain assumptions of superiority • over these races find little enough place in the outlook of Western thinkers who grapple with the problems which arise from racedivisions. The people of the white races are not so blind to their own defects as this Mohammedan enthusiast would have his readers believe, and while they will not readily accept his view that Christian civilisation is fated to be engulfed in a great uprising of the coloured races, it is recognised widely and clearly that the great problem of the future is that of building up a civilisation which will find place in a peaceful world for men of every race, and creed, and colour. In spite of all that Sheikh Achmed Abdullah has said, the present relations between Western and Mohammedan races afford the best proof that the creation of such a civilisation is no impossible ideal. The sharp antagonism of white and coloured races upon which bo insists has already been greatly modified, and the present war affords convincing proof of the fact since it has divided Mohammedan as well as European nations. It has at least been demonstrated that men of widely different race arc capable of uniting in defence of aspirations and ideals held in common, and this probably has a much more important bearing upon the race problems of the future than all the impassioned outpourings of iwalots . like Sheikh Achmkd Abdullah.