Pan-Islam

While refraining from obvious and belated criticism of a prophecy which the march of events has trodden out of shape, and which could never have been intended as a serious contribution to our knowledge of Arabs and their politics, we must admit that the basic idea of centralising Arabian authority has taken strong hold of avowed statecraft in England. It would, of course, simplify our relations with Arabia and the collateral regions of Mesopotamia and Syria if such authority could establish itself and be accepted by the other Arabian provinces to the extent of enforcing its enactments as regards their foreign affairs, i. e., relations with subjects (national or protected) of European States.

If such authority could be maintained without assistance from us other than a subsidy and the occasional supply, to responsible parties, of arms and ammunition, it would satisfy all reasonable requirements, but if we had to intervene with direct force we should find ourselves defending an unpopular protégé against the united resentment of Arabia.

I believe there is no one ruler or ruling clique in Arabia that could wield such authority, and my reason for saying so is that the experiment has been tried repeatedly on a small scale during the twenty years or so that I have been connected with the country and has failed every time. Toward the close of last century a sultan of Lahej who had always claimed suzerainty over his turbulent neighbours, the Subaihi, had to enter that vagabond tribeship to enforce one of his decrees, and got held up with his "army" until extricated by Aden diplomacy at the price of his suzerain sway. His successor still claimed a hold over an adjacent clan of the Subaihi known as the Rigai, but when one of our most promising political officers was murdered there, and the murderer sheltered by the clan, he was unable to obtain redress or even assist us adequately in attempting to do so. Early in this century Aden was involved in a little expedition against Turks and Arabs because one of her protected sultans (equipped with explosive and ammunition) could not deal with a small Arab fort himself. This is the same sultanate which let the Turks through against us in the summer of 1915 and whose ruler was prominent in the sacking of Lahej. I have already alluded, in Chapter II, to the inadequacy of the Lahej sultan on that occasion, yet Aden had bolstered up his authority in every possible way and had relied on him and his predecessor for years to act as semi-official suzerain and go-between for other tribes – a withered stick which snapped the first time it was leant upon. I could also point to the Imam of Yamen, strong in opposition to the Turks as a rallying point of tribal revolt, but weak and vacillating on the side of law and order. I might go on giving instances ad nauseam, but here is one more to clinch the argument, and it is typical of Arab politics. Aden had just cause of offence against a certain reigning sultan of the Abd-ul-Wahid in her eastern sphere of influence. He had intrigued with foreign States, oppressed his subjects, persecuted native trade and played the dickens generally. Therefore Aden rebuked him (by letter) and appointed a relative of his to be sultan and receive his subsidy. The erring but impenitent potentate reduced his relative to such submission that he would sign monthly receipts for the subsidy and meekly hand over the cash: these were his only official acts, as he retired into private life in favour of Aden's bête noir, who flourished exceedingly until he blackmailed caravans too freely and got the local tribesmen on his track.

When we also consider how early in Islamic history the Caliphate split as a temporal power, and the difficulty which even the early Caliphs (with all their prestige) had to keep order in Arabia, it should engender caution in experiments toward even partial centralisation of control: apart from the fact that they might develop along lines diverging from the recognised principles of self-determination in small States, they could land us into a humiliating impasse or an armed expedition.

We parried the Turco-German efforts to turn pan-Islam against us, thanks to our circumspect attitude with regard to Moslems, but a genuine movement based on any apparent aggression of ours in Arabia proper might be a more serious matter.

CHAPTER IV

MOSLEM AND MISSIONARY

Having weighed the influence which pan-Islam can wield as a popular movement, we will now consider the human factors which have built it up.

Just as we used Christendom as a test-gauge of pan-Islam, so now we will compare the activities of Moslems (who do their own proselytising) with those of Christian missionaries, grouping with them our laity so far as their example may be placed in the scales for or against the influence of Christendom.

To do this with the breadth of view which the question demands we will examine these human factors throughout the world wherever they are involved in opposition to each other. We shall thus avoid the confined outlook which teaches Europeans in Asia Minor to look on Turks as typical Moslems to the exclusion of all others, or makes Anglo-Egyptians talk of country-folk in Egypt as Arabs and their language as the standard of Arabic, or engenders the Anglo-Indian tendency of regarding a scantily-dressed paramount chief from the Aden hinterland as an obscure jungliwala because, in civilised India, an eminent Moslem dresses in accordance with our conception of the part.

We can leave the western hemisphere out of this inquiry, for though the greatest missionary effort against Islam is engendered in the United States, it manifests itself in the eastern hemisphere, and the Moslem population in both the Americas is too small and quiescent to be considered a factor.

We will begin with England and work eastward to the edge of the Moslem world.

At first glance the idea of England as an arena where two great religious forces meet seems rather far-fetched, but there is more Moslem activity in some of our English towns than people imagine. Turning over some files of the Kibla (a Meccan newspaper), one comes across passages like the following: —

"The honourable Cadi Abdulla living in London reports that six noted English men and women have embraced the Moslem religion in the cities of Oxford, Leicester, etc. The meritorious Abdul Hay Arab has established a new centre in London for calling to Islam, and the Mufti Muhammad Sadik has delivered a speech in English in the mosque on 'the object of human life which can only be attained through Moslem guidance.' Many English men and women were present and put questions which were answered in a conclusive manner. At the close of the meeting a young lady of good family embraced Islam and was named Maimuna."

Then we have the scholarly and temperate addresses of Seyid Muhammad Rauf and others before the Islamic Society in London; they are marked by considerable shrewdness and breadth of view, and though their debatable points may present a few fallacies, their effective controversion requires unusual knowledge of affairs in Moslem countries.

It is not, however, the activities of Moslems in England which damage the prestige of Christendom; it is the behaviour of English alleged Christians themselves. Every missionary, political officer, tutor, or even the importer of a native servant – in short, anyone who has been responsible for an oriental in England – knows what I mean. I do not say that London (for example) is any more vicious than Delhi or Cairo or Cabul or Constantinople or any other large Moslem centre, but vice is certainly more obvious in London to the casual observer, even allowing for the fact that many comparatively harmless customs of ours (such as women wearing low-necked dresses and dancing with men) are apt to shock Moslems until they learn that occidental habit has created an atmosphere of innocence in such cases which even bunny-hugging has failed to vitiate.

The social life of London in all its grades and phases operates more widely for good or ill on Christian prestige among Moslems than Londoners can possibly imagine. From the young princeling of some native State sauntering about Clubland with his bear-leader to the lascar off a P. and O. boat, among East London drabs, or the middle-class Mohammedan student who compares the civic achievements that surround him with the dingy dining-room of a Bloomsbury boarding-house, all are apostles of life in London as it seems to them. I have had the hospitality of "family hotels" in the Euston Road portrayed to me in the crude but vivid imagery of the East when spooring boar in Southern Morocco with a native tracker who had been one of a troupe of Soosi jugglers earning good pay at a West-end music-hall, and I once overheard a young effendi explaining to his confrères in a Cairo café exactly the sort of company that would board your hansom when leaving "Jimmy's" in days of yore.

As for the news of London and its ways, as conveyed by its daily Press, educated Egyptians were better posted therein than most Englishmen in Cairo during the War, as their clubs and private organisations subscribed largely to the London dailies, which entered Egypt free of local censorship, while Anglo-Egyptian newspapers were more strictly censored than their vernacular or continental contemporaries, as they presented no linguistic difficulties, but could be dealt with direct and not through an understrapper.

Missionaries would have us judge Islam by the open improprieties and abuses which occur at Mecca, Kerbela, and other great Moslem centres. How should we like Christianity to be judged by the public behaviour of certain classes in London or other big towns? Remember, it is always the scum which floats on top and the superficial vice or indecorum that strike a foreign observer.

It is not my mission to preach – I am merely pointing out a flaw in our harness which causes a lot of administrative trouble out East. It is difficult to check the hashish habit in Egypt when the average educated effendi reads of drug-scandals in London with mischievous avidity, and the endeavours of a well-meaning Education Department to implant ideals of sturdy manhood are handicapped when the students batten on the weird and unsavoury incidents which are dished up in extenso by London journalism from time to time. Such matters do no harm to a public with a sense of proportion, but the effendi is in the position of a schoolboy who has caught his master tripping and means to make the most of it. He assimilates and disseminates the idea that cocaine is as easily procurable as a cocktail in London clubs, and that the Black Mass is at least as common as the danse de ventre in Cairo.

We can leave England for our Eastern tour with the conclusion that Islam is welcome to any proselytes it makes there, but that the gravest slur on Christian prestige is cast by our own conduct.

There is only one bone of contention between Moslems and missionaries in Europe now that Turkey and Russia are knocked out of the ring of current politics. Is St. Sophia to remain a mosque or revert to its original purpose as a Christian church? Whatever may be Turkish opinion on the subject, the tradition of Islam is definite enough. When the Caliph Omar entered Jerusalem in triumph, after Khaled had defeated the hosts of Heraclius east of Jordan, he withstood the importunate entreaties of his followers to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, saying that if he did so the building would de facto become a mosque, and such a wrong to Christianity was against the ordinance and procedure of the Prophet. It is worthy of note that Christians were not molested at Jerusalem until after the Seljouk Turks wrested the Holy City from the moribund Arabian Caliphate in 1076: their persecution and the desecration of sacred places by the Turks brought about the first Crusade in 1096. Again it was the Ottoman Turks who stormed Constantinople and turned St. Sophia into a mosque. According to the orthodox tradition of Islam, once a church always a church. When the ex-Khedive had the chance of reacquiring the site of All Saints', Cairo, owing to the increasing noise of traffic in the vicinity, he contemplated building a cinema-theatre there (for he had a shrewd business mind), but he was roundly told by Moslem legalists that it was out of the question. Even if the Turks urge right of conquest, victorious Christendom can claim that too, and if they allege length of tenure as a mosque in support of their case they put themselves out of court, as St. Sophia has been a church for more than nine centuries and a mosque for less than five.

If Turkey is allowed to remain in Europe at all it will be on sufferance. Even in Asia Minor signs are not wanting that Turkish rule will be pruned, clipped and trained considerably, as humanity will stand its rampant luxuriance of blood and barbarity no longer. The Young Turks were given every chance to consolidate their national aspirations and have achieved national suicide. One may feel sorry for the patient, sturdy peasantry and the non-political cultured classes who have been coerced or cajoled into fighting desperately in a cause that meant calamity for them whether they won or lost; but a nation gets the rulers it deserves and must answer for their acts.

Asia Minor will probably be more accessible as a mission-field in due course. The Moslem Turk is not amenable to conversion; in fact, during a quarter of a century's wandering in the East I have never met a Turkish convert. The American Protestant Mission will probably be well to the fore in this area in view of its excellent work on behalf of the Armenians and other distressed Christians during the War. Just as it has concentrated its principal energies on the Copts in Egypt, so it may with advantage devote itself to the education and "uplift" of the Armenians, and if its activities are as successful as with the Copts, even the Armenians cannot but approve, for the more enlightened individuals of that harassed and harassing little nation admit that the Armenian character could be considerably improved, and that, though their hideous persecution is indefensibly damnable, their covetous instincts and parasitic activities are an incentive to maltreatment.

One of the most difficult minor problems of reconstruction in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor will be how to safeguard the interests and modify the provocative activities of such subject-races as the Jews and the Armenians where established among ill-controlled nations and numerically inferior, though intellectually superior, to them. With their natural gift for intrigue and finance, they repay public persecution and oppression by undermining the administration and battening on the resources of their unwilling foster-country until active dislike becomes actual violence and outbursts of brutish rage yield ghastly results. Deportation is not only tyrannically harsh but impracticable, for unless they were dumped to die in the waste places of the earth, which is unthinkable, some other nation must receive them, and even the most philanthropic Government would hesitate to upset its economic conditions by admitting unproductive hordes of sweated labour and skilled exploiters. There are only two logical alternatives to such an impasse. One is to treat such subject-races so well that they may be trusted not to use their peculiar abilities against the interests of their adoptive country, which would then be their interests too, and the other is to exterminate them, which is inhuman. There is no middle course.

It is a salutary but humiliating fact that we incur the worst human ills by our lack of human charity. We starved and over-crowded our poor till they bred consumption, and we enslaved negroes till they degenerated our Anglo-Saxon sturdiness of character, then plunged a great nation into civil war, and have finally become one of its most serious social problems. So the Jews were debarred from liberal pursuits and privileges until they concentrated on finance and commerce, being also persecuted until they perfected their defensive organisation. The consequence is that they are individually formidable in those activities and collectively invincible. Similarly the Turks harried the Armenians to their own undoing with even less excuse, for those ill-used people were certainly not interlopers, and so far from ameliorating their condition in the course of time, as we have done with the Jews, the Turks went from bad to worse till they culminated in atrocities which no provocation can palliate or humanity condone.

But to return to Asia Minor; there the Armenians were first on the ground, and yet the Moslems of Armenia outnumber them by three to one. Any sound form of government would have to give equal rights, but it would have to be strong and farseeing to prevent the greedy exploitation and savage reprisals which such conditions would otherwise evolve.

On entering Asia we shall find a somewhat similar problem confronting the administration in Syria and Palestine. Here we have several mixed races and at least three distinct creeds – Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

The Zionist movement looks promising, everyone concerned seems to be in accord, and a Jew millennium looms large in the offing, but – . In Palestine there are normally about 700,000 Moslems and Christians (the latter a very small minority) to 150,000 Jews. The lure of the Promised Land will presumably increase the Jewish population enormously, but they will still be very much in the minority unless the country is over-populated. The Zionist organisation will naturally try to select for emigration agriculturists, mechanics, and craftsmen generally to develop the resources of the country, but that is easier said than done. If Palestine, in addition to the sentimental aspect, is to be a refuge and asylum for the downtrodden and persecuted Jews of Eastern Europe, there would be very few farmers among that lot – except tax-farmers. Even in England, where he labours under no landowning disability, the Jew thinks that farming for a living is a mug's game and confines his agricultural activities to week-ends in the autumn with a "hammerless ejector" and a knickerbocker suit. As for mechanics and skilled labour generally, such Jews as take to it usually excel in such work and do very well where they are. The bulk of the immigrant population – unless Palestine is going to be artificially colonised without regard for the necessitous claims of the very people who should be drawn off there – will be indigent artisans, small shopkeepers, shop assistants, weedy unemployables, and a sprinkling of shrewd operators on the look-out for prey. If the scheme is going to be run entirely on philanthropic lines (and there are ample resources and charity at the back of it to do so) the Zionists will be all right, and will, perhaps, improve immensely in the next generation under the influence of an open-air life – if they adopt it; but the resident majority of Moslems and Christians will not take too kindly to their new compatriots, while the Palestine Jews are already carping at the idea of so many trade rivals and accusing them of not being orthodox. None of this ill-feeling need matter in the long run with a firm but benevolent government, but the authorities will have to evolve some legislation to check profiteering and over-exploitation, or there will be trouble. It is not only the new-comers who will want curbing, but the present population. During the War the flagrant profiteering of Jew and Christian operators in Palestine and Syria did much to accentuate the appalling distress and was the more disgraceful compared with the magnificent efforts of the American and Anglican Churches to relieve the situation. The Jews nearly incurred a pogrom by their operations, which were only checked by a wealthy Syrian in Egypt starting a co-operative venture of low-priced foodstuffs and necessities with the support of the British authorities. As for the local Syrians, some of them were even worse. French and British officers speak of wealthy Syrians (presumably Christian, certainly not Moslem) giving many and sumptuous balls at Beyrout, at which they lapped Austrian champagne while their wives, blazing in diamonds, whirled with Hunnish officers in the high-pressure, double-action German waltz. And this with thousands of their compatriots starving in the streets and little naked children banding together to drive pariah dogs with stones from the street offal they were worrying, if perchance it might yield a meal. Meanwhile decent Anglo-Saxon Christendom was battling in that very town under adverse conditions to succour human destitution which had been largely caused by the callous operations of these soulless parasites. The Christians of Syria have no monopoly of such scandals. Yet there are otherwise intelligent people who speak of modern Christianity as an automatic promoter of ethics, and have the effrontery to try to thrust it on the East as a moral panacea. It is human ideals which make or mar a soul when once the seed of any sound religion has been sown, and they depend upon environment and climate more than our spiritual pastors admit; otherwise, why this missionary activity among oriental Christians? If you try to grow garden flowers in the rich, rank irrigation soil of the Nile valley they flourish luxuriantly, but soon develop a marked tendency to revert to their wild type, and it is permissible to suppose that human character is even more sensitive to its mental and physical surroundings. Any observant teacher of oriental youth will tell you that the promise of their precocious ability is seldom fulfilled by their maturity. Even the "country-born" children of British parents are considered precocious at their preparatory school in England, and, if not sent home to be educated, are apt to fall short of their parents' intellectual and moral standard in later years. The Mamelukes knew what they were about when they kidnapped hardy Albanian youths to carry on their rule in Egypt and passed over their own progeny. Kingsley has shown us in "Hypatia" what the Nile valley did for the Christian Church.

It is not a question of Jew, Christian, or Moslem that the administrative authorities in Syria and Palestine will have to consider beyond ensuring that each shall follow his religion unmolested. They will have to defend the many from the machinations of the few and the few from the violent reprisals of the many. It is statecraft that is wanted, not politics or religious dogma.

In Mesopotamia there has not been much missionary effort hitherto, and there is not a good case for exploiting it as a missionary field beyond certain limits. The riparian townsfolk are respectable people of some education and grasp of their own affairs, and the country-folk are a harum-scarum set of scallywags who used to attack Turks or British indifferently, whichever happened to be in difficulties for the moment. They are best left to the secular arm for some time to come. Medical missions, staffed by both sexes, could do good work at urban centres, and a few river steamers, or even launches, would extend their efforts considerably.

We now come to Arabia itself, "the Peninsula of the Arabs," where orthodox Islam has its strongholds and missionary enterprise is not encouraged.

Geographers differ somewhat as to what constitutes Arabia proper, but for the purposes of modern practical politics it may be considered as all the peninsula south of a line from the head of the Gulf of Akaba to the head of the Persian Gulf, and consisting of Nejd, the Hejaz,[3 - The definite article precedes most Arabic place-names, but is only retained in ordinary local speech as above, presumably to denote respect. I hold to native pronunciation, except in cases of long-established custom, and consider "the Yamen" as clumsy as "the Egypt" – both take the definite article in Arabian script.] Asir, Yamen, Aden protectorate, Hadhramaut and Oman. Each of these divisions should be dealt with separately in considering Arabian politics nowadays, and it will be well for the "mandatories" concerned if further sub-divisions do not complicate matters; I omit the sub-province of Hasa (once a dependency of the Turkish pashalik at Bussora) because, since the Nejdi coup d'état in 1912, the Emir ibn Saoud will probably control its policy vis-à-vis of missionaries and Europeans generally, though the Sheikh of Koweit may expect to be consulted.

Nejd comes first as we move southward: impinging as it does on Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Hejaz, its politics are involved in theirs to a certain extent and its affairs require careful handling. It is certainly no field for unrestrained missionary effort, but there is no reason why a medical mission should not be posted at Riadh if the Emir is willing. There are two rival houses in Nejd – the ibn Saoud and ibn Rashid, the former pro-British and the latter (hitherto) pro-Turk; Emir Saoud held ascendancy before the War and should be able to maintain it now that Turco-German influence is a thing of the past. He is an enlightened, energetic man and was a close friend of our gallant "political," the late Captain Shakespeare, who was killed there early in the War during an engagement between the two rival houses. The question of missionary enterprise in Nejd could well be put before the Emir for consideration on its merits. Such procedure may seem weak to an out-and-out missionary, but even he would hesitate to keep poultry in another man's garden, even for economic purposes, without consulting him. Fowls and missionaries are useful and even desirable in a suitable environment, otherwise they can be a nuisance.

Next in order as we travel is the Hejaz, where Islam started on its mission to harry exotic creeds and nations, until its conquering progress was checked decisively by reinvigorated Christendom. In missionary parlance, Arabia generally is referred to as "a Gibraltar of fanaticism and pride which shuts out the messenger of Christ," and it must be admitted that the Hejaz has hitherto justified this description to a certain extent. Even at Jeddah Christians were only just tolerated before the War, and I found it advisable, when exploring its tortuous bazars, to wear a tarboosh, which earned me the respectful salutations then accorded to a Turk. The indigenous townsfolk of Jeddah are the "meanest" set of Moslems I have ever met – I use the epithet in its American sense, as indicating a blend of currishness and crabbedness. They cringed to the Turk when the braver Arabs of the south were hammering the oppressor in Asir and Yamen, but, like pariahs, were ready to fall on them and their women and children when they had surrendered after a gallant struggle, overwhelmed by an intensive bombardment from the sea. The alien Moslems resident in Jeddah – especially the Indians – are not a bad lot, but there is an atmosphere of intolerance brooding over the whole place which even affects Jeddah harbour. I remember being shipmate in 1913 with some eight hundred pilgrims from Aden and the southern ports of the Red Sea. As we were discharging them off Jeddah, a plump and respectable Aden merchant whom I knew by sight, but who did not know me in the guise I then wore, was gazing in rapt enthusiasm at sun-scorched Jeddah, which, against the sterile country beyond, looked like a stale bride-cake on a dust heap. "A sacred land," he crooned. "A blessed land where pigs and Christians cannot live." Incidentally he made a very good living out of Christians and was actually carrying his gear in a pigskin valise.

At the same time, it is absurd for missionaries to aver of Christians at Jeddah that "even those who die in the city are buried on an island at sea." The Christian cemetery lies to the south of the town (we had to dislodge the Turks from it with shrapnel during the fighting), and the only island is a small coral reef just big enough to support the ruins of a nondescript tenement once used for quarantine. No one could be buried there without the aid of dynamite and a cold chisel. Presumably missionary report has confused Jeddah with the smaller pilgrim-port of Yenbo, where there are an island and a sandy spit with a Sheikh's tomb and a select burial-ground for certain privileged Moslems of the holy man's family.

The worst indictment of Jeddah (and Mecca too, for that matter) is made by the pilgrims themselves, though some of it may be exaggerated by men smarting under the extortions of pilgrim-brokers.

A pious Moslem once averred in my presence that the pilgrim-brokers of Jeddah were, in themselves, enough to bring a judgment on the place, and that trenchant opinion is not without foundation. Even to the unprejudiced eye of a travelled European they present themselves as a class of blatant bounders battening on the earnest fervour of their co-religionists and squandering the proceeds on dissipation. I have more than once been shipmate with a gang of them, and it is at sea that they cast off such restraint as the critical gaze of other Moslems might impose. As sumptuous first-class passengers they lounge about the deck in robes of tussore, rich silks and fancy waistcoats, though out of deference to their religious prejudice and Christian table-manners they usually mess by themselves. After dinner they play vociferous poker in the saloon for cut-throat stakes, evading the captain's veto by using tastefully designed little fish in translucent colours to represent heavy cash, and these they invoke from time to time "for luck." As it is usually sweltering weather, the occidental whiskey-and-soda and the aromatic mastic of the Levant are much in evidence, and thus three of Islam's gravest injunctions are set at naught. Their chief fault, to a broad-minded sportsman, is that they lack self-control, whatever their luck may be. I have heard an ill-starred gambler bemoaning his losses with the cries of a stricken animal, and they are still more offensive as winners.

In Mecca such open breaches of the Islamic code are not tolerated, but there are other lapses which neither Moslem nor Christian can condone. It is unfair and out of date to quote Burton's indictment of Meccan morals, nor have we any right to judge the city by its behaviour soon after its freedom from the Turkish yoke, when it may have been suffering from reaction after nervous tension; but, unless the bulk of respectable Moslem opinion is at fault, there is still much in the administration of Mecca which cries for reform. Harsh measures may have been necessary at first, but to maintain a private prison like the Kabu in the state it is can redound to no ruler's credit, and for prominent officials to cultivate an "alluring walk" and even practise it in the tawâf or circumambulation of the holy Caaba is beyond comment.

Also the mental standard of officialdom is low, since Syrians of education and training do not seem to be attracted by the Hejaz service for long, and local men of position and ability are said to have been passed over as likely to be formidable as intriguers.

It may be reasonably urged that it is difficult to improvise a Civil Service on the spur of the moment, and it is permissible to anticipate a better state of affairs now that war conditions are being superseded. At the same time it is no use blinking the fact that reform is indicated at Mecca if that sacred city is to harmonise with its high mission as the religious centre of the Islamic world, and this affects our numerous Moslem fellow-countrymen; otherwise the domestic affairs of the Hejaz are not our concern.

The Hejaz has been very much to the fore lately, and ill-informed or biassed opinion has developed a tendency to credit it with a greater part in Arabian and Syrian affairs than it has played, can play, or should be encouraged to play. Its intolerant tone has, presumably, been modified by co-operation with the civilised forces of militant Christendom, but the new kingdom has got to regenerate itself a good deal before it can cope with wider responsibilities. Emir Feisal is, no doubt, an enlightened prince, but one swallow does not make a summer, and Hejazi troops have not yet evolved enough moral to dominate and control a more formidable breed or be trusted with the peace and welfare of a more civilised population, especially where there are large non-Moslem communities. There has been a great deal of nonsense talked and written about their invincible fighting prowess. They accompanied the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in much the same way as the jackal is said to accompany the lion, with a reversionary interest in his kill, and their faint-hearted fumbling with the Turkish defences outside Jeddah was obvious to any observer. They are what they have been since the fiery self-sacrificing enthusiasm of early Islam died down and left them with the half-warm embers of their racial greed to become hereditary spoilers of the weak, instinctively shunning a doubtful fight. In guerilla warfare, leavened by British officers, they have shown an aptitude for taking advantage of a situation, but they cannot stand punishment and will not face the prospect of it if they can help it. Their own leaders knew that well enough when they refrained from taking Medina by assault, bombardment being out of the question, as buildings of the utmost sanctity would have been inevitably damaged or destroyed.

Prince Feisal has, in a published interview with a representative of the Press, disclaimed all imperialistic ambitions for the Hejaz, but merely demanded Arab independence in what was once the Ottoman Empire. That being assured, the new kingdom will be able to devote its energies to internal affairs, and the excellent impression made by the Hejazi prince in Europe should be a favourable augury of the future.

The missionary question should be left to the reigning house for decision; it is not fair to hamper the Hejaz with unnecessary complications, and to allow active missionary propaganda at a pilgrim-port like Jeddah is asking for trouble, apart from the flagrant violation of religious sentiment. Imagine Catholic feeling if an enterprising Moslem mission were established at Lourdes. Tact and expediency are just as necessary in religious as in secular affairs – at least so St. Paul has taught us; but the modern missionary is too apt to regard these qualities in Christianity as insincerity and the lack of them in Islam as fanaticism.

South of the Hejaz lies that rather vague area known as Asir. For geographical purposes we may consider it as the country between two parallels of latitude drawn through the coastal towns of Lith and Loheia, with the Red Sea on the west and an ill-defined inland border merging eastward into the desert plateau of Southern Nejd. Politically, it is that territory of Western Arabia between the Hejaz and Yamen in which the Idrisi has more control than anyone since his successful revolt against the Turks a year or two before the War. In all probability its northern districts with Lith will go to the Hejaz, and the southern ones with Loheia to the Idrisi; but Western diplomacy will be well advised to leave those two rulers to settle it between themselves and the local population, especially inland, as tribal boundaries between semi-nomadic and pastoral people are not for intelligent amateurs to trifle with. Nor should the missionary be encouraged; Asir is not a suitable field for his activities, and the trouble he would probably cause is out of all proportion to the good he could possibly do. The Asiri is a frizzy-haired fanatic with a short temper and a serious disposition, addicted to sword-play and the indiscriminate use of firearms. I doubt if he would see the humour of missionary logic. As for the Idrisi himself, he is a tall, well set up man of negroid aspect (being of Moorish and Soudani descent), and has shown shrewdness as an administrator, though his operations in the War have lacked "punch." He is very orthodox, and from what I know of him I should not say that religious tolerance was his strong point. His capital is at Sabbia, in the maritime foot-hills, with a very trying climate. Asir might suit the naturalist or explorer who could adapt himself to his environment and respect local prejudice. No one has yet entered the country in either capacity, but, from what has been told me before the War by intelligent Turkish officers who campaigned there, I think that the birds and smaller mammals would repay research, while the great Dawasir valley and other geographical problems inland might be investigated with advantage under the ægis of local chiefs. All that is required, besides the necessary scientific knowledge and Arabic, is a certain amount of perseverance and resolution blended with a reasonable regard for other people's convictions. Most Arabian expeditions fail through lack of time spent in preliminary steps. I have tripped up in that way myself, but it was owing to the restrictions of a paternal Government, and not through lack of patience. Before I started serious exploration in the Aden hinterland I spent a year on the littoral plain getting in touch with the people and mastering the dialect. Any success I may have had up-country was due to the foundation I laid in those early days, and it was not until the Aden authorities closed their sphere of influence against exploration in general and myself in particular that my expeditions began to miss fire, as I had to land at remote places along the coast and hasten up-country before their fostering care could set the tribes on me. He who would explore Asir should take a Khedivial mail steamer from Suez to Jeddah, and there show his credentials and explain his purpose to his consul and the local authorities. The Idrisi has an agent there, and it should not be difficult to pick up an Asiri dhow returning down the coast to Gîzân, which is the port for Sabbia. He would have to stay there until he got the Idrisi's permit and an escort, without which he would be held up to a certainty. In any case, no such enterprise need be contemplated until Asiri affairs have settled down a good deal.

In Yamen proper it should be feasible to travel again within certain limits as soon as the Imam can come to an understanding with the tribal chiefs. There is not much left for the explorer or naturalist to do, unless he goes very far inland toward the great central desert, which project is not likely to be encouraged by the local authorities. There is, however, a possible field for the mineralogist and prospector east and south-east of Sanaa, which area also contains Sabæan ruins and inscriptions of interest to the archæologist.

The northern boundary of Yamen may be said nowadays to trend north-east from Loheia inland through highland country to the desert borders of Nejran (once a Christian diocese). Its eastern border is very vague, but may be said to coincide approximately with the 45th parallel of longitude. Southward the limit has been clearly defined by the Anglo-Turkish Boundary Commission of 1902-5 inland from the Bana valley, about a hundred map-miles north of Aden, to the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb.

Within these limits the two great divisions of Islam are represented in force – the orthodox Sunnis on the littoral plain and far inland along the upland deserts, while the highlanders among the lofty fertile ranges separating these two areas and forming the backbone of the country follow the Shiah schism, being Zeidis, which of all the schismatic sects approaches most nearly to orthodox Islam and regards Mecca as its pilgrim-centre. The feeling between these two religious divisions may be compared with that existing between Anglicans and Catholics. They will occasionally use each other's places of worship – more especially the upper or governing classes – and seldom come to open loggerheads; when they do, it is usually about politics, and not religion. At the same time, if you, as a Christian traveller among both parties, want a scathing opinion of a Zeidi, you will get it from an orthodox lowlander, and the men of the mountains reciprocate with point and weight, for the balance of religious culture and position is with them among the big hill-centres; including Sanaa, the political capital where the Imam holds, or should hold, his court as hereditary ruler spiritual and temporal. This ecclesiastical potentate has backed the Turk in a non-committal but flamboyant manner during the War up to the turning of the tide against them, when he sat on the fence until his Turkish subsidy ceased. He now looks to Western diplomacy in general and the British Government in particular not only to continue but to enhance this subsidy, in order that he may really govern in Yamen. His attitude throughout is natural and, indeed, justifiable in the interests of himself and his dynasty; at least occidental politicians cannot cavil at his motives; but what they ought to ascertain is how far he can fill the bill as a ruler in Yamen and the extent to which he should be backed. Without a considerable subsidy his administrative powers (not hitherto very marked) will not carry far even in the highlands.

Missionaries were allowed to enter Yamen before the War, but did not establish themselves, even on the coast. Some of them went up-country and stayed there some time without being molested. The average Yameni is not fanatical by temperament; there is more bigotry among the urban Jew colonies than in the whole Moslem countryside.

In the Aden protectorate there has been long established the Falconer Medical Mission, which, though actually at Sheikh Othman, just inside the British border, has done splendid work among natives of the hinterland, who visit it from all parts. Its relations with the Arabs have always been excellent, though the local ruffians looted the Mission when the Turks held Sheikh Othman temporarily.