tion, spirit, we have to bear in
mind the great importance of the system which, almost unchanged, has been
delivered for about one thousand years by one generation of doctors of
Islam to the other, although it has become ever more unfit to meet the
needs of the Community, on whose infallible Agreement it rests. But, at the
same time, we ought to consider that beside the agreement of canonists,
of dogmatists, and of mystics, there are a dozen more agreements, social,
political, popular, philosophical, and so on, and that however great may be
the influence of the doctors, who pretend to monopolize infallibility for
the opinions on which they agree, the real Agreement of Islam is the least
common measure of all the agreements of the groups which make up the
Community.

It would require a large volume to review the principal currents of thought
pervading the Moslim world in our day; but a general notion may be acquired
by a rapid glance at two centres, geographically not far distant from each
other, but situated at the opposite poles of spiritual life: Mecca and
Cairo.

In Mecca yearly two or three hundred thousand Moslims from all parts of the
world come together to celebrate the hajj, that curious set of ceremonies
of pagan Arabian origin which Mohammed has incorporated into his religion,
a durable survival that in Islam makes an impression as singular as that
of jumping processions in Christianity. Mohammed never could have foreseen
that the consequence of his concession to deeply rooted Arabic custom
would be that in future centuries Chinese, Malays, Indians, Tatars, Turks,
Egyptians, Berbers, and negroes would meet on this barren desert soil and
carry home profound impressions of the international significance of Islam.
Still more important is the fact that from all those countries young people
settle here for years to devote themselves to the study of the sacred
science. From the second to the tenth month of the Mohammedan lunar year,
the Haram, _i.e._, the mosque, which is an open place with the Ka'bah in
its midst and surrounded by large roofed galleries, has free room enough
between the hours of public service to allow of a dozen or more circles of
students sitting down around their professors to listen to as many lectures
on different subjects, generally delivered in a very loud voice. Arabic
grammar and style, prosody, logic, and other preparatory branches, the
sacred trivium; canonic law, dogmatics, and mysticis