of
their leading figures, S. Khuda Bukhsh. "Nothing was more distant from
the Prophet's thought," he writes, "than to fetter the mind or to lay
down fixed, immutable, unchanging laws for his followers. The Quran is a
book of guidance to the faithful, and not an obstacle in the path, of
their social, moral, legal, and intellectual progress." He laments
Islam's present backwardness, for he continues: "Modern Islam, with its
hierarchy of priesthood, gross fanaticism, appalling ignorance, and
superstitious practices is, indeed, a discredit to the Islam of the
Prophet Mohammed." He concludes with the following liberal confession of
faith: "Is Islam hostile to progress? I will emphatically answer this
question in the negative. Islam, stripped of its theology, is a
perfectly simple religion. Its cardinal principle is belief in one God
and belief in Mohammed as his apostle. The rest is mere accretion,
superfluity."[18]

Meanwhile, the liberals were making themselves felt in other parts of
the Moslem world. In Turkey liberals actually headed the government
during much of the generation between the Crimean War and the despotism
of Abdul Hamid,[19] and Turkish liberal ministers like Reshid Pasha and
Midhat Pasha made earnest though unavailing efforts to liberalize and
modernize the Ottoman Empire. Even the dreadful Hamidian tyranny could
not kill Turkish liberalism. It went underground or into exile, and in
1908 put through the revolution which deposed the tyrant and brought the
"Young Turks" to power. In Egypt liberalism took firm root, represented
by men like Sheikh Mohammed Abdou, Rector of El Azhar University and
respected friend of Lord Cromer. Even outlying fragments of Islam like
the Russian Tartars awoke to the new spirit and produced liberal-minded,
forward-looking men.[20]

The liberal reformers, whom I have been describing, of course form the
part of evolutionary progress in Islam. They are in the best sense of
the word conservatives, receptive to healthy change, yet maintaining
their hereditary poise. Sincerely religious men, they have faith in
Islam as a living, moral force, and from it they continue to draw their
spiritual sustenance.

There are, however, other groups in the Moslem world who have so far
succumbed to Western influences that they have more or less lost touch
with both their spiritual and cultural pasts. In all the more civilized
portions of the Moslem world, especially in countries long under
Euro