eople free to-day? Who
in all Syria and Arabia dare openly criticise the new Owner of the
Mule?

"Ours in a sense is a theocratic Government. And only by reforming
the religion on which it is based, is political reform in any way
possible and enduring." And here he argues that the so-called
Reformation of Islam, of which Jelal ud-Din el-Afghani and Mohammed
Abdu are the protagonists, is false. It is based on theological
juggling and traditional sophisms. Their Al-Gazzali, whom they so much
prize and quote, is like the St. Augustine of the Christians: each of
these theologians finds in his own Book of Revelation a divine
criterion for measuring and judging all human knowledge. No; a
scientific truth can not be measured by a Koranic epigram: the Koran,
a divine guide to life; a work of the heart should not attempt to
judge a work of the mind or should be judged by it.

"But I would brush the cobwebs of interpretation and sophism from this
Work of the heart," he cries; "every spider's web in the Mosque, I
would sweep away. The garments of your religion, I would have you
clean, O my Brothers. Ay, even the threadbare adventitious wrappages,
I would throw away. From the religiosity and cant of to-day I call you
back to the religion pure of the heart...."

But the Field of poppies and daisies begins to sway as under a gale.
It is swelling violently, tumultuously.

"I would free al-Islam," he continues, "from its degrading customs,
its stupefying traditions, its enslaving superstitions, its imbruting
cants."

Here several voices in the audience order the speaker to stop.
"Innovation! Infidelity!" they cry.

"The yearly pestiferous consequences of the Haji"--But Khalid no
longer can be heard. On all sides zealotry raises and shakes a
protesting hand; on all sides it shrieks, objurgating, threatening.
Here it asks, "We would like to know if the speaker be a Wahhabi."
From another part of the Mosque comes the reply: "Ay, he is a
Wahhabi." And the voice of the speaker thundering above the storm:
"Only in Wahhabism pure and simple is the reformation of al-Islam
possible."... Finis.

Zealotry is set by the ear; the hornet's nest is stirred. Your field
of poppies and daisies, O Khalid, is miraculously transformed into a
pit of furious grey spectres and howling red spirits. And still you
wait in the tribune until the storm subside? Fool, fool! Art now in a
civilised assembly? Hast thou no eyes to see, no ears to hear?

"Rea