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The New World of Islam

Stoddard, Lothrop

2008enGutenberg #24107Original source
Chimera62
Academic

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                     THE NEW WORLD OF ISLAM

                               BY

                LATHROP STODDARD, A.M., PH.D. (Harv.)

               AUTHOR OF: THE RISING TIDE OF COLOUR,
                      THE STAKES OF THE WAR,
         PRESENT DAY EUROPE: ITS NATIONAL STATES OF MIND,
            THE TRENCH REVOLUTION IN SAN DOMINGO, ETC.

                            WITH MAP

                       _SECOND IMPRESSION_

                             LONDON

                      CHAPMAN AND HALL, LTD.

                              1922
                    PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
                    RICHARD CLAY & SONS LIMITED.
                         BUNGAY, SUFFOLK




PREFACE


The entire world of Islam is to-day in profound ferment. From Morocco to
China and from Turkestan to the Congo, the 250,000,000 followers of the
Prophet Mohammed are stirring to new ideas, new impulses, new
aspirations. A gigantic transformation is taking place whose results
must affect all mankind.

This transformation was greatly stimulated by the late war. But it began
long before. More than a hundred years ago the seeds were sown, and ever
since then it has been evolving; at first slowly and obscurely; later
more rapidly and perceptibly; until to-day, under the stimulus of
Armageddon, it has burst into sudden and startling bloom.

The story of that strange and dramatic evolution I have endeavoured to
tell in the following pages. Considering in turn its various
aspects--religious, cultural, political, economic, social--I have tried
to portray their genesis and development, to analyse their character,
and to appraise their potency. While making due allowance for local
differentiations, the intimate correlation and underlying unity of the
various movements have ever been kept in view.

Although the book deals primarily with the Moslem world, it necessarily
includes the non-Moslem Hindu elements of India. The field covered is
thus virtually the entire Near and Middle East. The Far East has not
been directly considered, but parallel developments there have been
noted and should always be kept in mind.

                                                      LOTHROP STODDARD.




                             CONTENTS


CHAP                                                         PAGE

INTRODUCTION: THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE OLD ISLAMIC WORLD     1

I.    THE MOHAMMEDAN REVIVAL                                   20

II.   PAN-ISLAMISM                                             37

III.  THE INFLUENCE OF THE WEST                                75

IV.   POLITICAL CHANGE                                        110

V.    NATIONALISM                                             132

VI.   NATIONALISM IN INDIA                                    201

VII.  ECONOMIC CHANGE                                         226

VIII. SOCIAL CHANGE                                           250

IX.   SOCIAL UNREST AND BOLSHEVISM                            273

      CONCLUSION                                              300

      INDEX                                                   301

                               MAP

      THE WORLD OF ISLAM                       _at end of volume_




THE NEW WORLD OF ISLAM

    "Das Alte stuerzt, es aendert sich die Zeit,
    Und neues Leben blueht aus den Ruinen."

                    SCHILLER, _Wilhelm Tell_.




INTRODUCTION

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE OLD ISLAMIC WORLD


The rise of Islam is perhaps the most amazing event in human history.
Springing from a land and a people alike previously negligible, Islam
spread within a century over half the earth, shattering great empires,
overthrowing long-established religions, remoulding the souls of races,
and building up a whole new world--the world of Islam.

The closer we examine this development the more extraordinary does it
appear. The other great religions won their way slowly, by painful
struggle, and finally triumphed with the aid of powerful monarchs
converted to the new faith. Christianity had its Constantine, Buddhism
its Asoka, and Zoroastrianism its Cyrus, each lending to his chosen cult
the mighty force of secular authority. Not so Islam. Arising in a desert
land sparsely inhabited by a nomad race previously undistinguished in
human annals, Islam sallied forth on its great adventure with the
slenderest human backing and against the heaviest material odds. Yet
Islam triumphed with seemingly miraculous ease, and a couple of
generations saw the Fiery Crescent borne victorious from the Pyrenees
to the Himalayas and from the deserts of Central Asia to the deserts of
Central Africa.

This amazing success was due to a number of contributing factors, chief
among them being the character of the Arab race, the nature of
Mohammed's teaching, and the general state of the contemporary Eastern
world. 

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