THE first question that strikes us in Asia is this, when we compare Asiatics and Europeans, Why is it that European people have made such wonderful progress, while the Asiatic races, who were the first promoters of civilization, have lagged so far behind I have asked learned people this question here and abroad, but I have never yet received a satisfactory answer.

It has been sometimes said that it is due to inferiority of race. I have had in my life many opportunities of studying that question, and I have arrived at the conclusion that, though there are great differences between different races, yet comparing the Persians (Aryans) with Europeans, I cannot discover any sign of mental inferiority. I have watched our pupils in European schools, and I have had many opportunities of examining them at Constantinople and elsewhere, where they mix with European boys; and I have found no reason for believing that our race is inferior to others. It is true that in civilization Asia can at present bear no comparison with Europe; but individually our people are as highly gifted as Europeans. They study more easily, and, if there were any difference, it would perhaps be in their favor. Why then, during so many centuries, have we not been able to approach your civilization?

Some tell us that the obstacle comes from the Mohammedan religion. That also is a question I have studied. Well, the Mohammedan religion is not opposed to civilization. I do not find such a difference in the principles of morality, or even in social and political organization, professed in common by Christians and Mohammedans, as will explain why we are so much behind you.

Islamism is not known in Europe. You read the Koran, and you think you know Islamism. That is a great mistake. The Koran is, as you know, a sort of revised Bible, and there is nothing in it which is directly opposed to Christian principles; but it is not the whole of Islamism. Islam

* An address by Prince Malcom Khan, late Persian Minister at the Court of St. James's, delivered in English at Queen's House, Chel. sea (the residence of the Řev. H. R. Haweis).

is not a religion; it is a vast system which embraces the whole of society-the man from his birth to his death. There is nothing that is beyond its scope. Besides the Koran, there are traditions which are as powerful and even more respected than the Koran itself. It is difficult for a European to know these traditions. The whole science of Asia, everything which is good or useful, has been attributed to Islam. Islam is the accumulated wisdom of the East. It is an ocean where you can find everything which is good to be known, and it offers all kinds of facilities, not in the Koran alone, but in the traditions, for the progress of the people. If now the religion of the people is not opposed to progress, and if our race is not inferior to yours, how shall we explain the actual inferiority of Persian to European civilization? Where is the obstacle to our prog ress? This is the most important question for us Asiatics; and if your learned Europeans would devote their time and their special study to at least discussing it, they might perhaps arrive at some satisfactory solution which might lead to the remedy. But until then I do not see any possibility of our progressing in the same proportion as you have done; but we must both face certain facts. For centuries we have been in contact with Europe, still we do not see the possibility of approaching Europe in regard to civilization. For centuries Europe has been making overtures to us, but she has made no head

way.

Now for many reasons I prefer to ask of Europe the reason of her failure than to fully expose my own ideas upon this subject. But certain facts are self-evident. Without security of life and property, no progress-without justice, no freedomwithout freedom, no national prosperity, no individual contentment and peace. Europeans have somehow fought for and won in varying degrees justice, freedom, and representative government. I know your politicians and easy-going men of the world are in the habit of saying that we Easterns are well content with our government, our despotism, our oppression, our corruption; well, it is not so-increasing

ly it is not so; but the masses are resigned to darkest Persia because they do not see any way out of it. Every now and then there is a blind movement in the crowd and a sort of Mahdi will arise-deliverance is spoken of, but it never comes to reform; we do not combine or organize our aspirations, or range them under any sort of constitutional banner; each reform movement ends in revolution, each revolution ends in blood; and after the storm the waters subside into the same sluggish calm, and there is just as little security of life and property, as little justice and freedom as before. It is to the honor of the present Shah that he has felt and recognized the situation. He has done what he could to guarantee security of life and property to his subjects, by inviting the signature of all the great Powers to a liberal proclamation to that effect. Henceforth, although it may not be over-rigidly carried out throughout Persia, it is known that this liberal proclamation is more than a windy, wordy document, such as the father of his people from time immemorial has been in the habit of issuing from time to time that it is a serious attempt to improve the condition of the crushed and oppressed masses-to stop the peculation and robbery by officials, and even to curtail his Majesty's own imperial powers. The following anecdote illustrates what I mean. The Shah had been listening to an old courtier, who was assuring him that his gracious promise needed no guarantees, and that his was the best of all governments; when the Shah stepped up to him and plucked him by the shawl: "You have a handsome scarf; I want that scarf, I can take it can you show me any law or guarantee which makes it impossible for me to take it? Very well, now you understand what I want for my people." The recent communication of the Shah's edict to all the Powers is accepted throughout Persia as the guarantee of the Shah's promise it will have the force of law. Practically, we know very well that you cannot change the corruptions of ages by an edict, nor cause a whole nation to pass from slavery to freedom in a moment. In spite of your Sir Druminond Wolff and the edict and the Shah's goodwill and the approval of the Powers, corruption and injustice will continue that we know; but we also know that such an edict could never have been forthcoming under the NEW SERIES.-VOL. LIII., No. 4.

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guarantee of the Powers had we been satisfied with things as they were. It is a sign of the times there is a movement throughout Persia. The people know what they want-they don't know how to get it; and that brings me to my second inquiry. It is this: Why have Mohammedan people not been able at least to copy Europe-if they really want what Europe has got? If they have not been able to progress by themselves and to improve their own civilization, there must, no doubt, be some reason for it—connected, probably, with their inability to combine, tyranny and absence of justice and freedom; but there is the other question also: Why have they not been able to imitate your civilization, to like it, to approach it? For centuries Europeans have had relations with Turkey, with Mohammedan people, and I can assure them that the hostility, the opposition, is almost as strong as ever. How can that be explained? Why do not our people covet the marvels which they come over here to I think I can answer this question. The Mohammedan people have but one single principle-that is, their Religion. Islamism is not a religion like Christianity, which divides the temporal society and the spiritual, the civil life and the religious. In Islam, there is but one single principle-Religion. All society is conducted by that one idea of Religion; and that Religion has one dogma which Europe, so it appears to us, has not been able to seize as firmly as it has been held by Mohammedans. The one Mohammedan dogma is the UNITY OF GOD. For the Mussulman there is nothing but GOD. The whole creation is governed by God. The Mussulman is born with a mission to worship GoD, and to do nothing but what is ordered by GoD. What is the object of creation by GOD? Only to be worshipped by the faithful believer. And what is the mission of the believer? To fight those who seem to him to have abandoned the worship of the one God. Such are the only ambitions of a Mussulman, to worship. GOD and to offer relentless opposition to those who have associated GOD, or seem to them to have associated Him, with some other object of worship. The ambition and the aspiration of the Mussulman people are not to have railways and telegraphs, or great empires, although not averse to these things in themselves; their

chief object is only to serve God, to worship GoD, and to fight against those who do not worship Him exclusively, and to die and go to Paradise. That is the only principle that governs all Mohammedan people.

Now, this great dogma of the unity and simplicity of God seems to them almost in direct contradiction with your dogma of the Trinity and with your dogma of the Divinity of Jesus; and for that reason Mohammedans have a great repugnance to anything which comes from Europe. When your civilization presents itself to the Mohammedan people, it presents itself under the protection of Christianity; but to a Mohammedan people nothing is worth having when it emanates from a hostile religion. You go to Afghanistan, or to Persia, or Africa, and you say, "We come to teach you how to make railways, how to spread your trade, how to bring prosperity to your country;" but those people know that you come as Christians, and they believe that your object is simply to spread your religion, and not merely your civilization. How should they think otherwise? Their own highest idea is to spread their faith, and they believe, wrongly perhaps, that the Christians have the same object, and that their desire in anything they do is really to fight Islam in order to propagate Christianity. They are convinced of that, and unfortunately your policy and your whole history give some color to that belief. They know that your Sovereign is the Defender of the Faith, and that the Emperor of Russia is the head of the Church. And, besides that, the whole history of Asia Minor has been one long fight with Christianity. They know well the history of the Crusades, and they think that your present policy still is a crusade, but only in a more civilized form -a crusade of science. It is still the Christian religion which attacks Islamism, but instead of attacking it as in past times by arms, it attacks it by science, by policy, by trade, and by financial power. But the situation is just the same. Under these circumstances anything coming from Europe is opposed, and must be opposed. Your ambassador, Sir Drummond Wolff, or anybody else, goes to see our Minister or Sovereign, and what does he advise? Make railways, establish new treaties, have more trade; enter into new relations with Europe, new bonds, make telegraphs, send

your children to our country. Your ambassador or your politician is quite sincere in what he says; but our people are not convinced of his sincerity. They say, "No, you are a Christian, and you come to destroy our religion; you are an enemy. What is the use of railways or of financial power? Our mission in this world is to worship God, and to fight you." Your ambassadors, your politicians, and your writers have lost so much time, and written so many despatches, always saying to these people, "Why do you not call the capitalists of Europe to develop the resources of your country? Why do you not send your children to our schools?" Well, they laugh at all these proposals, because they are always convinced that it is a hostile religion which comes to destroy them under cover of civilization. Vous voulez nous manger!

Then what is to be done in this difficulty? We cannot make progress for ourselves, for reasons that I have hinted at, and that I do not care to speak further of now. On the other hand, we do not want to imitate you; we do not care to approach you; we will not accept you. It is true that the Japanese have copied Europe. There is no such obstacle there as in our case, for their religion is not so strong. But we are prevented from following their example. For two hundred years you have spent your powers and your means, you have helped our people, and given them the best advice; but very little has been done, and the whole Mohammedan people are against you. Then how would you benefit this people, and bring them to adopt the benefits of modern civilization, which they really want as much as you do?

That question has been studied by some of our people who have been educated in Europe, and we have arrived at this conclusion. I will venture to explain it here. In the Koran there is no obstacle, there is nothing in contradiction to your Christian principles, except, perhaps, one thingpolygamy, which is the greatest misfortune of the East. tune of the East. But even that does not belong to essential Islam; pure Islam is against polygamy. Westerns do not understand the attitude of the Prophet and his most enlightened followers to polygamy. You must remember that polygamy is one of the most ancient and constant laws of Asia. Islamism has restrained

the practice as much as was possible, and even has tried to render it theoretically impossible by the restrictive conditions attached to it. Most of our superior classes and men of elevated minds attack the practice openly as one which disorganizes the family, and no doubt in tine, perhaps even before very long, polygamy will be abandoned by Mussulmans, as it has been by the European Israelites; but there is the point if you said to a Mussulman, "Renounce polygamy-imitate the Christians," the mere mention of Christian example would retard the progress of this salutary social reform. No; if you wish to abolish polygamy, you must do it on the ground that it is repugnant to the spirit of Islamism, and that would be very easy to show. May I, without offence, say that while intelligent Asiatics do deplore polygamy, it is difficult for them to understand why this legalized system of restricted intercourse between the sexes is so abhorrent in the eyes of Christian people who openly tolerate the absolutely unrestricted, though frequently protected, system of promiscuous intercourse now current in every civilized capital of Europe.

Well, except that one thing of polygamy, there is not a single point in which Islam is really in contradiction with your civilizing principles. As then Islam, as I have said, is an ocean in which are accumulated all the sciences of the past times of Asia (there is a wonderfully helpful though negative peculiarity in Islam, there being no established church, especially in Persia, every learned doctor having the power to examine for himself, as the traditions are an ocean)-then for any new law or new principle you wish to promulgate, you can find in that ocean many precepts and maxims which support and confirm what you want to introduce. As to the principles which are found in Europe, which constitute the root of your civilization, we must get hold of them somehow, no doubt; but instead of taking them from London or Paris, instead of saying this comes from such an ambassador, or that it is advised by such a Government (which will never be accepted), it would be very easy to take the same principle, and to say that it comes from Islam, and that this can be soon proved. We have had some experience in this direction. We found that ideas which were by no means accepted when coming from your agents in Europe, were accepted at once

with the greatest delight when it was proved that they were latent in Islam. I can assure you that the little progress which we see in Persia and Turkey, especially in Persia, is due to this fact, that some people have taken your European principles, and instead of saying that they came from Europe, from England, France or Germany, have said: "We have nothing to do with Europeans; these are the true principles of our own religion (and, indeed, that is quite true) which have been taken by Europeans!" That has had a marvellous effect at once. And having had some such experience, I think, for the benefit of these millions of people, the right way for your politicians, who have spent so much time and resources and money and talent without any effect, would be, if possible, to change their method, and, in bringing their foreign principles, to try and convince these people that they are their own principles. In that I way, think, an ambassador would do more to enlighten the country and bring in civilization in one year than has been done by all the efforts of the last century. Take, for instance, Afghanistan (I do not speak of Turkey): notwithstanding all the sacrifices you have made, all the money you have spent, all the lives that have been lost there, the hostility is still as great as ever. Of course, there is better intercourse materially, and there is more trade; but the popular mind is still in the same state of hostility, because when an Afghan sees an English ambassador, or an English priest, or an English officer, he regards him at once as a destroyer of his religion, and, unfortunately, you have done little to convince him to the contrary.

It would be a great piece of good fortune for us if some of your learned people who are interested in our Eastern questions and our Eastern progress would change their old system, and present European civilization independent of Christian dogma. I do not speak only of your mis. sionaries, but also of your politicians. Any ambassador who can convince our countrymen or our Government that he comes quite independently of religious interests, and that he has nothing to say against our established religion, will do more good even for your politics and your interests than all your armies and navies and railways and banks have hitherto accomplished. - Contemporary Review.