In its simplest form Islam was but an emphatic renewal of the immemorial
creed of the Semites, and as long as a pure Semitic race is left in the
world, the revelation of Mecca may be expected to remain a necessary
link in their tradition. No modern arguments of science are ever likely
to affect the belief of Arabia that God has at sundry times and in
sundry places spoken to man by the mouth of his prophets; and among
these prophets Mohammed will always be the most conspicuous because the
most distinctly national. Also the law of Islam--I am not speaking
merely of the Sheriat as we now see it--will always remain their law
because it is the codification of their custom, and its political
organization their political organization because it is founded on a
practice coeval with their history.
Lastly, Semitic thought is a strong leaven which everywhere pervades the
minds of nations, aliens though they be, who have once admitted it; and
it will not easily be cast out. We have seen in Europe, even in England,
a land never brought physically into contact with Arabia, how long
Arabian thought, filtered as it was through France and Spain to our
shores, has dominated our ideas. Chivalry, a notion purely Bedouin, is
hardly yet extinct among us.
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