Romance, the offspring of pre-Islamic
Arabia, is still a common motive of our action, and our poets express it
still, to the neglect of classic models, in the rhymed verse of Yemen.
The mass of our people still pray to the God of Abraham, and turn
eastwards towards that land which is Arabia's half-sister, the Holy Land
of the Jews.
If then we, who are mere aliens, find it impossible to escape this
subtle influence, what must it be for those races wholly or half Arabian
who have for centuries been impregnated with Islam, the quintessence of
Arabian thought? Who shall fix the term of its power, and say that it
cannot renew itself and live? "Send forth," says a famous English
writer, who was also a famous English statesman, "a great thought, as
you have done before, from Mount Sinai, from the villages of Galilee,
from the deserts of Arabia, and you may again remodel all men's
institutions, change their principles of action, and breathe a new
spirit into the scope of their existence."
But I must not lose myself in generalities or forget that it is for
practical Englishmen that I am writing. To be precise, I see two ways in
which it is probable that Islam will attempt to renew her spiritual
life, and two distinct lines of thought which according to external
circumstances she may be expected to follow--the first a violent and
hardly a permanent one, the second the true solution of her destiny.
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