He must be either a prince, or a Sherif, or an
hereditary saint. This would secure him from a first personal attack on
the ground of seeming impiety. He must secondly be an Arab, gifted with
the pure language of the Koran, for the Arabian Ulema would not listen
to a barbarian; and he must possess commanding eloquence. A reformer
must before all else be a preacher. Thirdly, he must be profoundly
learned, that is to say, versed in all the subtleties of the law and in
all that has been written in commentary on the Koran; and he must have a
ready wit, so that in argument he may be able constantly to oppose
authority with authority, quotation with quotation. Granted these three
qualifications and courage and God's blessing, he may lead us where he
will."
The chief obstacles, however, to a reformation of this sort would not be
in the beginning, nor would they be wholly moral ones. The full
programme of the Mohdy needs that he should conquer Mecca; and the land
road thither of an African reformer lies blocked by Egypt and the Suez
Canal. So that, unless he should succeed in crossing the Red Sea through
Abyssinia (an invasion which, by the way, would fulfil another ancient
prophecy, which states that the "Companions of the Elephant," the
Abyssinians, shall one day conquer Hejaz), he could not carry out his
mission.
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