Impotent to develop law himself, he clutched blindly at
that which he found written to his hand. The code of Abu Hanifeh seemed
to him a perfect thing, and he made it the resting place of his legal
reason. Then, as he gradually possessed himself of all authority, he
declared further learning profane, and virtually closed the schools. His
military triumphs in the sixteenth century sealed the intellectual fate
of Islam, and from that day to our own no light of discussion has
illumined Moslem thought, in any of the old centres of her intelligence.
Reason, the eye of her faith in early times, has been fast shut--by
many, it has been argued, blind.
It is only in the present generation, and in the face of those dangers
and misfortunes to which Islam finds herself exposed, that recourse has
once more been had to intellectual methods; and it is precisely in those
regions of Islam where Arab thought is strongest that we now find the
surest symptoms of returning mental life. Modern Arabia, wherever she
has come in contact with what we call the civilization of the world, has
shown herself ready and able to look it in the face; and she is now
setting herself seriously to solve the problem of her own position and
that of her creed towards it.
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