Not only in Egypt,--in Oman and Peninsular Arabia, generally there is a
real feeling of cordiality between the Mohammedan and his Christian
"guest." The abolition of slavery in Zanzibar was a concession to
European opinion at least as much as to European force; and a moral
sympathy is acknowledged between a Moslem and a Christian State which
has its base in a common sense of right and justice. I have good reason
to believe that, were the people of Yemen to effect their deliverance
from Constantinople, the same humane feeling would be found to exist
among them; and I know that it exists in Nejd; while even in Hejaz,
which is commonly looked upon as the hot-bed of religious intolerance, I
found all that was truly Arabian in the population as truly liberal.
Under the late Grand Sherif, Abd el Hamid's reputed victim, these ideas
were rapidly gaining ground; and had it not been for his untimely end, I
have high authority for stating that the Mohammedan Holy Land would now
be open to European intercourse, and slavery, or at least the slave
trade, be there abolished.
There is, therefore, some reason to hope that, were Arabian thought once
more supreme in Islam, its tendency would be in the direction of a wider
and more liberal reading of the law, and that in time a true
reconciliation might be effected with Christendom, perhaps with
Christianity.
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