The Light of Asia: Will Arabs Awake Again?

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 1164, 3 November 1917, Page 8 (Supplement)

The Light of Asia: Will Arabs Awake Again?

"No doubt we shall not crush the Prussian autocracy or choke the U-boats bv victories upon the Tigris. Nevertheless, the advance of Maude's army up that river is much more than a more local success. For my part, I believe that when the history of the world-war is written, with due regard to perspective, the Asiatic campaign will be deemed little inferior in importance to any other episode of the memorable spring of 1917. "The revolution in Russia, the Gennan retirement from the Somme and the Aisne, the declaration of war by the United States, the coming of China into line with the Western Alliance —all these are worldshaking events. But so also is the expulsion of the Turk from the old rjpital of the Caliphs. For what i! signifies is no less than the new hirth of i nation; it implies the emancipation of a people who once created great empires, who gave the '■ght of religion to Asia, and that of learning and science to Europe." Thus does Mr Sidney Low call attention to the significance of the revival of the Arab nation. Writing in the "Fortnightly Review," he says:— "The Arab race, long weakened, disinherited, and degraded by its Dolitical divisions and the brutal tyranny of the Turanian barbarians, is coming into touch with Western civilisation again after centuries of isolation and neglect. And when this union is consummated great results may be expected to ensue. For the Arab intellect in the past has shown itself singularly responsive to external influences, and able to draw the best elements from any alien culture with which it is in close contact. From the Turk, indeed, it has gained nothing, for the Turk had no culture worthy of the name, and never attained excellence save in war and government, chiefly by forcible methods, and by arts he did not care to impart to his subject populations. But Persia, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, and Latin Christianity taught the Arabs much, and they proved themselves apt pupils. A Great Record. "'When they met Rome they produced Palmyra; when they met Byzantium they produced the brilliant Ommeyad civilisation; when they absorbed Sassanian culture th*y produced Bagdad; when they invaded Spain they produced Cordova.' They built great cities as well as great States, so that the wastes of Irak, Mesopotamia, and the Syrian desert are strewn with the imposing remains of their temples, their palaces, their theatres, their monumental tombs, their castles, their courts of justice, the ruins and remnants of a civilisation that was for long the most elaborate and finished in all that part of the globe which lies between the Atlantic Ocean and the riverplains of China. "Few of us remember that the Arabian Empire was in extent hardly less than that of Home at its greatest expansion, and that it lasted longer than the realm of the Western Qesars. For more than six centuries Arab sovereigns ruled over Nearer Asia, Northern Africa, and no inconsiderable portion of Europe, from the Upper Nile to the Black Sea and from the Persian Gulf to the Pyrenees. The Ommeyad, Abbasid, and Fatimite Caliphs were lords of Egypt, Tripoli, or Morocco and Spain, of Syria and Cilicia, of Iran and Khorassan; and if they had composed their dynastic quarrels, and kept their rebellious satraps

and emirs in order, they might have : mastered Italy and France as well, turned St. Peter's into a mosque, and set Moslem doctors to expound ' the Koran at Oxford. A Great Race. "Where thev conquered they knew how to establish a settled adminis- [ tration which did not rest entirely j upon military power; they fostered . agriculture. trade manufactures, I , irrigation; they had good laws and I good judges; they showed a high respect for art, learning, literature, ' science, and philosophy. They were • the inheritors of that ancient Semitic civilisation, older than Christi- • anity or Mohammedanism, older even than Rome and Greece, which, with its Hellenic and Iranian tinc--1 ture, seemed at one time destined to prevail all round the Mediterranean lands and far beyond them. "Compared with the children of : Ishmael Ihe Mongol and Tartar ' raiders from the steppes are late- ; comers and interlopers in Southwestern Asia. "Semitic Islam has revolted from . the alien tyranny of Constantinople; , an Arab king is installed at the seats' I of the Prophet; British arms are ! driving the Osmanli from Mesopotamia and Syria; and Arabian freedom is to be restored under British ; protection. It is something more ' than the dream of the Berlin financiers and railway promoters that the ■ Anglo-Ind>'an troops have shattered. ; They have opened a new chapter in world-history, or turned back to an old one. A Vigorous People Still. ; "For many generations past the , Arabs have been a people rather • than a nation. But they are a vigor- , ous people still, endowed with many . notable gifts of mind and body. lii i physique Ihe Arab remains, as he has ! always been, among the finest speci- | mens of the human race. Tall and i lithe and supple, with his eagle eye, ■ his clear-cut features, his skin of | dark olive, his straight limbs, his [ small, delicate hands, his royal gait , as he strides along in pink turban . and snowy burnouse, the Arab | dragoman in Cairo or Tangier is a . magnificent creature who has been known to rouse romantic sentiment in the hearts of feminine tourists • from Northern and Western lands. t "All the evidence of those who - know the Arabs at close quarters, i whether in Arabia or in Africa, goes ; to show that their unfortunate his- • tory has not produced degeneracy, - and that lhey retain many of the intellectual as well as the corporeal ? qualities ot their ancestors. They I are still brave, quick-witted, humori ous, shrewd, temperate, dignified, i- and polite, still keenly addicted to , I poetry, theology, and disputation, r still adventurous, observant, and rel- sourccful. Elements of Nationhood. . "The 'nationality' movement 1 that has pulsed through the Nearer Hast is only beginning to stir among Ihe Arabs. Hut they have the elements of nationhood—race-consci-e ousness, religion, language, a comt mon tradition, and a distinctive culs ture embodied in an ancient and I noble literature that is still vital. e Energetic, intelligent, physically roi bust, born traders, and excellent I lighters, the Arabs have been sacrii, ficcd too long to the political misf fortunes and internal dissensions e which have rendered them for many i centuries the prey and victims of I, peoples far inferior to themselves ein all the essentials of civilisation, i; "The time is ripe for an Arab f revival, and with their delivery from i I the crude military autocracy that », [usurped the Moslem papacy it sishould make rapid progress."