MOSLEM WORLD.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 29 April 1927, Page 4

MOSLEM WORLD.

CHANGING CULTURES. JAVA TO MOROCCO. From Java to Morocco the Mohammed am peoples arc undergoing a change in their cultural and political jnu.'ook we are told and the western impact is making itself felt everywhere in greater or lesser degree. The scientific civilisation of Europe, alleges a contribution to the London “Weekly Graphic,” is last breaking down the barriers of e.d Asia, and signs are no; wanting to show that the call of nationalism as compared to one purely of re’igion is heard all around among the “awakened’' seclions of the Mohammedans. In india he relates, the Western educators could not hell) carrying their culture arid imparting a gloss of their ideas o*' society, politics, and religion oil the imaginations of milieus of unsophisticated. Mohammedans. Rut, says this informant, with Sordar .1 hbill Ali .Slinth the result has been a fiasco and ine gra'fting has not been suceesslul. '1 lie

steady increase of Westernisation in the East has caused a feeling ot “revolt” against the Stoic philosophy, though it has no doubt provided better means ot locomotion, ot bodily eomlort and security of life, according to this writer, who continues “The same is seen in the case of Egypt, and much more in Turkey, where the progress of European ideas has .succeeded in supplementing the old order. Nor are Persia and Afghanistan spared from the wave of the Western impact. STRESS OF ECONOMICS. “No doubt in an era of the economic development of the world no region of the earth can withstand the stress ol' modern competition, and no country can long continue to bo't and bar its doors to the foreign influence. “Tlio services of Sultain Ibn Sand to Islam are invaluable, for while he lias no antagonism against either western methods or Western ideals, yet he does not favour the idea that the Moslem world should adopt European ways in their entirety and forget its own. His predecessors belonged to the Liberal School of Islam. Their sufferance and too much toleration of licentious actions perpetuated a degenerate state of society. The Wahabi King exercises a controlling policy and lias a great futuro i'll becoming a power for good for both Islam and mankind. The strictness which his cult' enjoins upon the “faithful” is not that cf intolerance or pniitanism, but it is a. “real call to tiie Rook.” Tn this regard ho can be of incalculable s.mviec to the British Government, because Ins increasing power and prestige among the Moslem races inculcates a steadying influence, swaying the political adventures of his faith away from disturbance against a government established for Jaw and order in hdia.”

His Majesty, Sultan Ibn Sand, recently celebrated tho first anniversary of liis accession to the. throne of the Hejaji. Little more than a year ago, we are told, this desert warrior was a. comparatively obscure personality, but—- “ To-day, as a ruler of the land where Islam was born, he had become the cynosure of Moslem eyes, a. fact which Great Britain, aB the biggest Mohammedan. Power, can not afford to ignore. Importance must also be attached to the fact that by the "W ali’abi conquest of the Ilejaz, under H.M. Sultan Ibn Sand, practically tlie entire Central, AVestern and Eastern Arabia has become conterminous with such Near and Middle Eastern areas Palestine, ' TraUsjordania and Iraq on one side, Egypt and Sudan on tho other. This largo section of Ilie Moslem. world is intimately connected with the Imperial destiny of England in no small measure. It is, therefore, befitting that both the Sultan, as the Keeper of the Holy Shrines of Islam, and the British people should be anxious to have friendly dealings with each other, and having this end in view the British representatives are meeting the Arab King at Abyar Ibn Hussani, near Medina.” AVitli reference to negotiations between tho representatives of the British Government and King Ibn Sand, the London ‘Times” observes:

“His AVahabi followers, on whose support he is absolutely dependent, are stern Puritans, who regard other Sunni Moslems, not to mention the Shiahs of Persia and Yemen, as being no better than infidels, and are imbued with a strong suspicion of the motives of all foreigners, especially if they be European Christians. At the meeting of the Islamic Congress which was held at Mecca last year their pressure induced their' leader to suggest that the whole of tho Hejaz should be entirely closed to non-Mos-lems, a proposal which, if literally carried out, would compel European Governments and trading houses to substitute Mohammedans for Christian Consuls-Gcneral and merchants at Jedda. “Time will no doubt abate the ardor of the AA T aliabi sectaries, but for the present they are powerful and uncompromising, and their King must take their prejudices into account, and must, above all, give no handle whatever for the belief that he would entangle himself in any commitments with _ infidel States. The late.st holy warriors may not have a demorcratic constitution, but they are fully as ■capable of imposing their wishes upon their ridel's as were tho very democratic Mohammedan armies that first broke into Iraq and Syria, and their suspicions will have to be humored.”