LIFE IN MESOPOTAMIA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19154, 21 August 1930, Page 10

LIFE IN MESOPOTAMIA.

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS IN THE EASTERN WORLD

A lecture on Mesopotamia was delivered by Brigadier-General A. W. Andrew at the quarterly “At Home” of the Canterbury branch of the Victoria League yesterday afternoon. The president, Mrs E. G. Hogg, was in the chair, and there were also on the platform Mrs W. S. Bean, vice-president, and Miss Rose Tabart, honorary secretary. The stage was effectively decorated with a profusion of wattle blossom and palms. There was a large attendance. General Andrew's address was illustrated with many anecdotes dealing with his experiences in Mesopotamia, where he spent three years in a military capacity. In Mesopotamia, he said, a position would be found precisely similar to that in India, where the religious beI liefs of the people had held up progress. In Mesopotamia the traveller came in contact with people living exactly as their ancestors did 5000 years ago. Referring to the country’s early history, he said that the ruins of Hormuz, on the Straits of Ilormuz, five da}'s out from Bombay, marked the site of the most populous and important seaport of the Middle Ages. The voyage to Mesopotamia continued into the Persian Gulf and ended at Basra. Importance of Religion. “We arc now,” said the General, “in Arabia, the cradle land of Islam since Mohammed sent out his followers, sword in hand, many hundreds of years ago. Islam is the proper word to use for the Mohammedan faith, and the followers of that faith are known as Moslems. To these Moslems religion is everything: nothing else in the world matters. “We to-day are inclined to overlook the tremendous part that religious ideas have played, and are continuing to play, in forming the destinies of mankind. I am quite sure the Western world is making a mistake in relying xtpon political nostrums to try to bring the Eastern nations in line with themselves. To them self-govern-ment and all the other things that the Western people talk is nothing more than the chattering of owls. Threequarters of the world’s population are lagging five centuries behind the Western world because of their religious beliefs.” Apart from its people and their religion, Mesopotamia, as the “cradle of the human race,” was of unusual interest to anyone who took an interest in man’s first efforts to free himself from barbarism. The General described the wonderfully luxurious area between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers with its never-ending vistas of beautiful and shady palms, its prosperous villages and stretches of cultivation. Belief in Predestination. In addition to the inferior status given to women by the Moslem faith there was still another impassable bar to progress, and that was the Moslems’ belief in predestination. According to the Moslems there was away up in Heaven a great book on God’s right hand, the “Lauh,” and in it was supposed to be entered the birth of every Moslem child and the whole of its future life. That was all right, but the Moslem was convinced in his heart of hearts that no human effort could change it. Because of that, one found him sitting in filth, squalor and ignorance, saying to himself twenty times a day, “It is the will of God.” The conclusion of General Andrew’s address was devoted to an interesting description of the cave dwellers along the cliffs Hanking the Euphrates and of the Bedouin triTfcs. A vote of thanks to General Andrew for his address was carried by acclamation. Afternoon tea was provided by the ladies of the league.