The Waikato Times With which is incorporated The Waikato Argus. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1921. ISLAM AND INDIA

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14599, 24 February 1921, Page 4

The Waikato Times With which is incorporated The Waikato Argus. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1921. ISLAM AND INDIA

The" German traveller, Keyserling, possesses an exceptional power of peneIrating Hie real inwardness and splftt of Oriental races, and their bearing on the destinies of the West. A few years ago he made a lour of India and the East generally; and came to certain very derisive conclusions on future i issues as between Eastern and Western j peoples. The diary of bis travels has only just been published, and lias excited a good deal of interest. In Germany if is being" accepted and interpreted as a counter-blast to Spenglcr's book on the "Decline of the West." which propounded the doctrine that the West was doomed, and tlwt the future lay with the East. But Keyserling is not a theorist or doctrinaire. He ; s concerned not so much with propounding a thesis or fulminating a prophecy, as with analysing the genius, spirit, and temperament of Eastern races out of pure anthropological interest. This is really the more eiitful method. A writer who is full uf a big, comprehensive theory or formula will always view facts through t!i n medium of his preconception. Under the influence of a free, sensitive receptivity, Keyserling soaked himself in the spiritual an 1 mental attitude of each race with whom he mingled. He has much to say about ; India; and after a vivid picture of Urn qualities and capacities of the Moslem Indians, he says "How right l!ie English are to regard and treat the islamic elcmenl as the derisive factor in India!" These words were written years hefore the war. at a time when the traditional friendly attitude of Britain towards Turkey was still lingering on in the face of growing discouragement. But even as the expression of the British policy of that period, they cause us some surprise. To most of us, no doubt, it will be news that Britain has regarded and treated the Islamic 'or Moslem' elcmenl as the decisive factor in India. Tin: popular impression lias generally been Unit she look thai clcmcn! for granjnd as instinctively loyal, and did nol trouble her head mud j about it. But Keyserliu3 is not a man |

who talks on the surface. He sees the real significance of the Moslem in India. He has a great respect flor the Indian Moslem. "They are no dreamers, no visionaries, no strangers 8h this world. They give a greater Impression of reality. Their muscles are tense; their eyes are bold; they hear tlhernselves as if ready for a spring." Ife goes on to describe how their inherent spirit of discipline pervades their ritual and worship. It is all regulated on a military basis: the serried raaks all performing their prayers In the mosque, all going though the same gestures at the same moment, like Prussian soldiers. lon parade, This military basis explains the essential virtues of the Mussulman; but it also explains his fundamental defects: his unprogressiveness, his lack of initiative and invention. And over against this virile, tense, but unthinking and unadaptive stock he sets the mystical, subtle, meditative Hindu, to whom the things of outward sense and j the material world are mens fleeting j shadows, while the abiding realities are the fruits of meditation, the inner rao- | tions of the soul, the union with the Divine. And the remarkable thing is that the driving force in modern political agitation in India has been, not the tense, energetic, disciplined Moslem, ■but. the dreamy, metaphysical, speculative Hindu. We have seen, however, hovy deeply moved the Indian Moslem was over the degradation of Turkey. The expression ( ' his resentment look two characteristic forms: he did not plot and organise a rebellion, but he became a passive resistor, and lie migrated in considerable numbers across tho frontier. A little judicious propaganda and an occasional exposition of the critical periods in his own history might bring home to him that the Turkish 'claim to the Caliphate is a hollow sham, quite modern in its origin, and the result of ruthless spoliation. It is only doing Britain justice to recognise the clearsightedness with which she kept this latter fact in view in pursuing a stern peace policy towards' Turkey, notwithstanding the warnings of alarmists' foreboding dire consequences in India. As a matter of fact, the Caliphate as ar inspiring ideal has long since lost its potency. In the days of the Abasfids it tired the blood of fanatical hordes. Out it never survived the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols in the thirteenth century. It is true that it then migrated to Cairo; tut there it onlydragged out an anaemic existence, until the Turk Selim 1., 400 years ago, seized it with the person of the Caliph, and assumed, by right of conquest, the headship of the Mohammedan world. To-day there is no such thing as a united Islam, threatening the world with the sword or the crescent. "PanIslam" still exists as a nominal policy, and it was exploited for all it was worth by the Germans before, and in the early days of, the war. But it did not prevent the Hedjaz Arabs from joining the Allies, nor Indian Moslems from fighting their way up through Mesopotamia. Mi Wyman Bury's book on the subject presents very clearly the intrigue and sordid trickery which determined the various Arab" tribes in their choice of sides. Certainly there was no "holy war" about the matter. By careful handling the Indian Moslem can be brought to see that the Caliphate has never derived any religious sanctity from ils association with a blighting and Usurping Power like Turkey; least of ad with a Turkey run by a modern gang oi adventurers, absolutely devoid of any religious sentiments whatever. Then, iiiiiler a steady, organised system, like British India, his merits and, his defects will probably still combine to render him the "decisive factor," the. abiding, stable element in the Oriental world. No doubt Keyserling knew what lit was talking about.