256
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
June 1932
Siam in
INDIA B y J. E. MALLIS Ceylon and India General Mission
o f her contact with spiritual currents so nat ural to the life of India, she is second to none in zeal for the faith of Islam.” A careful survey by those most fully qualified to judge has pronounced Moslem South India a neglected and practically un occupied field of more than 3,500,000 Mo hammedans. For over thirty-five years, the
Gilliams Service
GANGES RIVER SCENE
he average Western reader, in thinking o f Islam, will turn in his mind to such countries as Arabia, Persia, Tur key, and the countries in North Africa. This is of course most natural. Arabia, for example, as the “ cradle of Is lam,” will always hold a unique place, further supported by the fact that the Qu’ran is in Arabic, a tongue which the Arabs call “ the language of the angels,” and which is the religious language for the whole of the great Moslem world of 235 million inhabitants. The Moorish invasion of Spain, the Persian poet Omar Khayyam, the Turkish “ Arabian Nights,” with the stories of the genii the Caliphs, the Crusaders against the Saracen Turks, and the modern Armenian atrocities (Mohammedan persecution o f Chris tians) are all definite points of contact between the West and the world of Islam. This popular perspective is, however, rather out of focus in several important particulars. In the first place, it fails to visualize the great territorial extent of Islam. From the North Atlantic (West Africa) at one end, to the Pacific (Mongolia and the Philippines) at the other, Islam stretches across the three continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia. Secondly, it fails to grasp the diversity of Islam. Ex cept that all are followers of Mohammed, there is very little in common as to race, environment, and culture be tween the Moslems of Mongolia, China, and the East In dies, India and the Arabian sheik of the desert, and the recently converted negroes of the Sudan. Yet all worship toward Mecca and repeat daily, with various degrees of pride, the shortest creed in the world, “ There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his apostle.” Finally, from the numerical standpoint, it is seldom realized that nearly one-third o f the entire world o f Islam is to be. found in India. This alone gives Moslem India a most important place in any consideration o f the Moslem world as a whole. The tremendous fact of seventy million Mohamme dans in India assumes even greater significance when it is realized that the Indian Mohammedan has always been a mainstay of Moslem orthodoxy, with the very high percen tage of Sunni Moslems (a strict sect) comprising the population. “ Moslem India feels very keenly a responsibility for the welfare of the Islamic world as a whole. Geographically, she is almost in the very center of that world, and because
Ceylon and India General Mission has been at work in the Madras Presidency and Mysore Native State, and now is responsible for areas containing more than one million souls who are entirely dependent upon this Mission for the gospel. More than ten per cent o f this number are Mos lems—Bangalore City alone, the field headquarters of the Mission, having a Mohammedan population of over 75,000. Oj? he M ission has never been able to meet the increasing- 'H ly urgent need of evangelizing the Moslem men in our fields. Although many of them attend our ordinary open- air meetings, it is a well recognized principle that unless the preaching be in their own language, Urdu, and especially adapted to the Moslem mind, dealing tactfully with their special difficulties, it misses the mark completely. T he S piritual I mpotency of I slam Apart from the fact that the Moslem world, though then non-existent, was potentially included in the Great Commission of our risen Lord, and also included in God’s
gracious pu rpose to head up all things in Christ, one great rea son f o r evangelizing M o s l e m s is to be found in the spiritual powerlessness o f Is lam. Her inability to help m o r a l derelicts and her frequent in difference to moral is sues, her weakness as a spiritual and ethical force in the commun
ity, and her hatred of the redeeming Christ have found many a sad illustration in the history of Moslem converts in all lands where Islam holds sway. A man can be the vilest criminal and the veriest rake, and yet be a Moslem in good standing. Neither the mulries (religious leaders) nor the pirs (elders and saints) care about his moral degradation. But let him become a Christian, and the whole community weeps and howls its horror and hence forth regards him as an outcaste. Islam has great social and community power, and to some extent that power is exercised for restraining evil. But as far as moral and spiritual dynamic is concerned, Islam, as I have met it in
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