Page:The young Moslem looks at life (1937).djvu/164

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times a new plan and purpose for life has to be worked out or Islam is lost; and in the process of bringing Islam up to date we find the Moslem nations struggling along shoulder to shoulder with the rest of us in the common task of remaking the world.

The modern world is a vast kaleidoscope of change, in which all peoples, races and religions are part of the shifting pattern. With feverish activity mankind is busy either in proposing and promoting "new deals" in politics and religion or in reconditioning the old models. There has never been a time when there was such a baffling intermixture of human beings, races, philosophies and religions as we find in the world today; and struggling side by side with the other nations are the Moslem peoples, some clinging tenaciously to their traditions and ancient heritage, others eagerly working on the problems of adaptation and readjustment, and all wondering with the rest of us, "What next?"

THE AHMADIYA MOVEMENT

In the days when the nineteenth century was about to enter its final decade, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad sat much in meditation in his house in the village of Qadian in northern India. He had received a good education in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and the curriculum of Moslem orthodoxy; but he was thoughtful and studious beyond the average man of his community. Many things in India and the Moslem world at large disturbed him. He was distressed that under the leadership