The Moslem World/Volume 2/Number 1/Editorial
EDITORIAL
:o:
This is a day of world-wide vision and of world movements, both secular and religious. The imperial idea is dominant. The first effort" to hold a Conference of Missions with a programme as wide as the empire of Christ was the World's Congress of Missions, held in connection with the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893. These two gatherings, so diverse in their aim and nature, yet marked a new era. The East received a new impulse, while national movements and world conferences were introduced also into the Orient. A general conference, for example, with delegates from every part of the Moslem world was held at Mecca twelve years ago (A.H., 1316). The object of the gathering, as is evident from the printed report of the conference, was "to investigate into the causes for the decay of Islam."[1] An account of it was written by Professor Margoliouth and published in "The East and The West." Among the causes assigned for the decline of Moslem influence and power were not only the loss of political prestige, but the defects of Islam itself from within, and the necessity for radical reforms. The report had a wide circulation, and many events in the Moslem world which have been tantamount to revolution, are probably the result of the Mecca Conference. The triumph of the Young Turks, the progressive efforts of the Constitutionalists in Persia, and pan-Islamic movements in other parts of the world were perhaps due to it no less than to other currents of thought hidden from the ordinary observer.
It was natural, therefore, that those long engaged in evangelistic work among Moslems should hold a world conference at Cairo, in 1906, to consider the field in its entirety and its problems. Representatives of many missionary societies, and missionaries, many of them men and women grown gray in the service, counselled together for eight days, and sent out to the Churches a report which has accomplished more to arouse a serious interest in the work of carrying the Gospel to Moslems than anything undertaken in all the centuries past. During the five years that followed this question was discussed in print and in missionary gatherings, with the result that new work was established or workers were specially set apart in older fields for this task. Then came the Edinburgh World Conference, in which missions to Moslems also had their place.
This awakened interest in the evangelisation of Moslem lands was naturally accompanied by the production of a large literature on the subject. Not only in the missionary library but in the secular press, Islam has never occupied so prominent a place as it does to-day. The Lucknow Conference, of which an account appeared in our columns, was both representative and comprehensive, and we are grateful that already practical results are evident. It is fair to say that there is not only a pan-Islamic movement, but also a pan-Christian movement throughout the world—a movement of self-sacrificing service and believing prayer on behalf of our Moslem brethren.
What could be more appropriate, therefore, than the establishment of an organ such as our review, to help the Churches in their plans for the evangelisation of the Moslem world. We thank our contributors for their cordial co-operation in the past year, and believe the quarterly will prove increasingly helpful to every student of Islam. May we not bespeak a place this year, therefore, in every public library of Christendom, in the reading rooms of colleges and universities, as well as theological seminaries, and in the hands of every one who prays for the coming of the Kingdom, for The Moslem World? Then we may look forward to years of progress and blessing in missionary work among Moslems. E. M. Wherry.
- ↑ Um-el-Kura, ai Mukararăt mu'temer El Nahdhat El Islamiah; Mekka, 1316 A.H., 148 p.p. (no author, no publisher; printed at Cairo).