Shall the Third Angel's Message Go to the Moslem World?
By T. E. BOWEN
(Continued from the Young People's Work Department on page 19) [The following article for use in the Sabbath program of January 26, was received too late for insertion in the Young People's Work Department.] Shall the Third Angel's Message Go to the Moslem World?
So far as the work of the third angel's message is concerned, the great Mohammedan world is almost an entirely unentered territory. It presents some very formidable obstacles, too, when we take into account that the religion of the Moslems, from their point of view, is in reality a rival of Christianity. They count Christ a good and holy man, even a prophet, admitting that he was the Word of God, but stoutly deny him to be God's Son sent from heaven to redeem men. A Moslem's faith is a veritable example of what politics and religion, united in one individual, really is. He is a fighting zealot. To oppose his religion, means, to his mind, to oppose his kingdom; and to antagonize his temporal government, in nearly every essential feature, is likewise counted an attack upon his religion. We can grasp a little of the immensity of the work to be done for the Mohammedan world when we consider that of the world's population, including all other religions and the vast hordes in heathenism besides, one eighth of this great mass of people are Mohammedans. That is, were the people of the world arranged along in a row, every eighth person could be picked out and set aside as a Moslem. The word Mohammedanism comes from the religion founded by their prophet, Mohammed the son of Abdallah, who was born about the year 570 A. D. The word Mohammedanism is not used by the Mohammedans themselves. The Moslems speak and write of their religion as Al-Islam.21 The faith of the Moslems can be summed up briefly, as follows: “Mohammedanism, whether Shiah or Sunni, is founded on four ‘pillars:’ (1) the Koran; (2) the traditions; (3) Ijmaa, the unanimous consent of the learned doctors; (4) Qyas, or the reasoning of learned divines. It has six articles of faith: (1) God, (2) the angels of God, (3) the books of God, (4) the prophets of God, (5) the day of judgment, and (6) predestination. It has five pillars of religious duty: (1) Bearing witness that there is no god but God, and Mohammed is his apostle; (2) reciting in daily prayer; (3) giving the legal alms; (4) observing the Ramazan, or monthly fast; (5) making a hadj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, once in a lifetime.” The above constitutes one a Mohammedan in good and regular standing. Yea, much less, to profess to the above admits one into Moslem ranks. One hundred years after the birth of this Arab Mohammed, his name, “joined to that of the Almighty, was called out from ten thousand minarets five times daily from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic, and his new religion was sweeping everything before it in three continents.” It seems to be a mystery as to what should make this religion spread with such great rapidity. One writer, in summing up apparent reasons, gives as the most probable causes the following: “The weaknesses of the Oriental churches; their corrupt state; the condition of the Roman and Persian empires; the easy-going moral character of the new religion; the power of the sword and of fanaticism; the great truths of Islam [‘there are always some winning truths mixed with every system of error’]; the genius of Mohammed's successors; the hope of plunder, and the love of conquest.” Surely this great system, embracing more than two hundred twenty-five million people in the toils of a false religion, presents a mighty challenge of faith to the believer in the Bible and Christ, that one Name given us among men whereby we must be saved. Then it comes as a still greater challenge to our faith, when we ponder that out from among these same millions representatives must come to form a part of that last company who are to stand triumphant with harp and palm and crown upon the sea of glass, redeemed from among the last generation, out of every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, by the power of the third angel's message. In closing, it may be of interest to know that the Moslems are not being overlooked, but that a beginning is being made among them. Brother Guy Dail, in a recent report from Constantinople, says:— “A Turkish tract, ‘Who is Jesus?’ written especially for the Moslems, is meeting with considerable favor. The other evening, the young Armenian brother (who was formerly a simple village shepherd boy) came to the mission with a joyful face, as he related the experience of the day. Some one complained to the police because Brother Dikran—for that is his name—was circulating such literature among the Mohammedans. The youth was arrested, and taken to police headquarters. Here the higher official took his tracts, and investigated their contents. One asked. ‘How dare you sell such things to the Moslems?’ He replied that the literature was good, and well adapted to the educated and the cultured, so he went among such people, rather than simply to the hammals (the carriers on the streets). A high officer took the tract, and retired. He was gone about half an hour. He returned, and told Brother Dikran: ‘I have read this through. Would that more such good literature were circulated, in the place of so much cheap trash! It contains many quotations from the Gospels. Go and sell all these tracts you can.’ So the brother was allowed to go free. He sells from twenty-five to forty a day. It is our intention to increase our Turkish literature by adding a tract on Daniel 2, and one on Daniel 7.” Are there not others upon whom God can lay the burden to go and labor among the Moslems? And are there not many others who can give of their means who could not go? Christ's “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,” surely must include the Mohammedans within its scope. And, again, they form no small part of the population of the world, and Jesus said, “The field is the world.”