/Iftobei n - Cbristian /ll^iesions in Hrabia GENERAL P. T. HAIG Honoraiy Trustee, Arabian Mission Hrabian ^TDission IReformeb Church ♦ : in Hmerica MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN ARABIA BY GENERAL F. T. HAIG Honorary Trustee^ Arabian Mission - IT would be deeply interesting, did space permit, to trace the gradual unfold- ings of the Divine Pro/idence in the re-introduction of the Gospel into Arabia, thirteen hundred years after Christianity had been blotted out in that land by the sword of Mohammed and his successors, but the limits imposed upon this article forbid anything more than a glance at this part of the subject. For many centuries the Arabs had ceased to be a menace to Christianity and civiliza- tion. As the great missionaries of Islam they had spread their creed over nearly half the African Continent, and the ever-advancing wave of Mohammedanism had begun even to threaten the young Christian churches on the western coast. Still it was not until some time between 1880 and 1890 that Arabia itself, the cradle and home of the race, seriously engaged the attention of the Church of Christ. About that time, however, it became evident that the Spirit of God was moving upon the hearts of His people, and that the yearnings of His love were beginning to find expression in their prayers for the lost sons of Ishmael. " For some years," wrote an American minister in the far West, " I and my people have been praying for Arabia." More' than one appeal went forth, pleading for the Arabs. Interest was awakened. Old Dr. Lansing, of the American Mission in Egypt, who for over thirty years had labored there, waiting for the dawn of a brighter day for the Moslem world, when one of these appeals fell into his hands, was all on fire to start for Yemen. " I could scarcely keep him," said his wife, ''from mounting his donkey and setting of! at once." Keith- Falconer felt the same mighty impulse, left home and country, and settled at Aden, which for two short years became his mission field, and then his grave. The mantle of the elder Lansing fell upon his son, and he with a few other kindred spirits rose up at the Divine call and started the Arabian Mission, which now occupies the three most important points on the eastern side of the peninsula. Another mission, afterward taken up by the Church Missionary Society, was commenced at Kerak, on the mountains of Moab, by a Methodist preacher, Mr. Leihaby, and his wife ; and Bagdad, which had already been occupied by the same society, in connection with their Persian Mission, now assumed new importance as a great Arab city. Finally the venerable Bishop French, who, after some thirty years of missionary labor in India, could not, though feeble and broken, cease from his loved employ, commenced work at Muscat, where shortly after, in a little nook at the foot of the cliffs, where the waves have washed up just sand enough to afford space for a few graves, he was laid to rest, consecrating the whole movement by his noble example of devotedness unto death for the salvation of his fellow-men. Thus six of the most important strategic positions around the great penin- sula are now held for Christ ; those on the East Coast and at the head of the Gulf, commanding the whole hinterland of Central Arabia, by the (American) Arabian Mission ; that at Aden by the Scotch Mission ; and the two on the north by the Church Missionary Society. When we remember that tjiis has been ac- 2 MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN ARABIA. complished in little more than ten years since the attention of the Christian Church was first drawn to the subject, including all the preliminary organizations • at home and inquiries abroad, before actual settlement on the spot could be effected, there is cause for thankfulness and praise. At the same time it is neces- sary to point out that each of the three stations of the Arabian Mission is held at the present moment by only 07ie man, whose death or disablement by sickness would instantly stop the work at that point. Immediate and strong reinforce- ments are called for. Only one side of the great fortress is as yet, and that but partially, invested, and no advance into the citadel, the great populous centres of Nejd and Jebel Shomraar, is possible without further help. Ten millions of Arabs need something more than half a dozen men for their effectual evangelization. It is surprising, indeed, how much of vigorous forward movement and exploration has been done, chiefly by the Americans, in this short period. They have explored the beautiful mountainous country of Yemen in the southwest ; several hundred miles of the coast of Hadramaut on the south, includmgthe centres of Makallah and Sheher; and many hundred miles of the Euphrates and Tigris on the north, making the acquaintance there of new forms of Arab life, and of the interesting little community of the Sabeans, the descendants of the Hemero-Baptists of the first centuries. They have annexed Bahrein and Muscat to Busrah, their original settle- ment, and Rev. S. M. Zwemer has pushed his reconnaissances inland as far as Khateef and Hofhoof, on the way to Nejd and Central Arabia, finding more than one evidence of the truthfulness of Palgrave's picturesque descriptions of that country. Thousands of Bibles, Testaments, and portions of scripture have been scattered by the Bible societies and missionaries around the various mission cen- tres. Thus a good beginning of the great work has been made, most of the strategic points for mission work have been occupied, but nothing more ; but enough at least has been done to show that if only the men now in the field be properly backed up by the churches at home, not many years will elapse before all Arabia, north, south, east, and west, shall have heard the joyful sound, and "Ishmael shall live." Let us now look a little more closely into the conditions of this great prob- lem, the evangelization of Arabia. Nothing need here be said about the geogra- phy, climate, etc., of the country. Ample information already exists upon this part of the subject, and may be easily found elsewhere by those who desire it. Of the present distribution of political power, however, some account must be given, and I take the following from a tract by Rev. S. M. Zwemer. " Sinai is Egyptian, and also the 200 miles of coast south of the Gulf of Akaba. Hedjaz belongs to the Turk, and he also grasps (not holds) Yemen, Asir El Hasa, and Irak. All the rest of Arabia yields neither love, obedience, nor trib- ute to the Sublime Porte. The oppressed tribes of Upper Yemen were recently crushed into submission but do not despair of future revolution. El Hasa (on the East Coast) frets like an Arab steed under the yoke of taxation, and Mecca itself dictates at times to the power behind the throne at Constantinople. The tribes near Aden, and the entire South Coast, including Oman with Muscat, are in one way or another under subsidy or ' protection ' by the English, who rule the Gulf, and have a voice at Busrah and Bagdad. Wide, wild Nejd bends to the iron sceptre of the greatest Arab of our day, Ibn Rasheed, the Ameer of Jebel MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN ARABIA. 3 4 MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN ARABIA. Shommar. For the rest, nomads roam the free desert, acknowledging no S Itan save the sword ; they hold the parliament of war or peace in the black tents of Kedar. Thus, within the last fifty years have the schisms of Islam, the turmoil of Arab rebellion, and the diplomacy of English commerce, burst the barriers of the land of Ishmael for the All-Conquering Son of Isaac ; the very cradle of Islam is almost unveiled for the heralds of the Cross." To which I may add that Bah- rein, the name given to two islands which lie just off the coast of El Hasa, and are the centre of the pearl fishery, has in a remarkable manner been pre- served from Turkish aggression, and is ruled by an Arab Sheikh under the con- trol of the British Resident at Bushire. The islands have a large population, are the nearest point along the coast to Nejd and all Central Arabia, and are there- fore of ;the utmost importance as a mission station for an advance in that di- rection. In all these political arrangements we clearly trace the overruling hand of God, curbing Turkish aggression, suppressing Wahabee fanaticism, and so pre- paring the way for His Gospel. There is not room to dwell here upon other influences which have told in the same direction, such as the extension of com- merce and intercourse with India, and the spectacle of the beneficent results of the British Government in that country, in Aden, and in Egypt. But of yet greater interest is the question of the present religious condition of the Arab races. "'Does Islam retain its hold upon them as firmly as ever.? How does their present mental attitude toward it, and toward the Christianity which it once supplanted, compare with that of the past ages, and with that of the Arabs of North America.' The question can only be lightly touched upon here. To treat of it at all satisfactorily would need a wider and fuller acquaintance than we yet possess, not only with the extent to which the outward forms of their religion are observed, but also with the inner thoughts and life of the people. Aralsia is an immence country, about three-fourths the size of India. Vast portions of it have as yet been unvisited except bya chance traveler passing hastily tl rough, and having little real intercourse with the inhabitants. There mav be lymg, deep below the surface, phases of religious thought in parts of it with which we are wholly unacquainted. Has Christianity quite died out in the course of agfes, or are there still faint memories and traditions of it which have influenced the re- ligious ideas of the present day ? We know not. It is certain, however, that in another country which might be named such a survival of as remote a past has actually taken place, and may yet prove a powerful factor in the conversion of its inhabitants. In general terms, however, it may perhaps be said that the influences of time have told less unfavorably, from the Christian point of view, upon the Arabs of Arabia than upon the scattered but probably equally numerous portions of the race in North Africa. Romanism with its idolatry, on the one hand, and the scepticism and atheism which are the reaction from it, on the other, are the only forms of religious opinion, under the general name of Christianity, which the Arabs of North Africa have been acquainted with. The one they contempt- uously reject, but the other is secretly spreading among the more cultured classes, especially in Algeria and Tunis, where French education is rapidly extending, and the state of mind it produces is even more unfavorable to the reception of the truth than the most fanatical forms of Mohammedanism. The isolation of Arabia has to a great extent preserved it from these forms of error, while there has been nothing within the borders of the peninsula itself MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN ARABIA. 5 to strengthen or resuscitate faith, or effectually to counteract the disintegrating forces of sectarian division, Persian speculative thought, and, more perhaps than either, the indifference to all religious questions, which seems, according to some authorities, to be a characteristic of the race, and which in the case of the Bedou. jn is said to have led even Mohammed to despair of their conversion. In point of fact, Islam from the very first seems to have taken far less hold upon the Arabs than might be supposed. Immediately after the death of its founder a general revolt from his teachings took place, and for centuries the popular religion seems to have been little more than semi-paganism. Wahabeeism, which was an attempt to reinstate the religion of the prophet by his favorite weapon, the sword^ has failed egregiously, and is now in the last stage of decay. The Arabs remain A GLIMPSE OF THE CREEK AT BUSRAH, ARABIA. Mohammedans simply because they know of nothing better ; fanatical in some parts, doubtful and bewildered in others, not because they have rejected the Gospel, but because they have never heard it. The Bedouin, constituting perhaps a fourth or fifth of the population, are for the most part Mohammedan only in name, observing the prescribed forms in the neighborhood of towns, but speedily casting them aside on regaining the desert. Yet there are men among them not without reverent thoughts of the Creator, derived from the contemplation of His works, thoughts which, according to Palmer, take sometimes the form of solemn but simple prayer. A missionary who some years ago spent more than two months with one of these tribes, living with the Sheikh, and accompanying them in their wanderings from pasturage to pasturage, found them willing though not particularly interested listeners, and singularly amenable to the Word of God as 6 MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN ARABIA. the one authority in matters of faith. The Sheikh, seeing that the missionary disliked traveling on the Sunday, inquired the reason, and willingly accepted the word of the Book as decisive upon the point, and indeed upon every other point, and from that time the tribe never marched upon the Sabbath. How sad it seems that so few of the race have as yet come under the sound of the Gospel ! In the cities and towns there is, of course, a more rigorous observance of the outward forms of Mohammedanism, but there is also among the upper and middle classes, especially on the eastern coast, widespread doubt. A missionary writes : " There are very plain indications of an undercurrent of scepticism and free thought. Indeed, to any one who knows the Mohammedans intimately, it is scarcely an unde.rcM.xxe.nt at all. I know men in the most learned Mohammedan society of B who, judged by their dress and outward appearance, would be taken for bulwarks of the Mohammedan religion, and who yet have no more belief in it than Professor Huxley has in Christianity. One of these men aston- ished me by his expressions of downright loathing of the religion of which he is a professed teacher." It would be foreign to the special object of this paper, and altogether be- yond its scope, to give any detailed description of the doctrines and practices of Islam. It may suffice to say with regard to them all, that holiness of heart has absolutely no place in the religion of Mohammed, and that just as polygamy, unlimited concubinage, and divorce, being regarded as of Divine sanction, ate not in the least degree revolting to the moral sense of its votaries, so there is no connection, either in fact or in popular estimation, between the most rigorous observance of the outward forms, which are of its very essence, and a holy life. Arabs are not in the least' deceived by what they know to be merely out- ward and ritual, and wholly without effect upon the heart ; they draw, in fact, an unfavorable inference from much outward show of religion. In North Africa they have a saying, " Shun a man who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca once ; live not in the same street with one who has performed it twice; and reside not in the same country with one who has visited the Kaaba thrice." I once myself formed one of a circle of some twenty guests in the house of an Arab gentleman, who (excepting myself), when the evening adtham, or call to prayer, sounded forth from the mosque, joined the host in the most solemn and impressive recita- tion of the prayers, with the prescribed genuflexions and prostrations, but of whom he afterward privately declared that every one was a thief, handing me at the same time the key of a room where he had had my baggage locked up, and warning me to be on my guard. The true Christian idea of prayer appears to be wholly wanting, though in times of great distress short ejaculatory prayer will be put up. The intercession of saints is much resorted to ; prayer is offered at their tombs. At times the poor people, failing to receive an answer to such prayers, resort in their despair to necromancy. In Arabia the women "pray." " At home," says Mr. S. M. Zwemer, "a larger proportion observe the times of prayer than do the men." (This is not the case in North Africa.) In the towns girls seldom, and boys never, " pray," until they are over twelve years of age. Women are seldom or never allowed to attend the public prayers in the mosque. Few of the Arabs can read, perhaps not above lo per cent, of the dwellers in towns, and only some of these understand what they read of the Koran. The Bedouin are wholly illiterate. Slaves are MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN ARABIA. 7 imported via Jeddah and the Persian Gulf, they are sold in Busrah privately, and doubtless in other towns, being brought from Mecca as merchandise by the re- turning pilgrims. Polygamy is practically universal among the well-to-do classes, and divorce, almost unlimited, with its attendant horrors of cruelty and suffer- ing, takes its place among the poorer. Thus, with polygamy, slavery, and divorce (all sanctioned by their religion) the state of Arab society may be imagined. Happily space does not permit me to enlarge upon this terrible subject. So, with fasts and prayers and pilgrimages, hoping in his good works, the mercy of God, and the intercession of the prophet (such intercession being wholly unauthorized by the Koran), the poor Arab wends his way down through life, is laid to rest at last with his face toward Mecca, and passes into eternity with a lie in his right hand. One thing he never knew, that gracious message that was in- tended to be familiar as a household word to every member of the human race, that God loved him as God only can love, that Christ died for him, and that a THE TOMB OF EZRA ON THE TIGRIS RIVER. free pardon and full salvation awaited his acceptance. He knew it not because he was never told, and he was never told because for ages the Church lost the blessed truth, and since it recovered it has neglected the one great duty, to pro- claim it to every creature. Thank God those times of ignorance are nearly over. Through the tender mercy of our God the day-spring from on high has visited Arabia. And may we not hope that the churches which have taken the lead in this great movement will spare no effort, neither men, nor life, nor money, to carry it on to the destined consummation. Thus far we have traced the rise and progress up to the present time of the Arabian Missions. A few brief remarks as to the future may not inappropriately conclude this paper. I. It will be seen from what has been said that all the western and southern sides of Arabia are still without a missionary. The Free Church of Scotland 8 MODERN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN ARABIA. Mission at Aden is doing an important work, and there is a wide field for exten- sion before it. Not, however, being acquainted with its plans for the future, I do not venture to say anything on the subject here. Jeddah, however, the port of Mecca, might afford a base where, in spite of the intense jealousy and watchful- ness of the Turk, a work might be begun. Asir and Yemen may not be accessi- ble just at this moment, but they soon will be so. 2. As to the rest of Arabia, including the eastern, central, and southern provinces, in fact quite one-half of the peninsula, I am indebted to the Rev. S. M Zwemer for the following sketch, the result of four years' study of the subject on the spot, of a missionary scheme, such as the Church which sent him and his fel- low-laborers out can hardly stop short of. I give this sketch only in very abbre- viated form. Such a scheme would include three provinces, Hassa, Oman, and Nejd, with Busrah on the north, and a part at least of Hadraraaut on the south. There would be twelve centres — viz-., the seven coast towns already occupied, or visited, by the American Mission, four , inland towns, Hail, Boreyda, Hofhoof, and Riad in Nejd, and two or three inland towns of Oman, and Hadramaut (Makallah is included in the coast centres). These would require twenty-four missionaries and twelve native helpers. The cost would be, in round numbers. $30,000 a year — viz., $25,000 in addition to the present outlay on the missionaries, and native helpers, new in the field. " With this demand supplied, all of Eastern, Central, and Southern Arabia would in ten years be permeated with the Gospel message, by word and printed page. Leaving all other results with God, is that too much to pay for such a privilege ? Can the Dutch Reformed Church do it. Will she do it? " To such an appeal there can be but one reply. That Church when it took up the mission originally commenced on an independent basis as the Arabian Mission, did so with full knowledge of the plans and purposes of its founders, which, as the very title of the mission shows, embraced nothing less than such a comprehensive scheme of evangelization as that above described. Surely then that Church will feel it to be both a duty and a privilege to carry that scheme through to the end. As to the qualifications needed for the work, here is a description by one of the missionaries now in the field : " I. A strong and sound constitution. " 2. Ability to acquire the language. This is the one and only qualification needful, mentally. Scholarship is good, but not at all necessary. Deep and ab- struse arguers will not be wanted in Arabia for fifty years to come. "3. As to character — humility, patience, love— these three. A man with a hot temper could never stand three seasons in the Gulf. But after you have got these for foundation, pile on all the fire and zeal and enthusiasm you can get. " Lastly, men full of the Holy Ghost, sine qua non." Christians of America, hearken to your brethren's call from the Gulf, come and take your stand by their side. The future of Arabia is largely in your hands. It will be very much what you make it. " Who among you is willing to conse- crate this day his serivce to the Lord ? The Lord his God be with you, and let him go up." — Reprinted from the Missionary Review of the World, October, ."895, by whom the illustrations, also, are kindly loaned. ROGERS & SHERWOOD PRINTING CO. U-ie VE8EY STREET, N. Y.