The Future of Islam | Page 5

1,000 | 5,000,000 | | | Mogrebbins ("people of the West"), that | | | is to
say Arabic-speaking Mussulmans | | | from the Barbary States, Tripoli, |
| | Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco. These are | | | always classed together
and are not | | | easily distinguishable from each other | 6,000 | ... |
18,000,000 | | | Arabs from Yemen | 3,000 | ... | 2,500,000 | | | " " Oman
and Hadramaut | 3,000 | ... | 3,000,000 | | | " " Nejd, Assir, and Hasa,
most | | | of them Wahhabites | ... | 5,000 | 4,000,000 | | | " " Hejaz, of
these perhaps | | | 10,000 Meccans | ... | 22,000 | 2,000,000 | | | Negroes
from Soudan | 2,000 | ... | 10,000,000(?) | | | " " Zanzibar | 1,000 | ... |
1,500,000 | | | Malabari from the Cape of Good Hope | 150 | ... | | | |
Persians | 6,000 | 2,500 | 8,000,000 | | | Indians (British subjects) |
15,000 | ... | 40,000,000 | | | Malays, chiefly from Java and Dutch | | |
subjects | 12,000 | ... | 30,000,000 | | | Chinese | 100 | ... | 15,000,000 | | |
Mongols from the Khanates, included in | | | the Ottoman Haj | ... | ... |
6,000,000 | | | Lazis, Circassians, Tartars, etc. | | | (Russian subjects),
included in the | | | Ottoman Haj | ... | ... | 5,000,000 | | | Independent
Afghans and Beluchis, | | | included in the Indian and Persian | | | Hajs
| ... | ... | 3,000,000 |-----------------|------------ Total of Pilgrims present
at Arafat | 93,250 | Total Census of Islam |175,000,000
The figures thus roundly given require explanation in order to be of
their full value as a bird's-eye view of Islam. I will take them as nearly
as possible in the order in which they stand, grouping them, however,
for further convenience sake under their various sectarian heads, for it

must be remembered that Islam, which in its institution was intended to
be one community, political and religious, is now divided not only into
many nations, but into many sects. All, however, hold certain
fundamental beliefs, and all perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, where
they meet on common ground, and it is to this latter fact that the
importance attached to the Haj is mainly owing.
The main beliefs common to all Mussulmans are--
1. A belief in one true God, the creator and ordainer of all things.
2. A belief in a future life of reward or punishment.
3. A belief in a divine revelation imparted first to Adam and renewed at
intervals to Noah, to Abraham, to Moses, and to Jesus Christ, and last
of all in its perfect form to Mohammed. This revelation is not only one
of dogma, but of practice. It claims to have taught an universal rule of
life for all mankind in politics and legislation as well as in doctrine and
in morals. This is called Islam.
4. A belief in the Koran as the literal word of God, and of its inspired
interpretation by the Prophet and his companions, preserved through
tradition (Hadith).[1]
These summed up in the well-known "Kelemat" or act of faith, "There
is no God but God, and Mohammed is the apostle of God," form a
common doctrinal basis for every sect of Islam--and also common to
all are the four religious acts, prayer, fasting, almsgiving and
pilgrimage, ordained by the Koran itself. On other points, however,
both of belief and practice, they differ widely; so widely that the sects
must be considered as not only distinct from, but hostile to, each other.
They are nevertheless, it must be admitted, less absolutely
irreconcileable than are the corresponding sects of Christianity, for all
allow the rest to be distinctly within the pale of Islam, and they pray on
occasion in each other's mosques and kneel at the same shrines on
pilgrimage. Neither do they condemn each other's errors as altogether
damnable--except, I believe, in the case of the Wahhabites, who accuse
other Moslems of polytheism and idolatry. The census of the four great

sects may be thus roughly given--
1. The Sunites or Orthodox Mohammedans 145,000,000 2. The Shiites
or Sect of Ali 15,000,000 3. The Abadites (Abadhiyeh) 7,000,000 4.
The Wahhabites 8,000,000
The Sunites, or People of the Path, are of course by far the most
important of these. They stand in that relation to the other sects in
which the Catholic Church stands to the various Christian heresies, and
claim alone to represent that continuous body of tradition political and
religious, which is the