It is a commonplace of theology that “to form erroneous conceptions of sin is to fall into still graver errors regarding the way of salvation.” Mohammed, as is evident from his whole life, had no deep conviction of sin in himself; he was full of self-righteousness. His ideas, too, of God, were _physical_, not _moral_; he saw God’s power, but never had a glimpse of His holiness. And so we find that there is an inward unity binding together the prophet and his book as to their real character in the light of the gospel. With _such_ ideas of God, _such_ a prophet and _such_ a book, it is easy to understand why the Mohammedan world became what it is to-day. These bare outlines of the system of Islam are all that are necessary to indicate its nature and genus. Allah’s character as the revealer, Mohammed’s character as the channel of the revelation, and the revelation itself, show us Islam in its cradle.
“Nothing is so easy to appreciate as true Christian commerce. It is a speaking argument, even to the lowest savage, for a gospel of truth and love, and yet more to the races sophisticated by a false civilization.”—_Principal Cairns._
The history of the Arabian Peninsula has never yet been written. Many books describe certain periods of its history from the time of the earlier Arabian rulers, but there is no volume that tells the story from the beginning in a way worthy of the subject. It would be interesting to search out the earliest records and trace the Himyarite dynasties to their origin; to learn the story of the Jewish immigrants who settled in Medina, Mecca and Yemen even before the Christian Era; to follow the Arabs in their conquests under the banner of the prophet; to watch the sudden rise of the Carmathians and follow them in their career of destruction; to search the old libraries and rediscover the romantic story of the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English in Arabian waters;—but our space limits us to the story of the past century.[63]
To understand the present political conditions and recent history of Arabia, we must go back to the year 1765, which marks the rise of the remarkable Wahabi movement, which was at the bottom of all the political changes that the Peninsula has seen since that time. This movement was the renaissance of Islam, even though it ended in apparent disaster, and was politically a splendid fiasco. The Wahabi reform attracted the attention of Turkey to Arabia; its influence was felt in India to the extent of declaring a _jihad_ or religious war against the government, and compelled England to study the situation and send representatives to the very heart of Arabia.