Bismika Alllahuma

C. Snouck Hurgronje (1857年？1936)是著名荷兰东方通并且荷兰殖民地政策的主要建筑师对于回教的在印度尼西亚，根据他的方向，比英国的政策是干涉在穆斯林内部事务的much more在印第安次大陆。

在那些日子里，当殖民主义和奴隶制曾经由Christianity、欧洲一般态度和特别是基督徒传教士辩解，关于他们的殖民地主题、他们的宗教和文明事理是主要地傲慢的。

在帝国和使命的那年龄， Hurgronje ？s文字在回教显示(比较词)可观性和诚实一个罕见的标本。 他是在保卫回教的真正地值得称赞的元素的一些痛苦从基督徒传教士的不正当的批评，并且从某些的畸变回教学者。

他的文字，然而，是他的年龄产品并且需要今天被学习，当记住他的位置作为最高的顾问到殖民地荷兰政府，并且时他的首要宗旨是保障荷兰人的兴趣在她的回教殖民地。 这考虑有明显的作用在他的可观性。

他的以下萃取物有关麦加朝圣，这里提出对于读者的信息：

在逐年麦加二或三十万Moslims从世界的所有地区一起来庆祝麦加朝圣， Mohammed合并了到他的宗教里的那好奇套仪式异教的阿拉伯起源，在Isl的耐久的生存？m在基督教作为做印象非凡象那跳跃的队伍。

Mohammed不可能预见他的让步的后果到深深地根源的阿拉伯风俗那在未来世纪汉语，马来人，印地安人， Tatars，土耳其人，埃及人，巴巴里人，并且黑人在这贫瘠漠土会见面并且运载家庭深刻印象Isl的国际意义？m.

仍然更加重要的是从所有那些国家青年人多年来致力他们自己这里安定于神圣的科学的研究的事实。 From the second to the tenth month of the Mohammedan lunar year, the Haram, i.e., the mosque, which is an open place with the Ka’bah in its midst and surrounded by large roofed galleries, has free room enough between the hours of public service to allow of a dozen or more circles of students sitting down around their professors to listen to as many lectures on different subjects, generally delivered in a very loud voice.

Arabic grammar and style, prosody, logic, and other preparatory branches, the sacred trivium; canonic law, dogmatics, and mysticism, and, for the more advanced, exegesis of Qor?n and Tradition and some other branches of supererogation, are taught here in the mediaeval way from mediaeval text-books or from more modern compilations reproducing their contents and completing them more or less by treating modern questions according to the same methods.

It is now almost thirty years since I lived the life of a Meccan student during one university year, after having become familiar with the matter taught by the professors of the temple of Mecca, the Haram, by privately studying it, so that I could freely use all my time in observing the mentality of people learning those things not for curiosity, but in order to acquire the only true direction for their life in this world and the salvation of their souls in the world to come.

For a modern man there could hardly be a better opportunity imagined for getting a true vision of the Middle Ages than is offered to the Orientalist by a few months’ stay in the Holy City of Isl?m. In countries like China, Tibet, or India there are spheres of spiritual life which present to us still more interesting material for comparative study of religions than that of Mecca, because they are so much more distant from our own; but, just on that account, the Western student would not be able to adapt his mind to their mental atmospheres as he may do in Mecca. No one would think for one moment of considering Confucianism, Hinduism, or Buddhism as specially akin to Christianity, whereas Isl?m has been treated by some historians of the Christian Church as belonging to the heretical offspring of the Christian religion. In fact, if we are able to abstract ourselves for a moment from all dogmatic prejudice and to become a Meccan with the Meccans, one of the “neighbours of Allah,” as they call themselves, we feel in their temple, the Haram, as if we were conversing with our ancestors of five or six centuries ago. Here scholasticism with a rabbinical tint forms the great attraction to the minds of thousands of intellectually highly gifted men of all ages.

The most important lectures are delivered during the forenoon and in the evening. A walk, at one of those hours, through the square and under the colonnades of the mosque, with ears opened to all sides, will enable you to get a general idea of the objects of mental exercise of this international assembly.

Here you may find a sheikh of pure Arab descent explaining to his audience, composed of white Syrians or Circassians, of brown and yellow Abyssinians and Egyptians, of negroes, Chinese, and Malays, the probable and improbable legal consequences of marriage contracts, not excepting those between men and genii; there a negro scholar is explaining the ontological evidence of the existence of a Creator and the logical necessity of His having twenty qualities, inseparable from, but not identical with, His essence; in the midst of another circle a learned muft? of indeterminably mixed extraction demonstrates to his pupils from the standard work of al-Ghaz?li the absolute vanity of law and doctrine to those whose hearts are not purified from every attachment to the world.

Most of the branches of Mohammedan learning are represented within the walls of this temple by more or less famous scholars; and still there are a great number of private lectures delivered at home by professors who do not like to be disturbed by the unavoidable noise in the mosque, which during the whole day serves as a meeting place for friends or business men, as an exercise hall for Qor?n reciters, and even as a passage for people going from one part of the town to the other.

In order to complete your mediaeval dream with a scene from daily life, you have only to leave the mosque by the B?b Dereybah, one of its twenty-two gates, where you may see human merchandise exhibited for sale by the slave-brokers, and then to have a glance, outside the wall, at a camel caravan, bringing firewood and vegetables into the town, led by Beduins whose outward appearance has as little changed as their minds since the day when Mohammed began here to preach the Word of Allah.

Extract taken from: Mohammedanism, Chapter iv: “Islam and Modern Thought”, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1937.