osed 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
_mufti_ of indeterminably mixed extraction demonstrates to his pupils from
the standard work of al-Ghazali 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 Qoran 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 Bab 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.

To the greater part of the world represented by this international
exhibition of Islam, as a modern Musulman writer calls it, our modern
world, with all its problems, its emotions, its learning and science,
hardly exists. On the other hand, the average modern man does not
understand much more of the mental life of the two hundred millions to whom
the barren Mecca has become the great centre. In former days, other centres
were much more important, although Mecca has always been the goal of
pilgrimage and the cherished abode of many learned men. Many capitals of
Islam offered the students an easier life and better accommodations for
their studies; while in Mecca four months of the year are devoted to the
foreign guests of Allah, by attending to whose various needs all Meccans
ga