ing socially as well as materially that the
Prophet's tomb at Medina is lit by electricity and that picture
post-cards are sold outside the Holy Kaaba at Mecca? It may seem mere
grotesque piquancy that the muezzin should ride to the mosque in a
tram-car, or that the Moslem business man should emerge from his harem,
read his morning paper, motor to an office equipped with a prayer-rug,
and turn from his devotions to dictaphone and telephone. Yet why assume
that his life is moulded by mosque, harem, and prayer-rug, and yet deny
the things of the West a commensurate share in the shaping of his social
existence? Now add to these tangible innovations intangible novelties
like scientific education, Occidental amusements, and the partial
emancipation of women, and we begin to get some idea of the depth and
scope of the social transformation which is going on.

In those parts of the Orient most open to Western influences this social
transformation has attained notable proportions for more than a
generation. When the Hungarian Orientalist Vambery returned to
Constantinople in 1896 after forty years' absence, he stood amazed at
the changes which had taken place, albeit Constantinople was then
subjected to the worst repression of the Hamidian regime. "I had," he
writes, "continually to ask myself this question: Is it possible that
these are my Turks of 1856; and how can all these transformations have
taken place? I was astonished at the aspect of the city; at the stone
buildings which had replaced the old wooden ones; at the animation of
the streets, in which carriages and tram-cars abounded, whereas forty
years before only saddle-animals were used; and when the strident shriek
of the locomotive mingled with the melancholy calls from the minarets,
all that I saw and heard seemed to me a living protest against the old
adage: 'La bidaat fil Islam'--'There is nothing to reform in Islam.' My
astonishment became still greater when I entered the houses and was able
to appreciate the people, not only by their exteriors but still more by
their manner of thought. The effendi class[239] of Constantinople seemed
to me completely transformed in its conduct, outlook, and attitude
toward foreigners."[240]

Vambery stresses the inward as well as outward evolution of the Turkish
educated classes, for he says: "Not only in his outward aspect, but also
in his home-life, the present-day Turk shows a strong inclination to the
manners and habits of t