lam cannot be reformed; that
is to say, reformed Islam is Islam no longer; it is something else."[11]

Now these criticisms, coming as they do from close students of Islam
often possessing intimate personal acquaintance with Moslems, deserve
respectful consideration. And yet an historical survey of religions, and
especially a survey of the thoughts and accomplishments of Moslem
reformers during the past century, seem to refute these pessimistic
charges.

In the first place, it should be remembered that Islam to-day stands
just about where Christendom stood in the fifteenth century, at the
beginning of the Reformation. There is the same supremacy of dogma over
reason, the same blind adherence to prescription and authority, the same
suspicion and hostility to freedom of thought or scientific knowledge.
There is no doubt that a study of the Mohammedan sacred texts,
particularly of the "sheriat" or canon law, together with a glance over
Moslem history for the last thousand years, reveal an attitude on the
whole quite incompatible with modern progress and civilization. But was
not precisely the same thing true of Christendom at the beginning of the
fifteenth century? Compare the sheriat with the Christian canon law. The
spirit is the same. Take, for example, the sheriat's prohibition on the
lending of money at interest; a prohibition which, if obeyed, renders
impossible anything like business or industry in the modern sense. This
is the example oftenest cited to prove Islam's innate incompatibility
with modern civilization. But the Christian canon law equally forbade
interest, and enforced that prohibition so strictly, that for centuries
the Jews had a monopoly of business in Europe, while the first
Christians who dared to lend money (the Lombards) were regarded almost
as heretics, were universally hated, and were frequently persecuted.
Again, take the matter of Moslem hostility to freedom of thought and
scientific investigation. Can Islam show anything more revolting than
that scene in Christian history when, less than three hundred years
ago,[12] the great Galileo was haled before the Papal Inquisition and
forced, under threat of torture, to recant the damnable heresy that the
earth went round the sun?

As a matter of fact, Mohammed reverenced knowledge. His own words are
eloquent testimony to that. Here are some of his sayings:

"Seek knowledge, even, if need be, on the borders of China."

"Seek knowledge from the cr