I

A WORLD OF MOSLEM CHILDHOOD

W

HEN the Turks conquered Constantinople, May 29, 1453, the defenceless Christian inhabitants fled in crowds to the Christian Church, Aya Sophia, in the belief, we are told, that as soon as the enemy had reached the pillar of Constantine the Great, an angel would appear in the heavens and scatter the victors. But there was no supernatural deliverance. The Turks came, the refugees were made prisoners, and the temple of Constantius and Justinian was consecrated to Islam. Sultan Murad III. had a crescent measuring a hundred and fifty feet in diameter put in place of the cross, and gilded at great expense, so that now from afar, even from distant Olympia, Moslems may see the symbol of their faith glittering in the

sun.

Clear as the dome and minarets of St. Sophia and equally challenging, the Moslem problem stands before the world of Christendom. In Europe Islam has been an intruder, in Asia a usurper, and in Africa a rival of Christianity. Its

three great capitals dominate three continents. Mecca has been the heart of the Moslem world for many centuries, and is to-day the pilgrim centre for one-seventh of the human race. From Sierra Leone to Canton, and from Tobolsk to Singapore, the faithful spread their prayer carpets, build their houses, and bury their dead toward Mecca. Constantinople faces two continents and two great civilizations, and still remains the city of the Caliphate, although of a tottering empire. Cairo is the capital of Egypt, the metropolis of all Africa, and the literary centre of the Moslem world. There is no speech nor language in Islam where the voice of the Cairo press is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.

The unity of the Moslem problem, however, is not political or intellectual merely. Islam presents a solidarity of organization, methods, and spirit unparalleled and unapproached by any other organized world force against the Christian Church. It is inter-continental, inter-national, and inter-racial, and yet distinct and well defined in the midst of nations and races and religious forces. This unity knows no geographical lines nor racial barriers. It is distinguished by intellectual ideals, and by social and religious ties, characterized by their elasticity and tenacity, and by their prominence and power. When we speak

of Islam, therefore, we face an intellectual, a social, and a moral problem of which all the factors can be coördinated and related among different races and in many lands. The conditions, as well as the difficulties, are largely similar. The line of approach has been proved to be almost identical, and the methods of successful work the same from Morocco to Peking.

A careful study of all the facts collected in the chapters that follow will show clearly that the unity of the Moslem world is specially evident in the condition of its childhood. One-eighth of all the children in the world live under the shadow of the crescent in the lands of Islam. It has been remarked by Alonzo Bunker that the attractiveness of childhood among all races "sometimes appears to be accentuated among less intelligent peoples; so that, before the fogs of sin and ignorance have blurred the image of God in which they were created, they show a strength and brightness more marked than in their more favoured brothers and sisters in enlightened lands. This fact has not received due attention in ethnological studies." The faces of Moslem children from many lands that illustrate the chapters of this book are a proof of this statement. They portray the best and not the worst; the bright, not the dark side of Islam. The hope of the Moslem world is in its childhood, and when one looks into

the bright faces of these smiling infants, or mischievous, happy boys and girls, one remembers that of these too it may be said, "Trailing clouds of glory do they come." But from their earliest years they enter nevertheless into the inheritance of Islam.

No religion, as we shall see, pays such early attention to the religious training of the child, and so little attention to its moral education as does Islam. To all of these children the ideal of character is Mohammed; he is their hope for salvation, and God's will for them is revealed in the Koran. Of their attitude toward Mohammed in every part of the Moslem world, one may almost hear them say: "Our Lord Mohammed

"Through him the first fond prayers are said

Our lips of childhood frame;

The last low whispers of our dead

Are burdened with his name.

The total population of this world which tests its life by the life of Mohammed and follows his teaching is estimated at 201,000,000. Of these 42,000,000 live in Africa, 2,300,000 in Europe, and

nearly all the rest in Asia and Malaysia.1 In the table which follows we present a statistical survey of the number and distribution of Moslem children, basing our estimates upon government reports and the most recent and conservative statistics. According to the "Encyclopedia Britannica" the number of children in the world under fifteen in every thousand of the population is four hundred. As this estimate is based on European statistics, the percentage is less than that which obtains in Eastern lands where families are generally larger and early marriage prevails. According to the last census of the United States, the children under fifteen years of age are nearly thirty-three per cent of the total population; and although Moslem childhood does not last so long as childhood in Western lands, since the burdens and responsibilities of motherhood and fatherhood are early thrust upon them, we have nevertheless taken forty per cent as a minimum estimate. This gives a total population of Moslem children of over 80,000,000, divided as follows:

'For details of Moslem world population see "A New Statistical

Survey" in The Moslem World, Vol. IV, pp. 145-157.