Note 28 — Chapter XIII · CONCLUSION.
Reading edition
Ernest Renan: L’Islamisme et la Science, p. 19. (Paris, 1883.)
This has been emphasised by many observers, but it will be enough here to quote the words of an eminent Christian bishop. “No one who comes in contact for the first time with Mohammedans can fail to be struck by this aspect of their faith.… Wherever one may be, in open street, in railway station, in the field, it is the most ordinary thing to see a man, without the slightest touch of Pharisaism or parade, quietly and humbly leaving whatever pursuit he may be at the moment engaged in, in order to say his prayers at the appointed hour. On a larger scale, no one who has ever seen the courtyard of the Great Mosque at Delhi on the last Friday in the fast-month (Ramazan) filled to overflowing with, perhaps, 15,000 worshippers, all wholly absorbed in prayer, and manifesting the profoundest reverence and humility in every gesture, can fail to be deeply impressed by the sight, or to get a glimpse of the power which underlies such a system; while the very regularity of the daily call to prayer, as it rings out at earliest dawn, before light commences, or amid all the noise and bustle of the business hours, or again as the evening closes in, is fraught with the same message.” (Dr. G. A. Lefroy: Mankind and the Church, pp. 287–8. (London, 1907.)) ↑