Note 21 — Chapter XIII · CONCLUSION.

The observance of this last duty has often been objected to as a strange survival of idolatry in the midst of the monotheism of the Prophet’s teaching, but it must be borne in mind that to him it connected itself with Abraham, whose religion it was his mission to restore.21 But above all—and herein is its supreme importance in the missionary history of Islam—it ordains a yearly gathering of believers, of all nations and languages, brought together from all parts of the world, to pray in that sacred place towards which their faces are set in every hour of private worship in their distant homes. No fetch of religious genius could have conceived a better expedient for impressing on the minds of the faithful a sense of their common life and of their brotherhood in the bonds of faith. Here, in a supreme act of common worship, the Negro of the west coast of Africa meets the Chinaman from the distant east; the courtly and polished Ottoman recognises his brother Muslim in the wild islander from the farthest end of the Malayan Sea. At the same time throughout the whole Muhammadan world the hearts of believers are lifted up in sympathy with their more fortunate brethren gathered together in the sacred city, as in their own homes they celebrate the festival of ʻĪd al-Aḍḥạ̄ or (as it is called in Turkey and Egypt) the feast of Bayrām. Their visit to the sacred city has been to many Muslims the experience that has stirred them up to “strive in the path of God,” and in the preceding pages constant reference has been made to the active part taken by the ḥājīs in missionary work.