351
of many of the inhabitants of Constantine, who sought thus to escape the domination of the infidel[1].
The way in which the doctrine of jihād is interpreted by the Mohammedan teachers and embraced in less systematic form by the mass of the people, furnishes an excellent indication of the progress that Islam has made at any given time or place in this direction, whither it is being impelled with increasing force by the political conditions of modern days. In the end it must yield entirely to that force; it must, frankly abandon the tenets of jihād and abide by the practically harmless doctrine respecting the last days when a Messiah or a Mahdī will come to reform the world. Then will Islam differ from other creeds only in so far as it upholds another catechism and another ritual as the means whereby eternal salvation may be won. But before that day arrives the last political stronghold of Islam will probably have been brought under European influence and all less civilized Mohammedan peoples will have been compelled to submit to the control of a strong European government.
Circumstances have imposed on the Dutch nation the task of impressing this modern doctrine on the Achehnese. It is no light or enviable task, for the doctrine of the jihad has been for centuries more deeply rooted here than in any other part of the Archipelago. But it must be fulfilled, and on the manner of this fulfilment will depend in no small degree the attitude of all other Mohammedans in Netherlands-India towards the Dutch government.
- ↑ See Les confréries religieuses musulmanes by Depont and Coppolani, Algiers 1897, pp. 34–35.
