clergy]. We deposed Allah with the sultan. Our temples are the factories.[1]
Of course, these are extreme cases. Islam is not breaking up so fast as they suggest. But these illustrations do indicate a tendency of very serious import. They indicate that the youth of Moslem lands are slowly drifting away from their religious anchorage. They are abandoning belief in God and losing faith in the necessity of religion of any sort. Having dropped religion, the next step is to throw over accepted moral standards, to attempt to face life in one's own strength, to follow one's own impulses and desires.
THE CHALLENGE TO CHRISTIANITY
Such young people desperately need an interpretation of religion that will justify itself to their intelligence and will help them solve the pressing problems of life: the problems of human brotherhood and social justice, of sex and the position of women, of war and international relationships, yes, and of man and the future of the race. To young people of this sort Islam has lost its meaning for life, and in their ignorance they assume that all religion has lost its meaning and usefulness for life, too. An amazing challenge, both fresh and urgent, is presented by the educated young Moslems who have lost their way. The question is, Can Christianity be presented to them
- ↑ Refik Ahmed in Uyanish, August 15, 1929, quoted in The Turkish Press, p. 141. London, George Routledge & Sons, 1932.
