'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎509] (568/714)

INSTITUTIONS AND REFORMS
509
dogmatic assumptions of Christianity (e.g. the doctrine of the
Trinity and the Divinity of Christ), which are so repugnant to the
Mohammedan conception of the unity of God, we cannot regard
the reluctance of a Mussulman to desert his faith with much
astonishment when we remember that the penalty for such an act
is death. The chances of conversion are remote indeed so long
as the body as well as the soul of the convert is thrown into the
scales.
But personal apprehensions, though an important, are not the
deciding factor in the situation. It is against the impregnable
rock-wall of Islam, as a system embracing every sphere,
strength and duty, and act of life, that the waves of missionary
of islam effort beat and buffet in vain. Marvellously adapted
alike to the climate, character, and occupations of those countries
upon which it has laid its adamantine grip, Islam holds its votary
in complete thrall from the cradle to the grave. To him, it is not
only religion, it is government, philosophy, and science as well.
The Mohammedan conception is not so much that of a state church
as, if the phrase may be permitted, of a church state. The under-
girders with which society itself is warped round are not of civil,
but of ecclesiastical, fabrication; and, wrapped in this superb, if
paralysing, creed, the Mussulman lives in contented surrender of
all volition, deems it his highest duty to worship God and to
compel, or, where impossible, to depise those who do not worship
Him in the spirit, and then dies in sure and certain hope of Para
dise. So long as this all-compelling, all-absorbing code of life
holds an Eastern people in its embrace, determining every duty and
regulating every act of existence, and finally meting out an assured
salvation, missionary treasure and missionary self-denial will largely
be spent in vain. Indeed, an active propaganda is, in my judgment,
the worst of policies that a Christian mission in a bigoted Mussul
man country can'adopt, and the very tolerance with which I have
credited the Persian government is in large measure due to the
prudent abstention of the Christian missionaries from avowed prose-
lytism. Their work and their ultimate refward lie rather in the
secular and physical than in the spiritual aspect of missionary
enterprise. By schools, by charity, and still more by the free gift
of medical aid, they slowly, but surely, make some impression
upon the hearts of the unregenerate mass, and some day, when they
have been long dead and forgotten, their justification may come.