In the attitude of Islam towards other religions there is hardly one feature that has not its counterpart in the practice of Christian states during the Middle Ages.  The great difference is that the Mohammedan community erected this medieval custom into a system unalterable like all prescriptions based on its infallible “Agreement” (Ijma’).  Here lay the great difficulty when the nineteenth and twentieth centuries placed the Moslim world face to face with a civilization that had sprung up outside its borders and without its collaboration, that was from a spiritual point of view by far its superior and at the same time possessed of sufficient material power to thrust the Mohammedans aside wherever they seemed to be an impediment in its way.  A long series of the most painful experiences, meaning as many encroachments upon the political independence of Mohammedan territories, ended by teaching Islam that it had definitely to change its lines of conduct.  The times were gone when relations with the non-Musulman world quite different from those foreseen by the mediaeval theory might be considered as exceptions to the rule, as temporary concessions to transitory necessities.  In ever wider circles a thorough revision of the system came to be considered as a requirement of the time.  The fact that the number of Mohammedans subject to foreign rule increased enormously, and by far surpassed those of the citizens of independent Mohammedan states, made the problem almost as interesting to Western nations as to the Mohammedans themselves.  Both parties are almost equally concerned in the question, whether a way will be found to associate the Moslim world to modern civilization, without obliging it to empty its spiritual treasury altogether.  Nobody can in earnest advocate the idea of leaving the solution of the problem to rude force.  The Moslim of yore, going through the world with the Qoran in one hand, the sword in the other, giving unbelievers the choice between conversion or death, is a creation of legendary fancy.  We can but hope that modern civilization will not be so fanatical against Moslims, as the latter were unjustly said to have been during the period of their power.  If the modern world were only to offer the Mohammedans the choice between giving up at once the traditions of their ancestors or being treated as barbarians, there would be sure to ensue a struggle as bloody as has ever been witnessed in the world.  It is worth while indeed to examine the system of Islam from this special point of view, and to try to find the terms on which a durable modus vivendi might be established between Islam and modern thought.