In spite of the deceptions on some points of late years, and recent vacillations of policy towards them, the still independent nations of Islam see in England something different from the rest of Christendom, something not in its nature hostile to them, or regardless of their rights and interests.  They know at least that they have nothing to dread from Englishmen on the score of religious intolerance, and there is even a tendency with some of them to exaggerate the sympathy displayed towards them by supposing a community of beliefs on certain points considered by them essential.  Thus the idea is common among the ignorant in many Mussulman countries that the English are Muwahedden, or Unitarians, in contradistinction to the rest of Christians, who are condemned as Musherrakin, or Polytheists; and the Turkish alliance is explained by them on this supposition, supplemented in the case of the Turks themselves with the idea that England is itself a part of Islam, and so its natural ally.[18] These are of course but ideas of the vulgar.  Yet they represent a fact which is not without importance, namely, that England’s is accepted by Mussulmans as a friendly not a hostile influence, and that her protection is sought without that suspicion which is attached to the friendly offices of other powers.  Even in India, where Englishmen have supplanted the Mussulmans as a ruling race, the sentiment towards British rule is not, as far as I can learn, and compared with that of other sections of the Indian community, a hostile one.

The Mussulmans of Delhi and the Punjab would no doubt desire a resumption by themselves of practical authority in the country where they were till lately masters; but they are conscious that they are not strong enough now to effect this, and their feeling towards English rule is certainly less bitter than towards the Hindoos, their former subjects, now their rivals.  Were they in any way specially protected in their religious interests by the Indian Government, they would, I am confident, make not only contented but actively loyal subjects.

As things stand, therefore, it would seem natural that, in the general disruption which will follow the fall of Constantinople, it is to England the various nations of Islam should look mainly for direction in their political difficulties.  The place of adviser and protector, indeed, seems pointed out for her.  With the disappearance of the Ottoman Sultan there will be no longer any great Mussulman sovereignty in the world, and the Mohammedan population of India, already the wealthiest and most numerous, will then assume its full importance in the counsels of believers.  It will also assuredly be expected of the English Crown that it should then justify its assumption of the old Mohammedan title of the Moguls, by making itself in some sort the political head of Islam.  Her Majesty will be left its most powerful sovereign, and it will be open to her advisers, if they be so minded, to exercise