Pan Islam

PREFACE I HAVE written this book to present the main factors of a many-sided problem—political, social and religious—in a form which the general public can easily grasp. Modern democratic principles tend to give the public increasing control of international and inter-racial affairs, and therefore any contribution to public knowledge on such questions is in the interests of sound administration. The book is not intended to advise those who actually handle these affairs: I give such advice, when required, in more detail and not through the medium of a published work. "Pan-Islam" is an elementary handbook, not a text-book—still less an exhaustive treatise, but the questions it discusses are real enough. My qualifications for writing it are based on a quarter of a century's experience of the subject in most parts of the Moslem world, and I have studied the question in areas which I have not actually visited through intercourse with pilgrims from those parts.