[Mr. Holmboe is a Dane, and a Journalist of established repute in his country. He is the author of a good many books, a recent one being Orkenen Braender (published by C.A Reitzels Forlag, Copenhagen, 1931). The book was well received by the Danish Press and exposes the claim of the Europeans who profess to hold sway over Eastern countries under the pretence of "teaching culture and civilizing the barbarians." We shall have, in one of our next issues, the pleasure of introducing the writer of this article by means of a photo of him.

Our readers will be interested to know that Mr. Holmboe is in Amman, Transjordania, waiting for the visa to proceed to the Hedjaz to participate in the Hajj during the year 1932. -Ed.I.R]

It was in El Kuds that I recieved my first impression of the beauty of Islam. What I had known before about this religion was only what is being thought schools nearly all over Europe - that Muhammed was but a plagiarist of Christianity and Judaism, and that the faith he founded was a wild and barbarous especially those in Armenia.

When I visited Jerusalem about five years ago I had been through the religious evolution common to Europeans. As a result of the school-Christianity, with its teaching about Jesus as our saviour and his death on the Cross for our redemption, I became a doubter very early in life. I made the mistake, which is not uncommon, of connecting the word "Christianity" with religion, and for a long time my ideas about life were completely negative.

A sincere human being, perhaps every human being, cannot exits indefinitely without religion, without an ethical foundation for his conduct. I sought the Truth, and was impressed by the musical beauty and the art which I found in the Roman Catholic Church.

And about this time I came to Jerusalem.
It was Easter at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Golgotha, which is situated at the summit of a narrow staircase, and is divided between the Greek and the Roman Catholic priests, and the great Easter mass was about to take place. People from all over the world had come to see the mass on Golgotha itself.

Then it began, and speedily developed into a violent tussle between the Greek and Roman priests. Prelates clothed in velour and silk were quarrelling like angry old women; chairs were thrown about, and the words used were worse than those heard in any marketplace. In one corner a peasant from the Carpathians was telling his Rosary. In a glass receptacle on the wall was placed a smiling Madona. She wore a bracelet-watch shining with diamonds, and a few years ago had been decorated with the French Croix de Guerre.

At that moment I understood that Christianity in all the aspects. In which I knew it, had very little in Common with true religion; that spirit which like a red streak goes through all religions; and that the man "Christ," whom they have made gold-bedecked deity, would not have been a Christian if he had lived today.
I was all but in despair. Once more I was sunk in the deepest doubt, the most poignant anxiety. I went out of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and into the mosque of 'Omar which stands where once stood the Temple of Solomon. In the Mosque of 'Omar there was absolute quietude; no priests celebrating the mass or preaching or changing bread and wine into God, no music to hypnotize and lead the heart away from clear understanding.

I placed myself in a corner and saw how Muslim after Muslim quiety came in, left his shoes near the entrance, knelt with his face turned towards Mecca and said his prayer. Here was no artistically sculptured Christ; here man was alone with Almighty God, from Whom a little light is reflected in the hearts of all.

I did not know then that the Arabic cannot be translated by philologists, that only he who in truth is able to understand its limitless beauty may faintly reflect this in a translation.
Muhammed was a Bedouin~1(See below comment of Editor) unable to read or write, but so impressed was he by the Divine inspirations which he received that he was forced to communicate what he saw to the whole world. He recited world. He recited verse after verse of the Book, which was dictated to him under Divine Inspiration.

Then I began to study Arabic, and this led me to Islam.

Xauen, in Spanish Morocco, is situated on a mountain, and here one day, when I was tired of civilization and its hollow surface-life, I went to a Mosque. There was only a carpet of straw on the floor and at first I was alone. Then an old man came in. His clothes were ragged and he seemed sick, but his face was like a light. He looked at me for a moment, then he came to where I was sitting, gave me his hand and said, "You are not from here? Why do you come to the Mosque?"

I answeared that I did not know myself, but that I found peace in the Mosque, and I asked him to tell me something about Islam.

"Do you know what God is?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"If you imagined," he said, "that all the ethical ideals of humanity had reached perfection, this could only from a small part of God. The sight of God has crushed the hearts of the prophets and the angels, when they understood a little part only of His All-Might. What is your religion?"

I replied, "I have none."

He looked at me very seriously, took my hand and continued: "Very few foreigners understand Islam - especially among you who come from Europe, with your ideas of civilization and material progress as the only things worth living for. Our great philosopher, El-Ghazali, says that "in every human being there are the incarnations of a dog, a swine, an angel, and a devil."

"What is an angel?" I asked.

"An angel," he said, "is the bright element in your soul. An angel is the picture of God in your heart. If you veiled this picture, you cannot see God, God cannot be proved. God is - you see Him not. And if you walk in the wrong way, you walk in darkness away from God. But...," he continued, "...everybody has something of the angel in his heart. Therefore everybody has a duty not to develop the swine or the dog in himself. The angel - the incarnation of light - imprisoned with a swine or a dog. This is what we call hell, the greatst misery of all. Therefore you must find the straight road to God, the way whereby you may be able to approach nearer to His Majesty. This road is Islam."

"But why not Christianity or Hinduism or Theosophy, or any other of all the many religions of the world?" I asked.

The old man smiled. "All religions contain something of the truth - something of Islam. But Christianity is going farther and farther from God, because it has made the prophet Jesus God. And it has placed the priest between man and God. Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him!) does not teach, as is said, too, in the Quran, any new religion, Muhammed (peace be upon him!) is only taking the essential from already existing religions, which are leading man far from God. In Islam the road to God is our only dogma. We have no priests, we have no pictures in our Mosques. How can you express God by a picture? We can but pray to Him and Him alone."

"Who, then, was Muhammed?" I asked.

l"Only a prophet like Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Buddah~2(See below comment of Editor), and a thousand others; one of the elect, who saw the greatness of God and had to proclaim it to the whole world.

will be continued inshallah

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
~1, Comment of Admin:
Bedouin' is a word used for a nomadic Arab of the desert, while Prophet Muhammed(peace be upon him), although being unlettered, was not a Bedouin. He had a fair complexion and beautiful face.

~2, Buddah was not a Prophet (neither he said, that he is a Prophet or the people call him as Prophet. I don't want to talk about him some bad words but what he has done was a big mistake: he has left his/his father's kingdom, wealth, wife and childern and gone to the poors with empty hands to help them!.