Excerpt from Veiled Mysteries of Egypt and the Religion of Islam
There has always been a veil of mystery over the religion of Islam, from its very first days. The mockery of the Jews stung the early Moslems, who sprang from a people keenly sensitive to ridicule, as they are even now. The bitterest sayings of the Prophet were excited by those who scoffed at the religious exercises of himself and his followers.
It was mockery that led Mohammed to enjoin secrecy for much of the liturgical worship of his people, and possibly had something to do with the order to seal Arabia, and the Holy Cities of Medina and Mecca especially, against all men of a different faith. It is the fear of mockery which closes the most sacred places of Islam to this day, a fear which in some places engenders a fanatical resentment against the prying of strangers.
Secrecy has told against a proper understanding of the practices of this religion. An almost invulnerable reticence on the part of its adherents has led the casual or unsympathetic observer into mistaken judgments, or has left those in deep ignorance of the truth, who, dealing with a franker people, would, by residence amongst them, have become familiar with the views and practices of their neighbours. It is a rare thing in Egypt, for instance, to find anything more than a superficial knowledge of Islam on the part of European residents.
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