In the nineteenth century meeting with the Islamic world, Europe, while sometimes changing its mind, believed it already knew all that was necessary. Thus Western thought frequently engaged, not in a debate with Islam, but in internal debates about Islam.

On the topic of nineteenth-century Africa, these debates focused less on comparative religion that on colonial policy. One of the initiators was Reginald Bosworth Smith, a Harrow schoolmaster who knew no Arabic, had no cross-cultural experience, and was no great theologian.

Nearly all of Smith's writing has a single theme: the responsibilities attached to British imperial power. Patriotism allied to moral earnestness sounds through his work—including his strangely influential Mohammed and Mohammedanism (1874).

His desire is that British power, beneficent in intent, shall be beneficent in reality. To act in the right way is to act in the Christian way, and Britain is a Christian country. Indeed, he declares that Christianity is the birthright ...

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