Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb ends his work on The Great Arab Conquests with the following words:

“The relations between Christianity and Islam today justify a brief comment. As Muhammad himself declared, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are three related religions. If we consider them alone, their differences may appear profound, but when compared to Hinduism, Buddhism or Communist atheism, they appear by contrast closely connected with one another. Yet many people regard Christianity and Islam as the great rival religions. This illusion takes its origin, I believe, from political rather than religious causes.

“As our narrative has shown, the first Arab conquerors regarded Byzantium as their principal enemy. In the subsequent Arab conquests of North Africa and Spain, in the Crusades, in the invasion of the Balkans by the Turks, and in their long hostilities with Czarist Russia, nearly all Muslim wars have been directed against Christians. Conflicts between Hindus and Muslims in India have been on an altogether smaller scale and Muslims have scarcely ever been involved in hostilities against Jews except in the last forty years in Palestine.

“This long-standing rivalry between Christians and Muslims has been due to political and geographical accident rather than to basic religious differences. Now that materialist atheism is challenging all spiritual values, the two religions might well make common cause against those who deny the existence of God altogether. There is, I believe, an immense field in which the two could co-operate.

“The Arabic-speaking world, after four centuries of obscurity, is once again playing its part in history.

There are but a few days—of who shall say what importance—between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, considered as schemes for the interpretation of recurrent movements in our solar system. And yet, from the point of view of each, the other seems somewhat out in respect of the characterisation of nearly every year, month, week and individual day. The gap between the legal theories of John Austin and Professor Hart—between their models of the legal universe—is somewhat more than this. Its demonstration provides the foundation for Professor Hart's new book. But there may here be some analogy to what divides the concept of law, as elucidated by Professor Hart in terms of rules, from the concept of law as a system of action constructed by the writer in earlier numbers of this Journal. If Professor Hart now reveals himself as conceptual pragmatist as well as linguistic philosopher the writer's gratitude to Professor Hart in the latter capacity is only tinged with regret that he does not display greater boldness in the former.