H()N‘(;)1K)ST1AN RELIGIDUS SYSTEMS AS A MlSS^Or I Ji,HAINES r'-' V./ A MAP toUiuEtiate ISLAMISM London)hiEtishtd fy thf Socie^- forFramottn^ Chrixtian KrmwMqe. NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. CHARLES REGINALD HAINES, M.A., Author of “ Edncation and Missions," "Christianity and Islam in Spain,” etc. PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE. LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C. ; 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.: BRIGHTON : 135, north street. New York: E, & J. B. YOUNG & CO. 188 :). Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 https://archive.org/details/islamasmissionarOOhain PREFACE. It is now nearly two years since Canon Taylor, speaking at a Church Congress, astonished his hearers, and the English Church throughout the world, asserting that, while Islam had been conspicuously successful as a missionary religion, Christianity, being unsuited to uncivilized races, had, as signally, failed. This startling thesis was not, however, a novel one. It had been already stated, and better stated, in Mr. Bosworth Smith’s brilliant, but one-sided, book on Mohammed, and it rested mainly on the assertions of prejudiced observers, such as the Roman Catholic, Sir John Pope Hennessy. Canon Taylor’s statements have been refuted in detail by scores of competent authorities, but it was certainly instructive, and no less amusing, to see Mr. Bosworth Smith starting back in horror, like another Frankenstein, from the monster that he had created. I am not now concerned to defend the cause of Christian Missions, easily defensible as that is. It has been my wish rather to examine the claims of Islam to being a mission- VI PREFACE. ary religion, and to enquire how far it has been successful in this respect in the past, and whether at the present day it is making such wonderful progress as some suppose. What my opinion is on these points will be seen from the following pages ; but I may say at once that I have found nothing to substantiate the theories of Canon Taylor and other extremists. Copious references will show how far I have been indebted to other writers, but from none of these have I gained so much assistance as from Sir William Muir, especially in his books relating to the life of Mohammed, and in his translation of A 1 Kindy’s Apology. Among recent authors the case for and against Mohamrhed has been most ably and trenchantly stated by Mr. Bosworth Smith on the one hand, and the late Major Osborn on the other. Sir William Muir is all the more valuable as holding the impartial mean. Uppingham, July 26, i88g. AUTHORITIES CONSULTED. - 0 - A. —Comparative Religion. Maurice (F. D.) Religions of the World. 2nd Ed. 1848. Reade (Winwood). The Martyrdom of Man. London, 1872. Max Muller. Chips from a German Workshop. Vol. i. 1868. Trench (R. C.) Lectures on Mediaeval Church History. (Lect. IV.) London. 1879. Stanley (Dean). Lectures on the Eastern Church. Gobineau (Comte de). Religions et Philosophies dans I’Asie Centrale. Paris, 1865. Speir, (Mrs.). Life in Ancient India. London, 1856. Palgrave, (W. G.) Essays on Eastern Questions. London, 1872. Curzon, (Hon. Robert). Monasteries of the Levant. 1865. 5th Edition. Deutsch (Emanuel). Literary Remains 1874. Max Muller. Lecture on Missions, December 3rd, 1873, in Westminster Abbey. B. —Islam [general aspect). The Koran [Sale's Edition in Chandos Classics). Gibbon. Vols. vi., vii., viii. (Ed. Milman and Smith). Ockley. History of the Saracens. (Chandos Classics). Carlyle. Hero Worship. The Hero as Prophet. May, 1840. Smith (R. Bosworth). Mohammed and Moham¬ medanism. 2nd Ed., 1876. Osborn (Major), (i) Islam under the Arabs. London, 1876. (2) Islam under the Khalifs of Bagdad, 1878. Vlll AUTHORITIES CONSULTED. B. — Islam — continued. Arnold Q. M.) Ishmael, or the Natural Aspect of Islamism. London, 1859. Perron. L’Islamisme, son Institution, son Influence, son Avenir. Paris, 1877. Blunt (W. S.) The Future of Islam. 1881. Milman. Latin Christianity. Bk. IV., cc. i, 2. Dozy. L’Histoire d’lslamisme. Translated into French by V. Chauvin. Leyden, 1879. Perceval (Caussin de). Histoire des Arabes. Vol. i. Muir (Sir William), (i) Life of Mohammed, 4 vols. October, 1858. (2) Early Khalifate. 1869. (3) Mahomet and Islam (abridg¬ ment of I.) R.T.S. 1887. (4) Rise and Decline of Islam. Present Day Tracts. (5) Apology of A 1 Kindy. S.P.C.K. 1887. Sale. Introduction to Translation of the Koran. (Chandos Classics.) C. — Islam {in various regions of the earth). I. Africa. Keith Johnstone in Stanford’s Compendium. 1884. (a) East Africa and Equatorial Africa. Burton (R. F.) Zanzibar, 2 vols. London, 1872. Frere (Sir Bartle). Eastern Africa as a Field for Missionary Labour. 1874. Thomson (Jos.) Through Masai Land. 1885. Drummond (Prof.) Tropical Africa. 1888. Cameron (Lovatt). Across Africa. ip) The Sudan. Emin (Pasha). Letters and Journals, 1877—1886. Translated by Mrs. Felkin, 1888. Gordon (i) Central Africa. 3rd Ed. 1884. (2) Journals at Khartum. 1885. Felkin (R. W.) and Wilson (C. T.) Uganda and Egyptian Sudan. 1882. Petherick. Travels in Central Africa 2 vols. 1S69. AUTHORITIES CONSULTED. IX C.—I s LAM— continued. Schweinfurth. Heart of Africa. 2 vols, 1874 (London). Baker (Sir Samuel). Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia. 2nd Ed. 1868. Mohammed el Tounsy. Voyage au Ouaday. Tra- duite par Dr. Perron. Pans, 1851. (r) West Africa. Reade (W.) African Sketch Book. 2 vols. 1873. Blyden (Dr.) Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race. 1887. Koelle (S.W.) Polyglotta Africana. Introductory Chapter. 1854. C.M.S. Park (Mungo). Travels in the Niger Basin, 2 vols. Cassell’s National Library. {d) North Central Africa and Algeria. Barth. Travels and Discoveries in Central Africa, 1849—1855. 5 vols. 1858. Churchill (Col.) Life of Abd el Kader. 1867. (r) Egypt. Lane (E. W.) The Modern Egyptians. 2 vols. 1836 2. Asia. (fl) India. South Indian Missionary Conference. 1881. Hunter (Sir W. W.) (i) Our Indian Mussulmans. London, 1871. (2) The Indian Empire. 1882. (3) The Religions of India. Address to Soc. of Arts, 24th February, 1888. Lyall (Sir Alfred C.) Asiatic Studies, xi Essays, 1882. Wheeler (J. Talboys). History of India. Part IV. Mussulman Rule. 1876. Vaughan (J.) TheTrident, the Crescent and the Cross. 1876. Punjaubee (An Old). The Punjaub and North-West Frontiers of India, 1878. [b) Further India. Crawfurd. Indian Archipelago. 3 vols. Edinburgh. 1820. Raffles (Sir Stamford). Memoir of. 1830. X AUTHORITIES CONSULTED. C. —Islam— continued. (c) China. Thiersant (P. D’Abry de). LaMahometisme en Chine, 2 vols. 1878. {d) Bokhara. Vambery (Arminius) (r) Sketches of Central Asia. 1868. (2) Bokhara. 1873. Burnes (Capt. Alexander) Travels in Bokhara, 3 vols. 1839. [c) Turkestan. Shaw. High Tartary, Yarkand, Kashgar. 1871. (/) Persia. Layard (Sir Henry). Early Adventures in. 1887. {g) Arabia. Palgrave (W. G.) Arabia, 2 vols. 1865. Burckhardt. Notes on the Wahabees. 2 vols. 1830 (/i) Circassia. Wagner (Dr.) and Mackenzie (K. R. H.) Schamyl and Circassia. 1854. 3.—Europe. (1) Eastern Europe. Finlay (G.) (i) History of Greece under Ottoman Domination. 1856. (2) Byzantine Empire. Creasy (E. S.) History of the Ottoman Turks, 2 vols. 1854. Forsyth (Douglas). The Sclavonic Provinces South of the Danube. 1876. (2) Western Europe. A 1 Makkari. Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain. Translated by Pascuel de Gayangos. 2 vols. 1840. Conde. History of Domination of Moors in Spain. 3 vols. (Bohn). AUTHORITIES CONSULTED. XI D. — Travels. Ibn Batutah. Translated by Rev. S. Lee. London 1829. Leo Africanus. Translated by Pory in Sam Purchas his Pilgrim. Folio. 1625. Marco Polo. Ed., Col. Yule. 2 vols, 187s Kmglake (A. W.) Eothen. New Ed. 1879. olff (Joseph). Travels and Adventures. 2nd. Ed. 1800. Maundeville, Sir John. Cassell’s National Library. E. — Magazine Articles. Anon. Contemporary Rev.. Feb., 1888. Islam and Christianity in India. Nineteenth Century, Dec.,1887 Mohammedanism in Africa. Thomson (Joseph). Cont. Rev., Dec., 1886. ^ of N^th ^ Cont. Rev., April, 1888. Islam and Civilisation. Taylor (Isaac). St. James’ Gazette, Feb., 1888. Four Articles on Egypt. Also Letters to the Papers from— Canon Isaac Taylor. Canon Malcolm MacColl. Rev.Horace Waller. Mr. Joseph Thomson. Dr. Robert Bruce. Mr. Bosworth Smith. Mr. H. H. Johnstone. Archdeacon Farler. Mr. Eugene Stock, C.M.S. Rev. T. R. Wade. Also articles in the C. M. Intelligencer for Jan. and Feb 1888 etc., etc and the Address of the Rev. Canon laylor at the Church Congress in Oct., 1887, Ufide fans et origo mail. SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. - 0 - Chapter I (Introductory).—T he Missionara Idea IN Religion. Early notion of Religion—its exclusiveness—Religion of Egypt—Evidence of Scripture—the Assyrians— the Gods of Palestine—the Samaritans—the Jews— Proselytes to Judaism—Paganism of Greece and Rome —China—Parsiism—Hinduism and Judaism—Absorp¬ tive power of Hinduism — its expansive power— Buddhism—its Missionary idea — its Missionaries—its spread—its tolerance—resemblance to spirit of Chris¬ tianity—various forms of faith—Islam a new kind PP- I—15 Chapter II.—Mohammed’s Mission. Christianity in the Sixth Century—its success in Arabia — rise of Islam — meaning of Islam—Islam a Missionary religion — in what sense — Mohammed— periods of his life — change in his . character and conduct —doctrine of compulsion—not unknown to Christianity — Mission of Mohammed—first disciples— Ali — first doctrines promulgated— persecution—flight of disciples — Mohammed’s lapse—his recovery—fresh persecution—conversion of Omar—Mohammed boy¬ cotted — preaches to pilgrims— Mission to Tayif — Mohammed’s prayer — conversion of Genii —affairs at Medina — negotiations with its citizens— pledge of Akaba — Missionaries at Medina — the second pledge of Akaba — number of disciples — Alohammed a preacher only .pp. 16—33 SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. Xlll Chapter III. — Mohammed draws the Sword. Mohammed tries to win over the Jews — breaks with them — Kiblah changed to Mecca—the war-note sounded —reprisals against Mecca — first bloodshed —hopes of plunder an incentive — Bedr—renew'ed injunctions to fight — enthusiasm of Moslems—cruelty of Mohammed — conversion of captives — “Hearts have changed ”— Ohod—murder of Missionaries — conversion of tribes by force — treaty of Hodeibia—its important results — embassies to neighbouring nations — Jews of Kheibar — conversion of Khalid and Amru — tribes summoned to Islam — Soldier Missionaries—the fight at Muta — visions of Paradise — capture of Mecca—conversion of Mecca—Bedouins come in—not sincere converts — Tayif submits — war against all unbelievers — fighting a duty—submission and conversion synonymous —- ‘ ‘ fareu'ell Pilgrimage”—Syrian campaign — Mohammed and Christ.pp. 34—50 Chapter IV.—The Conquests of the Saracens AND THE Turks. The word Missionary not found in the Koran—abro¬ gated passages—the Jehad—apostasy of Bedouins— their reconversion from various motives—Mohammed’s Paradise a sensual one—Saracen conquests due to lust for plunder—Moslems aided by Christian Arabs— Moslem contempt for Polytheists—even now — invasion of Africa—conquest as far as Atlantic — Islam and the New World—English sailors of the sixteenth century— Conquests elsewhere—Saracens in Rome—rise and progress of Turks—fall of Constantinople — Extent of Turkish Empire in Europe . . . pp. 51—39 Chapter V.—The Sects of Islam. Sectarian I slam—imperfectlslam of converts—influence on Islam of national aspirations—Missionary ardour of new sects—first divisions in Islam — the Kharegites —the Berbers—the Motazalites—unorthodox Khalifs XIV SUMMARY UF CONTENTS. Chapter V.— continued . —Mokanna—Persian Shiahs — the Abassides—Abu Muslim—the Ismailians—the Fatimides—the Karma- thians—Hakim—Hasan and the Assassins—the Almo- ravides—the Almohades—expectation of a Mahdi — Sufism in Persia.pp. 6o—76 Chapter VI.—Islam in India and China. Islam and the Sword—other methods of conversion— the Arab a true Ishmaelite—decree of Omar H. against Christians—Christians at Damascus—Moslems in subjection to infidels—question of Jehad in India— the day of Jehads over—early Missionary ardour of Islam—China—Missions to—immigration of Moslems into—attitude of Government towards Islam—China escapes a Saracen invasion — Yunnan—Conversion o Turkestan — Islam spread by kings and princes— Bokhara and Central Asia—India—Scinde—forcible proselytizing — violations of Mohammedan law — Mahmud—Kingdom of Delhi—of Behar—of the Deccan — Islam influenced by Judaism — immigration of Moslems into India—Shiahs — Sufis—Compromise between Islam and Hinduism—Islam on the Coasts of India—Ceylon—Maidive Islands . pp. 77—95 Chapter VII.—Islam and the Malays and Negroes. Islam among the Malays—Sumatra—Java—conversion of Java— Islam spreads in the Archipelago—Portuguese Islam in the Macassar States—causes of its success— Islam in Africa—in Egypt — the Copts—persecution of the Copts— their apostasy — the Abyssinians — the Nubians— Arab immigration into Sudan—Darfur— Wadai—Baghirmi—Islam introduced from North Africa—the Berbers—Islam introduced into Nigritia — Islam in the Niger Basin—Fifteen Mohammedan Kingdoms—politic proceedings of Moslem Mission¬ aries—Streams of Moslem influence meet at Lake SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. XV Chapter Vll. — continued. Tchad—Immigration from the East Coast—failure in proselytizing—Harar—Zanzibar—Character of Islam there—Uganda—King Mtesa—Unyoro—Madagascar— causes of success of Islam in Africa . pp. 96—118. Chapter VIII. —Islam in Europe. Arab conquest of Spain—a corner unconquered— attempt upon Gaul—relations between conquerors and conquered—conversion of Spaniards to Islam—party of Muwallads—causes of conversion—condition of Christians—conversion of Crete—and Sicily—Con¬ stantinople—Islam suited to Europeans—Islam in Northern regions—Ottoman Turks-secret of their success in Europe—Bosnia—Servia—Herzegovina— Montenegro—Apostasy among the Greeks—number and position of renegades—Russia and Islam—Georgia —Sham Moslems .... pp. xig 131. Chapter IX. —Causes of the Success of Islam. Doctrine of Abrogation in the Koran—Predestination —publicity of Moslem worship—every Mohammedan a Missionary—trader Missionaries in Africa—their methods—the missionary spirit in Islam—priest and monks in Islam—Dervishes—Faquis in Africa_the missionary idea lately developed—early Saracens— conversion of infidels—Omar Abd el Aziz—eclecticism of Islam—adapted to Orientals—conversion of Eastern Christians—worldly motives—Persians—Islam aided by Christian dissension—Greek and Roman Chris¬ tianity Spanish Christians — Sensual attractions of Islam—modified Islam — ^Java—debased by supersti- tion—religious compromise—imperfect conversion— Christian and Moslem conversion compared—advan¬ tages of Moslem missionary—amalgamation with natives—intermarriage—education of orphan children —of infants—Maiden tribute in Spain—Children’s XVI SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. Chapter IX. — continued . tribute in Turkey — Janizaries—their ^ influence upon Greece — real Missionaries of Islam—Sipahis—Mame¬ lukes— Slavery in Moslem lands — Islam and slavery— Islam and Education—in Africa—character of— Apostasy from Islam—conversions from Islam — in Africa — Java — etc.pp. 132—167. Chapter X.—The Wahabees and Foulahs. Present census of Islam—Rice of Wahabees—conflict with Turks — fall of Wahabees — their doctrines — the Foulahs— the Foulah prophet- — his motives—his reforms— his proclamations — progress checked—Jehad of Jaloffs— extent of Foulah Empire—Omar the Pil¬ grim —his conquests—his death — another Foulah Apostle— Samuda—the Jehad in Africa—fall of Falaba— desolation caused by the Jehad—Foulah Empire — day of Jehad over— English opportunity in the Sudan— Gordon — the Mahdi—his claims—Islam in East Africa — many fine races unconverted pp. 168—1S9. Chapter XI. — The Present Character of Islam. Wahabees in India — Sayyed Ahmed—fanatics in India — Mohammedan revival in India — Indian Waha¬ bees — Orthodox Moslems—spread of Islam in India doubtful — Padris in Malay Archipelago—Moslem revolts in China — Yakub Beg—conversions in China — Islam in the Caucasus— Russia and Islam — Bokhara — Babyism — the Bab— Persian Islam — present condition of Islam — African Islam — Islam among the Malays — in China — Summary— no alarming increase in its numbers — Islam a lost cause . . pp. 190—20S, ‘ La Illah il Allah, Mohammed rasjol Allahi.” LONDON; PRINTED BY PERRY, GARDNER AND CO., FAURINGDON ROAD, E.C. ISLAM, AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. CHAPTER I. THE MISSIONARY IDEA IN RELIGION. The religious instinct of mankind was, in its early development, exclusively national. Each tribe had its own god or gods, in which other nations neither had, nor desired to have, any part or lot. Religion was, in fact, a sort of inheritance, which no people was inclined to share with strangers. When one nation overran and conquered another, it imposed a tribute and, perhaps, an alien government on the vanquished, but it never seems to have thought of requiring a belief in its own gods. That was a privilege to which the con¬ quered could have no claim, a sacred possession, which would only be contaminated by the parti¬ cipation of a foreigner. But though the conquerors were by no means anxious to force their religion B 2 ISLAM, on the conquered, yet the latter, judging by the test of success, were naturally disposed to believe in the power, if not in the good-will, of the new gods, and consequently to grant them a place by the side of their own national deity. The foregoing remarks find abundant illustration in the early history of the world. The ancient Egyptians developed a truly remarkable religion during the protracted period of their national life, but it remained confined to the land of its birth. A Thothmes or a Raineses might carry the victorious standards of Egypt to the Euphrates, or even to the confines of India, but the true worship of Isis and Osiris could only exist on the banks of the Nile. As the Egyptian warriors showed themselves superior to the warriors of Libya and Syria, so did their gods trample on the necks of the gods of the conquered nations. Like the haughty Assyrian king, they might justly say, “. Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad ; of Sepharvaim, of Hena and Ivvah ? Have they delivered Samaria out of our hand ? ” Holy Scripture affords us another curious illustration of the essentially limited and tribal influence ascribed to deities in ancient times. The Syrians had been totally defeated by the Israelites under Ahab. The courtiers of Benhadad the Syrian king attributed this reverse to the Jewish gods being gods of the hills : “ Let us fight against them,” they said, “ in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they ”—good advice from the military, if not from the theological, point of AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 3 view, though, as the sequel showed, not destined to be successful. ^ Several of the Assyrian kings overran Palestine, thereby in their own eyes establishing the supe¬ riority of Nisroch and Merodach over Baal and Jehovah, but no attempt was made to import into that country the cult of the Assyrian gods. Not only were the Jews supposed to have their own peculiar deities, but these were somehow con¬ nected inseparably with Palestine. The story of the Samaritan colony proves this. After deporting the Israelites from Samaria and its neighbourhood, Esarhaddon supplied their places with a colony from Babylon, Avva, Cuthah, and other subject towns. These involuntary settlers, being much troubled by the depredations of lions, attributed the scpurge to their ignorance of the “ God of the land,” and besought the king of Assyria to send them a missionary or teacher to instruct them in the fear of the Lord. The king sent one of the captive priests, whose ministration, however, seems to have been only partially successful, and we are told of the colonists that “they feared the Lord, served their own gods.” The Jews never acknowledged these semi-heathen Samaritans as co-religionists. Bitterly as they hated other nations, they hated the Samaritans even more. “ How is it,” said the woman of Samaria to Jesus, “that Thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of 1 A reluctant deity might even be coerced by a potent sacrifice, as recorded in 2 Kings iii. 27. 4 ISLAM, Samaria ? ” “ For the Jews,” as the Evangelist tersely remarks, “ have no dealings with the Samaritans.” Their national character and the spirit and polity of their institutions combined to render the Jews averse from proselytizing.^ Nevertheless, in process of time, they seem to have lost some of their exclusiveness, and conversions to Judaism certainly did occur in our Lord’s time, as we learn from various passages of the New Testament.^ Our Lord even charges the Scribes and Pharisees with “ compassing sea and land to make one proselyte ”; but it is not certain whether the proselytes referred to belonged to the class of “Proselytes of Righteousness,” who were bap¬ tized, circumcised, and made full Jews, or to the “ Proselytes of the Gate,” who were not circum¬ cised, but bound themselves to obey the seven fundamental precepts, called the precepts of Noah.-'^ Admittance into the Jewish nation was denied even to such near kin as the Edomites until the third generation, and the ordinary Gentile proselyte could only “obtain that free¬ dom” in his twenty-fourth descendant.^ In fact the Jews “hoarded up their religion as they did their money, and considered it an heritage or 1 Deutsch. “ Literary Remains,” p. 147; ibid. p. 65 (article on ” Islam ”). 2 Acts ii. 10; vi. 5 ; xiii. 43. ^ See Maclear, ” Class-book of New Testament History,” p. 118, note. ^ Max Miiller, ” Lecture on Missions,” 1873. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 5 patrimony, or kind of entailed estate."^ They had been bidden to extirpate the Canaanites root and branch, without even allowing them the option of conversion, a command which they carried out pretty thoroughly on the whole, and, regarding themselves as the chosen people of God, they looked upon all Gentiles as completely beyond the pale of salvation. From a missionary point of view the kindred religions of Greece and Rome have nothing to tell us. When those nations reached the zenith of their power, the belief in their gods very soon died away. To the Romans the Emperor be¬ came the only true God— " Coelo tonantem credidimus Jovem Regnare: praesens Divus habebitur Augustus.” The sovereignty of Rome carried civilization to the ends of the known world, but the stern tread of her armies trampled down the national religions of the conquered and planted no new cult in their place. Even in Rome itself the worship of Juppiter Optimus Maximus had fallen so low that it was in danger of succumbing to the rival attractions and the debasing rites of Phrygian and Egyptian superstition— ” Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et latrator Anubis, Contra Neptunum et Venerem, contraque Minervam Tela tenent.” 1 W. Reade, ” Martyrdom of Man,” p. 212. 6 ISLAM, Leaving these classical religions, and setting aside as beside our purpose the semi-religious systems of the Chinese sages or legislators, Con¬ fucius and Laotze, we may pass on at once to a consideration of the five chief religions, which, together with Judaism, rank among the great Faiths of the world. They are Brahmanism, Buddhism, Parsiism, Christianity, and Islam. Of these Parsiism, though one of the noblest in its conception, and one of the most interesting in its historical relations, is now almost an extinct creed. Crushed beneath the iron feet of Islam, and well nigh extirpated from its native land, it now main¬ tains a flickering and exotic existence in Bombay under the tolerant aegis of England. The doc¬ trines of Zoroaster were intended for, and found acceptance among, his countrymen alone. Zo¬ roastrianism was in no sense a missionary religion, yet it undoubtedly exercised a great, though in¬ direct, influence on the development of Islam and even of Christianity. Brahmanism merits a somewhat longer mention. It is remarkable not only for its age but for the extent of its dominion. Its earliest sacred writings were written probably about the time when the Jews were escaping from Egypt, and Hinduism is now the creed of 190,000,000 of persons, as large a number of votaries as any other religion except Christianity, and perhaps Buddhism, can boast. It is therefore the grandest and most ancient example of an exclusive, as distinguished from a cosmopoli¬ tan, faith, and may be called the Aryan counterpart AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 7 on a larger scale of the Semitic Judaism. But though it cannot be considered, any more than Judaism, to be a missionary religion,^ yet it has a far more absorptive power than the Jewish creed. Judaism neither invited proselytes, nor, except with the utmost difficulty, received them. Brahmanism also invites no converts,^ but it admits them far more readily, allowing them, it is true, to take only the lowest room, but still conceding them a place within its pale. Along the frontiers of Hin¬ duism is “an ever-breaking shore of primitive beliefs which tumble continually into the ocean of Brahmanism.” This process has been going on for centuries, and is even to some extent going on now. The aboriginal races of the Ghonds and Bheels afford instances of this process of absorp¬ tion. The Bheels have become Hindus to a large extent during the present century. In more than one case Rajahs of aboriginal descent have forged, or got subservient Brahmans to forge for them,^ certificates of Rajput lineage, and this process of manufacturing Rajputs is going on before our eyes.^ The attractive force possessed by Hin¬ duism has been powerful enough to draw into 1 See “ Life in Ancient India,” Mrs. Spiers, p. 143, etc. 2 We hear, indeed, of one Brahman missionary in the four¬ teenth century who was burnt by the Moslem Sultan, Firuz Shah, for trying to convert Moslems. See Talboys Wheeler, “ History of India,’’ vol. iv., part I., p. 74. 3 Sir Alfred Lyall, “ Asiatic Studies,” p. 103. * Hunter, “ Indian Empire,” p. 175. 5 Sir George Campbell, ‘‘Report, Government of Bengal, 1871-2.” 8 ISLAM, itself the Malays of the Indian Archipelago, and the semi-Siamese races of Assam. The latter have become Hinduized in the last two centuries.^ Such new converts are of course not admitted to the privileges of the higher castes. They do not even become Sudras, far less attain to the dignity of the twice-born, or don the sacred thread of the Brahman. They form a new caste at the foot of the Hindu social scale. But Hinduism grows also in another way, and one partaking more of a mis¬ sionary character. New sects or religious guilds are founded by zealous reformers who wish to get rid of the trammels of caste, and to shake off the yoke of Brahminical priestcraft. This new-born zeal induces them to make converts, who, stepping at first in the bye-path struck out by their master, gradually, when the first vigour of the new teach¬ ing has spent itself, slide back into the broad track of Brahmanism. Such may perhaps be the fate of a schism so vigorous even as that of Sikhism; and the absorption into Hinduism of the Kukas, an offshoot of the Sikhs, points to this possibility. In this way Buddhism proved a very serviceable ally to its mortal foe, Hinduism. ^ Still, though Brah¬ manism is expansive enough to admit aliens to a share (such as it is) in its rites and privileges, it seems as if these strangers must have something in Common with the genius loci of Hinduism. The 1 Lyall, “ Asiatic Studies,” Essay v., p. 105. 2 See Hunter, “Indian Empire,” p. 171. “ The Buddhist religion did much to incorporate the pre-Aryan tribes into the Indian polity.” AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. Q Malays and Assamese appear, indeed, to be excep¬ tions ; but we can hardly conceive of such nations as the Persians or Arabs, far less can we imagine Europeans, becoming followers of Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu. When new tribes affiliate themselves to the great Brahminical system, it is a social rather than a religious transformation which they undergo. We may therefore fairly say that Hinduism is not, strictly speaking, a prosely¬ tizing faith. Far otherwise is it with Buddhism, that wonder- 1 offshoot of Brahmanism, which, springing up suddenly, with such an astonishing luxuriance, that it seemed to have sapped the very life-juice of its parent stem, flourished only to die off again, as soon, in the soil that had given it birth. But, like the banyans of its native land, it had, meanwhile, planted itself afresh in other soils, and expanded into stately trees, whose spreading boughs still suffice to shelter, it may be, a quarter of the human race. The exact date at which Sakya Muni, the Enlight¬ ened, the One who had achieved his end, first preached his new doctrines, is not certain, but the generally accepted date of his death (543 b.c.) synchronizes in a curious way with the appear¬ ance of other great teachers in other lands; of Pythagoras in Italy, and Confucius in China.^ This is not the place to dwell upon the saintly life of the founder of Buddhism, or the pure and high morality which he preached. It is the mis- 1 And perhaps Zoroaster in I’ersia. TO ISLAM, sionary character of the faith which deserves our notice. Till the time of Buddha, religion had been looked upon as a national possession, and a racial inheritance. Gautama Buddha first proclaimed a religion that should be world-wide—for man¬ kind of all ages and races. Accustomed as we are to the idea that religious truth, like all other truth, is meant for mankind at large, we are apt to overlook the startling, the gigantic, originality of this conception in the mind of the Hindu prince. “ We feel,” as Max Muller finely says, “ for the first time in the history of the world, the beating of the heart of humanity.” What a grand, what an unprecedented, task was that which Buddha set before himself, when he aimed at no less than the enlightenment and the salvation of the whole world ! And who can doubt that this, the recog¬ nition, namely, of the common brotherhood of man¬ kind, has been the secret of the enormous success of Buddhism ? The later developments of Buddhism—its cor¬ ruptions we may say—present, as is well known, a startling likeness to the organization and cere¬ monials of the Roman Church. Buddhists, too, at least those of Thibet, have a pope, claiming a far earlier patent than his rival in the West, and dating his infallibility from the cradle. Monks, nuns, reli¬ gious orders, celibacy, saints, relics, rosaries, bells, incense, high altar—it is all there, in such sort as to have induced the early Jesuit fathers to ascribe the unaccountable likeness to the very finger of Satan. But Buddhism also recalls true primitive AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. TI Christianity, not only in the purity of its moral code, and above all in maxims such as the duty of for¬ giving insults and loving enemies,which are to be found elsewhere in Christ’s teaching alone, but also in that public despatch of the sixty disciples,'^ which was one of the first acts of Buddha’s minis¬ try, and which forcibly reminds us of the sending forth of the Seventy, some six hundred years later. Buddha further established a religious order, on whom missionary work was enjoined as a special duty. Two hundred and fifty, or three hundred years later, Asoka, King of Magadha, or Behar,^ the Hindu Constantine, made Buddhism the state religion of his kingdom. Believing its cosmo¬ politan character to be the essence of the faith, he established a peculiar department of state, whose special province it was to preserve the purity of the faith, and to spread it abroad among the surrounding nations. These, if un¬ civilized, were to be instructed, and made acquainted with the blessings of civilization. The minister of religion was called Dharma Matra, or Great Officer of Virtue, or Law, who, as one of the edicts of Asoka informs us,'‘ was appointed in 1 Max Muller, “ Chips from a German Workshop,” L, p. 122. 2 Hunter, “Indian Empire,” p. 143. “Go ye now,” he said to them, “and preach the most excellent law.” He himself preached with marked success in the N.W. Provinces. 3 The Country of Convents. ^Spiers, “Life in Ancient India,” p. 235. 12 ISLAM the thirteenth year of that King to preside over the Law, and to cause it to spread among all pious people. This reawakening of the missionary spirit of Buddhism may be ascribed to the influence of Mogalapatra, president of the convents of Patna. He, it is said, reflecting on futurity, perceived that the time had arrived for the estab¬ lishment of the religion of Buddha in foreign countries, and despatched Sthaviras, or Elders, to carry this purpose into effect.^ Accordingly, Asoka’s son, Mahendra, carried Buddhism into Ceylon in 243 b.c. A certain Majhantiko went as missionary to Kashmere and Kandahar. Others were sent to the Mahrattas and to the Greek kingdoms beyond the Indus, and to the states at the foot of the Himalayas. The Chinese annals speak of a Buddhist missionary in 217 b.c.,'^ and the new doctrines were preached in Burma as early as 207 b.c., but they did not take root there till more than two centuries later.^ Siam was converted in 638 a.d., and Java in the sixth century, whence the faith was carried to Bali and Sumatra. Meanwhile Afghanistan, Baktria and Thibet, in fact the whole of Central Asia, from the Caspian to China, and from Siberia to the 1 See "Mahawanso” (a native chronicle of Ceylon, 490 A.D.), quoted by Mrs. Spiers, pp. 308, 309. Arrian calls these Elders ’t'TnaxQ'n-oi. See Hunter, “ Indian Empire,” p. 162. 2 Max Muller, “Chips from a German Workshop,’ Vol. I., p. 222. Hunter, “ Indian Empire,” p. 149. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 13 Himalayas, became permeated with Buddhism, and about the time of the capture of Jerusalem by Titus it became an established faith in China. Thence it was introduced into the Korea in 372, and Japan in 550 a.d. Next to its proselytizing character, the most remarkable feature of Buddhism was its extreme toleration of other beliefs. Asoka, in one of his edicts, says : “A man must honour his own faith, without blaming that of another. . . . There are even circumstances under which the faith of others should be honoured, and in acting thus according to circumstances a man increases his own faith and injures that of others.” ^ In fact, as we know, Buddhism is to-day professed by millions in China conjointly with Taoism and Confucianism. The meekness of Buddhist missionaries is exemplified by the following words of a preacher when threatened by angry crowds: “ Even if the gods were united with men they would not frighten me away. . . . Abstain from violence, extend your good will to mankind. Let there be peace among the dwellers on the earth.” Peace among the dwellers on the earth—good will to all mankind ! Do not these gracious words'^ strangely anticipate the wondrous message that more than two centuries later fell upon the 1 Spiers, p. 239. 2 From Max Miiller. if correctly translated. H ISLAM listening ears of the Jewish shepherds under the quiet skies of Bethlehem ? Of all the religions of the world, Buddhism alone is like Christianity in possessing the double quality of being intended for all mankind, and of relying for its propagation upon persuasion and not upon force. Both these religions made their way comparatively slowly at first in the teeth of the violent opposition offered by the established faith of their respective countries. Both triumphed over all obstacles, and after becoming dominant in the Empire wherein they took their rise, both spread out into neighbouring lands. Buddhism was, indeed, driven out of its native country by a revival of the old religion, while a similar attempt to resuscitate paganism under Julian failed; but even to this day the votaries of Buddha are supposed to outnumber the followers of Christ. We have seen that the primitive form of religious faith was the national one. Bound up as it was with the purely national life, it repelled rather than attracted proselytes. Judaism, Druidism, Zoroastrianism, were of this kind. Then, like a revelation, came the idea of a world¬ wide religion that, being independent of national characteristics, should be offered as a boon to all the world by reason of its own intrinsic excellence. There remained but one variety of religious faith to be brought into the world—one that should be identified not with a nation, but with a state, and which should be spread, like temporal conquests, by the sword. It will be our endeavour in the AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 15 following pages to trace the history of the creed which fulfilled these new conditions, and which, national in its origin and essence, has forced itself at the point of the sword upon half the nations of the old world, crushing their indi¬ viduality, arresting their development, and forcing them to remain for ever at that precise stage of civilization which had been reached by the Arabs in the seventh century of our era. i6 ISLAM, CHAPTER II. Mohammed’s mission. “ Much has been said of Mahomet’s propagating his religion by the sword. It is no doubt far nobler, what we have to boast of the Christian religion that it propagated itself peace¬ fully in the way of preaching and conviction. Yet withal if we take this as an argument of the truth or falsehood of a religion, there is a radical mistake in it. The sword indeed; but where will you get your sword. Every new opinion at its starting is precisely in a minority of one. In one man’s head alone, there it dwells as yet. One man alone of the whole world believes it; there is one man against all men.”— Carlyle. After 200 years of a persecuted and militant existence, Christianity triumphed over the religions of the Roman Empire, and within 500 years after Christ’s death it had become paramount in the largest portion of the old world. Showing itself adapted to the Oriental as well as to the European, it had taken a strong hold of North Africa and Egypt, and, disputing with Buddhism on equal terms in Turkestan, it had planted itself firmly in the ancient Empires of India and China. To the human eye it seemed as if Christianity must ere long become the faith of the whole world. Even Arabia, in which the national life was so strong, that its independence had never been entirely surrendered AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 17 even to Rome, was showing signs of being Christianized. Najran was almost wliolly Chris¬ tian, and more than one tribe of Arabs had adopted the faith of Christ. It only needed that Arabia should come under the political influence of some Christian power, for Christianity to become the pervading religion. And this seemed on the eve of actual accomplishment. For the kingdom of Abyssinia, whose influence had for a long time been strong in Arabia, made, in the latter half of the sixth century, a determined attempt to enforce its claims to sovereignty over the unconquered Arabians. The king, Abrahah, with a large army attacked Mecca in 570 a.d., but owing to a sudden outbreak of small-pox in his army, he was com¬ pelled to raise the siege, and the Meccans might be pardoned for attributing the preservation of their city to the direct interposition of their tribal gods. Christianity naver had another opportunity of winning Arabia, for in this very year of Abrahah’s defeat there was born in the city of Mecca, of the noble family of the Hashimites, of the clan of the Koreish, the Founder of a new religion, which was destined in a few short years to drive out Chris¬ tianity from its ancient seats in Asia and Africa, and to contend with it on almost equal terms for the possession of Europe. This religion differed from all others in combining within itself the opposite qualities of a national and a cosmopolitan faith, and in relying for its propagation on the contradictory methods of force and persuasion ; i8 ISLAM, but^ it only employed persuasion until force was practicable, and it only became cosmopolitan by the Procrustean method of compelling the world to become Arabian. Well might the Founder call his faith Islam, or Surrender, for it did mean a complete surrender, social, political, national, and religious, to a semi-barbarous nation of vagabonds and freebooters. How far this religion, invented by Mohammed, can claim the title of a missionary religion, it is our object to investigate; but it must be pointed out from the first that the term “ missionary” can¬ not be restricted merely to those peaceful methods of conversion which are characteristic of the creeds of Buddha and of Christ, and which are now universally adopted by their followers. We shall therefore consider that all the influences, which have tended to enlarge the borders of Eslamiah, come within the scope of this enquiry; for the success of Islam as a world-wide religion cannot be ascribed to one agency or another, taken singly, but to the combined force of various agencies and diverse motives, all leading up to the enunciation ofthe simple but sublime formula There is no God hut God, and Mohammed is His Prophet." The life of Mohammed, after he attained to manhood, divides itself sharply into three distinct periods. Till he was forty years old Mohammed lived the ordinary life of a Meccan citizen, engaged in youth as a shepherd on the neighbouring hills, and in man¬ hood in trading ventures, first as the agent, and then as the husband, of a rich Meccan lady named AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 19 Khadija. He was married to Khadija in 595 a.d., and it was not till fifteen years later that he first began to entertain those religious doubts and speculations which culminated in his standing forth as a Pro¬ phet commissioned by Heaven to recall the Arab race to the primitive religion of Abraham. The second period of twelve years comprises Mohammed’s life at Mecca as prophet and preacher; the third of six years, his career at Medina as Prophet and king. During the first of these his adherents were weak and the victims of persecution, and the Son of Abdullah, as Mohammed was then called, could only employ persuasion; during the second, with a whole city at his back, he did not hesitate at once to appeal to force. Attempts have been made by Mohammed’s apologists to prove that no such sudden change took place in the character and conduct of the Prophet; but no one who takes v an impartial and unimpassioned view of the case, can doubt that the flight from Mecca was the signal for a complete reversal of the peaceful policy hitherto pursued by the Prophet. This being so— and it really cannot be denied—we are naturally led to infer that it was only the weakness of Mohammed that prevented his employing force sooner than he did. Once established at Medina, he assumed the functions of king as well as pro¬ phet, and identifying his spiritual with his temporal ambition, he struck out the novel and startling idea that not only the bodies but the souls of men could be forced to submit to the rule and believe in the 20 ISLAM, creed of their conqueror. The example, thus set by Mohammed, of following up preaching and per¬ suasion by compulsion and fear, is one that has been studiously followed by his disciples throughout the world and in all subsequent ages. Nor is force such an inadequate method of conversion as we in our nineteenth-century wisdom are too apt to think ; for though the first generation of such com¬ pulsory converts may be, and probably are, in¬ sincere believers, yet their descendants will, in all likelihood, become bigoted adherents of the faith. Christianity, as well as Islam, has profited by the method of forcible conversion. The Saxons, con¬ verted by the sword of Charles the Great, furnish an example of this, and we know that in India “ the sternly proselytizing zeal of the Portuguese^” was much more effective in the way of conversions than the methods now in use. Again, humanly speaking, it was force alone that prevented the re¬ formed doctrines from winning their way in Spain. The son of Abdullah was forty years old^ when, in his solitary musings on Mount Hira, as he thought upon the idolatrous debasement of his nation, and felt after that pure and ancient faith of Abraham, for which many of his countrymen had lately been enquiring in vain,^ suddenly there appeared to him the angel Gabriel; who said, “ Cry,” and Mohammed answered, “ What 1 Hunter, “ Indian Empire,” p. 375. 26ll A.D. •'’See Osborn, “Islam under the Arabs,” p. 5. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 21 shall I cry ? ” ^ Then was revealed the Sura, which now stands ninety-sixth in the Koran. A pause of months, or even, as some think, of years, followed this heavenly vision, during which there was neither voice nor any that answered. Then, as in the agony of his doubt and despair he meditated suicide, came the second angelic vision, and a voice was heard saying, “ I am Gabriel, and thou, Mohammed, art the Apostle of God.” Preaching in secret to those of his own circle, Mohammed gained as his first converts his wife, his nurse, his slave, his cousin, and, a little later, the most important of his early dis¬ ciples,. Abd el Caba, the son of Abu Kohafa, better known as Abu Bekr. He was an elderly man of influence and note among the Koreish, and succeeded in inducing many converts to follow his example. The total number of disciples gained by this s.^cret preaching amounted to thirty or forty souls, when a fresh command that “he should arise and preach ” came to the Prophet in a trance.^ Henceforth there was to be no pause in the revelations, no doubt or hesitation as to his divine mission ; and the son of Abdullah began at once to comply with the new injunction. Thus Islam in its inception was as truly a mis¬ sionary religion as Buddhism or Christianity. The new doctrines were now preached to the Prophet’s kin, the descendants of Abdel Muttalib. 1 This is Deutsch’s version, who compares Isaiah, xh 6. “ Koran, Sura Ixxiv. 22 ISLAM, “Never,” said Mohammed, “has any Arab offered to his people the advantages which I offer you. These are nothing less than happiness in this life and bliss in the life to come.” ^ When, however, he appealed to them to acknowledge him, and asked them who would become his delegate and his vicar, Ali, the son of Abu Talib, Mohammed’s youthful cousin, thus early showing his impetuous and chivalrous spirit, alone stood up, offered himself, and was accepted, amid the laughter of his elders. But, as we know, the sequel proved no laughing matter. Thus unsuc¬ cessful even with his own near kinsmen, Moham¬ med, with unabated confidence, proclaimed his mission to the other Koreish. His preaching, at first of a general character, and limited to the fundamental doctrines that there was one God, that mankind would rise again and be judged, every man according to his works, and that Mohammed was the Apostle of God, excited no opposition, only much curiosity and some con¬ tempt. Such ideas were no novelty to the Meccans, for, in a certain sense, there had been Mohammedans before Mohammed,^ several of whom were among his earliest converts. The really distinctive dogma of Islam, the source of its power as well as of its weakness—the dogma that Mohammed was the Apostle and vice¬ regent of God—was enunciated, indeed, from the 1 M Caussin de Perceval, “ Histoire des Arabes,” Vol I. P 361. ‘■^See Sprenger, (Quoted in Gibbon, vi., 224, note. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 23 first, but was not at first insisted upon as the most important article of belief, the one article, in fact, upon which all others centred and hinged.^ But when Mohammed proceeded to attack the idols of the Arabs, and to consign those ancestors, of whom they were so proud, to the crushing fires and scalding waters of Hell, contempt was turned into anger, and persecution began. And though Mohammed himself and his more influential followers were personally safe, owing to the clannish instinct which prevailed in such unusual force among the Arabs, yet the meaner disciples, of whom many were slaves, felt the full force of their enemies’ malice. Among these was Belal, the first-fruits of the Gentiles, an Abyssinian negro, who endured his sufferings with the constancy of a martyr. Others were not so brave, and when a convert who had denied his new faith, and spoken evil of his Prophet, came to Mohammed sobbing and making confession, he said gently, “ What fau't was it of thine if they forced thee ? He even enjoined him, if tortured again, to repeat his denial—an ill-advised concession, which has been interpreted by the Shiite section of the Mussulman world to justify the concealment of a man’s real belief on any occasion however trivial.^ At last the ill-treatment of Mohammed’s unpro- ^ Milman, “ Latin Christanity,” p. 455, note. Sale, Koran, Sura xvi., verse 108, note. •’^Called Takiyyah, see Osborn, “Islam under the Khalifs,” p. 139: Hunter, “ Ind. Moslems,” p. 118 ; Gobineau’s “ Religions of Central Asia,’ p. 15. 24 ISLAM, tected followers became so great that alleviation had to be sought in exile. The country chosen for their retreat was Abyssinia, “a land of righteous¬ ness,”^ as Mohammed termed it. Thither fifteen converts set sail in the sixth year of Mohammed’s mission (6i6 a.d.) Four of these were women and one was Othman, son of Affan, destined in after days to be the third Khalif, or Successor of the Prophet. While these refugees were at the Court of the Negus of Abyssinia, making a nearer ac¬ quaintance with that Christian religion, of which their own was not as yet much more than a sect, Mohammed had well-nigh wrecked his own pre¬ tensions and the future of his faith by interpolating into his heavenly oracles, sent down, as he asserted, from the very throne of God, a verse permitting supplication to be made to the Meccan idols, and promising that their intercession would avail with God. This concession was particularly acceptable to the Koreish, who now gladly agreed to acknowledge the teaching of the Prophet. But Mohammed recovered himself in time, and, re¬ tracting the admission, practically acknowledged that he had been guilty of forging the name of God to words that He had not put into his mouth.'^ d'his being so, we shall find the less difficulty in believing Mohammed capable of the same “ high blasphemy ” in the case of those grotesque and 1 Muir, " Mahomet and Islam,” p. 40. - In one of the later Suras, Koran vi. 93, we find, “ Who is more wicked than he who forgeth a lie concerning God ? or saith, this was revealed unto me, when nothing was revealed.” AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 25 debasing revelations on the subject of his wives and concubines which disgrace the later Suras of the Koran. The Koreish felt that they had been fooled, and persecution became fiercer than ever, so that some of the refugees who had returned prematurely from Abyssinia fled again thither, their numbers being increased by fresh accessions, till there were as many as 83 men and 18 women assembled there. Mohammed himself, in spite of every dis¬ couragement and disappointment, continued his preaching. When urged by his old uncle Talib, who, at great personal inconvenience, and even danger, still stood by his nephew, to cease from offending the Koreish, he made the celebrated answer that though they placed the sun on his right hand and the moon on his left, and gave him the alternative of compliance or destruction, he would not be false to his mission.^ This courageous bearing was not without its effect, and the oppor¬ tune conversion of Hamza, the youngest of Mohammed’s uncles, and of the impetuous Omar, afterwards Khalif, gave renewed stability to his cause. The latter had been one of the Prophet’s most uncompromising enemies, and had set out on this occasion with the intention (so runs the tradition) of slaying Mohammed. Noaym, a relation, meeting him on the way, managed to divert his thoughts from Mohammed to his own 1 Perceval, “ Histoire des Arabes,” 1 ., 364. Compare above p 13 26 ISLAM, family, several of whom were avowed Moslems. Returning "suddenly to his house, he found his sister and her husband engaged in reading the Koran. So enraged was he at the sight that he struck his brother-in-law and even attacked and wounded his sister. Then, when he had calmed down somewhat, he asked to hear what they were reading, and, listening to the recital, was immedi¬ ately converted.^ The accession of these two influential disciples, and the boldness of Omar especially in professing his faith even in the Kaaba itself, nerved many others, who were Moslems at heart, to declare themselves, so that the Koreish in their perplexity accused Mohammed of being a sorcerer possessed of a charm for setting brother against brother, son against father, and husband against wife.‘^ Driven to desperation, all the hostile Koreish formed a league to boycott the family of the Hashimites, and on the first day of the seventh year of his mission, Mohammed, his disciples and his kinsfolk, took refuge in the quarter of Abu Talib, his aged uncle. Cut off from the rest of the nation, Mohammed could only preach to such of his kin as were still sceptical of his claims, and accord¬ ingly we find, in the contemporary Suras of the Koran, injunctions to preach to and admonish his near relations.^ Still, at the time of the yearly 1 Perceval, I., 396, from Hishami. Omar’s own account is quite different. See Muir, “ Life of Mohammed,” II ,170, note. TVrceval, I., 367, •’ Koran, Sura xxvi., verse 212. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 27 pilgrimage, when there was a sort of truce of God, Mohammed was able to preach to the pilgrims ^ that flocked to Mecca, but his eflbrts even here were counteracted by the determined opposition of the Koreish, and especially of his uncle Abu Lahab.^ Three years were thus passed in forced inaction, when the ban placed upon Mohammed and his kin was at last removed, and Mohammed was free to preach to whom he would. Ten years had he been toiling, and the converts scarcely numbered hundreds. Since the conversion of Omar, no lead¬ ing men had joined the little band of disciples. At this juncture Mohammed thought of breaking fresh ground, by trying to win over the citizens of Tayif, a town situated some sixty miles eastward of Mecca. This missionary effort was a most sorrow¬ ful failure. The people of Tayif showed as little respect for his teaching as the Meccans, and even the Prophet’s person was not safe from their sacrilegious hands, and Mohammed with his freed- man Zeid fled from the city after a short stay, wounded and sick at heart, amid the hootings of the rabble. How intense was the faith which sustained the Prophet even in this hour of humilia¬ tion can best be seen from the touching prayer, which tradition ^ puts into his mouth as uttered at this time : “ O Lord, I make my complaint unto Thee of my helplessness and insignificance. But 1 For Mohammed’s zeal in preaching see Koran, xviii. 5. 2 Koran, Sura cxi. Muir, " Mahomet and Islam,” p. 52. 28 ISLAM, Thou art the Lord of the poor and feeble, and Thou art my Lord. To whom wilt Thou abandon me ? Into the hands of strangers that beset me round about, or of the enemy whom Thou hast given at home the mastery over me ? If Thy wrath be not upon me, I have no concern, but rather Thy favour compasseth me about the more. I seek for refuge in the light of Thy countenance. It is Thine to show anger until Thou art pleased. It is Thine to chase away the darkness. There is none other power, nor is there any resource but in Thee! ” But this missionary journey was not, we are gravely assured, wholly fruitless, for at Nakhla, between Tayif and Mecca, the Prophet preached his glad tidings of Islam to troops of Genii, who crowded round him to hear the oracles of God, and, being converted, went forth joyfully as mis¬ sionaries to their less fortunate fellows ! ^ More than ever discredited, Mohammed returned to Mecca, where his life was hardly safe until a generous chief of the Koreish gave him his pro¬ tection. It was the darkest hour before the dawn. Persecuted at Mecca, foiled at Tayif, Mohammed turned his eyes to Medina, where the state of affairs was such as to hold out some hope. The inhabitants were Arabs with a strong infusion of Jewish settlers, whose belief in the advent of a Great Prophet was well known, and had commu¬ nicated itself to their Arab friends. Moreover, the Arab tribes of Aus and Khazraj, each in 1 Koran, Suras xlvi., Ixxii. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 29 league with one of the Jewish clans, were too equally matched for one of them to secure the pre¬ eminence, and too jealous of each other to submit readily to a chieftain from either party. Thus they were in a favourable condition for the recep¬ tion of a leader from without. Accordingly when Mohammed, meeting with some citizens of Medina at the great annual pil¬ grimage to Mecca, preached to them his new doctrines, and hinted at the possibility of their receiving him at Medina, they listened with sympathy, and promised, after consulting their fellow-citizens at home, to give an answer next year. This negotiation and the subsequent one in the following year were carried on in secret, for fear of the Koreish, at a retired spot called Akaba, near Mecca. Next year at the appointed time came twelve representatives of the Medina tribes, and plighted with the Prophet what was called the first “ pledge of the Akaba,” binding themselves to renounce their idols ; to abjure stealing, fornication, infanti¬ cide, slander ; and to obey the Prophet in all reason¬ able things. It is a significant fact that this arrange¬ ment was afterwards called “ The Women’s Oath,” ^ because no obligation to fight was in¬ cluded among its provisions. This is sufficient to show what a change came over the spirit of Mohammed’s dream in the few short months that intervened between the repulse of Tayif and the entrance into Medina. 1 Sale, “ Introduction to Koran,” p. 37. 30 ISLAM The pledge of Akaba was taken in 621 a.d., being the eleventh year of the Prophet’s mission, and the twelve citizens who were parties to it returned to Medina to sow the seeds of the new doctrine. They were accompanied by a disciple from Mecca, Musab ibn Omeir, who was to in¬ struct the people of Medina in the faith, and who thus became one of the earliest missionaries of Islam. The result of their efforts was startling in its success. Islam appealed not only to the re¬ ligious instincts of the Arabs of Medina, quickened as these had been by a long and familiar inter¬ course with Jews, but also flattered their intense national pride. Here was the Prophet whom the Jews had ever been expecting and boasting of, and lo! he was not a Jew, but an Arab ! It is not surprising, then, that they came over in large numbers. There is an instructive passage in one of the biographers of the Prophet showing us how this wholesale conversion was effected. The mis¬ sionaries of Islam, Musab and Asad (who had been sent to assist the former) enter the quarters of the Awsites and sit down by a well to expound the Scriptures to a band of believers. One of the chiefs of the tribe, hearing of their presence, makes his way to the spot, and, after abusing the mis¬ sionaries for misleading the citizens of Medina, warns them to leave the place as they valued their lives. A courteous answer, however, induces him to listen to the new doctrines, which so charm the listener that he straightway purifies himself and AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 31 embraces Islam.^ He then goes and converts the other chief of the tribe, Sad ibn Muadz, who, returning to his tribe, swears that he will not speak to man or woman that does not acknow¬ ledge Mohammed—and so great is his influ¬ ence that by the evening every one of his tribe is • converted. After this we are not surprised to hear that soon there was scarcely a house in Medina where believers were not to be found. At Mecca, mean¬ while, it was a period of suspense for Mohammed. “ Wait ye in expectation,” he says ; “ we, too, in expectancy will wait.” But he could now, with more assurance, threaten the stiffnecked Meccans with speedy judgment, which should surely befall them, even though the Prophet himself were not there to see it.^ We can also trace in his revela¬ tions a more confident assertion of the necessity of obedience, not only to God, but also to his Apostle.^ When the season of pilgrimage again came round, Mohammed’s confidence was seen to be justified, for the second “pledge of Akaba ” ^ w^as subscribed by seventy-five persons, of whom two were women ; and Mohammed’s uncle Abbas, himself not yet a believer, solemnly entrusted the ^ guardianship of the Prophet to their keeping. They joyfully accepted the charge, pledging them- 1 Muir, “ Life of Mohammed,” II., 218, note from Hishami. 2 Sura vi. 159 (Muir). ® Ibid., xliii. 38—31; Ixxviii. 76. ^Jbid., Ixxii. 23. 31st, 622. 32 ISLAM, selves to defend him against all enemies. Thus was the war-note sounded. It was no more to be a “ women’s oath.” In imitation of Moses and Christ, whom he claimed to have superseded, Mohammed now appointed twelve apostles^ from these Ansars, or helpers, as they were called, saying, “Ye shall be the leaders and sureties of the rest, even as the Apostles of Jesus were sureties for His people, and I am a surety for my people.” ^ Within a few months from this time all the followers of Mohammed, to the number of 150,® had made their escape to Medina, whither they were followed by the Prophet during the last week of June, 622 a.d. This Hejira, or Flight of Mohammed, marks the beginning of the Mo¬ hammedan Era. Thus ended the second and most momentous period of Mohammed’s life. He was fifty-three years old, and after thirteen years’ preaching he had made rather more than two hundred disciples at Mecca, and an unknown, perhaps larger, number at Medina. Hitherto the Prophet had professed to be merely a preacher and a warner to his kinsfolk, to his fellow-citizens, and to his nation, and even, though with an uncertain voice, to all the world."* The Koran is full of passages insisting on this view of his mission : ^ Arabic, Nakib —bishops, or leaders. For their names see Gagnier, “Vie de Mahomet,” II., 16. 2 Muir, from “A 1 Wackidi,” 285^. ^ Besides these there were 60 in Abyssinia. ^ Sura Ixvi. 53 ; Ixxxv. 27. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 33 “ I am no guardian over you,”—Ixxxiv. 109. “ We have not sent thee to be a guardian (or steward) over them.”—Ixvii. 57. ” Wherefore warn thy people, for thou art a warner only thou art not empowered to act with authority over them,”— xxxviii. 20. "Wilt thou forcibly compel men to be believers? No one can believe but by the permission of God.”—Ixxxiv. 99 ” Is the duty of an Apostle any other than public preach¬ ing ? ”—Ixxiii. 38. , ” If they turn aside, thy duty is preaching only.”—Ixxxiii, 47, and Ixxiii. 85 : and that famous text, afterwards held to be abro¬ gated, like so many others in the Koran :— “ Let there be no violence in religion.”—ii. 257. The Moslems in these early days are even en¬ joined to be meek! “Theservants of the Merci¬ ful are those who walk meekly on the earth, and when the ignorant speak unto them, they answer ‘ Peace.” ^ Sura, Ixvi. 66, cf. h i. 89 D 34 ISLAM, CHAPTER III. MOHAMMED DRAWS THE SWORD. " A human missionary is incapable of cherishing the ob¬ stinate unbelievers who reject his claims, despise his argu¬ ments, and persecute his life ; he might forgive his personal adversaries, he may lawfully hate the enemies of God.”— Gibbon. Mohammed’s previous moderation was now shown to have been due entirely to his want of power; ^ for no sooner had he forged his sword, than he began vigorously to wield it. But there was still need of circumspection, and a temporizing policy was advisable even at Medina, inasmuch as the Jews, who formed a strong party there, had to be conciliated. Accordingly, Islam was, for the present, made as conformable to Jewish ideas as possible. Jerusalem was still the Kiblah, or Holy Spot, towards which the eyes of all believers, Jew, Christian or Arab, instinctively turned in prayer. The great fast of the Atonement was held to be binding on the followers of Islam. A treaty was even made with the Jews allowing them to keep their own faith, while yet forming one people ^ Sale, ” Introduction to Koran,” p. 38. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 35 with the true believers. But, as Mohammed gradually grew stronger, he was able to kick away the supports by which he had mounted, and, finally, by changing the Kiblah to Mecca, he at once broke with the Jews, and indulged the national vanity of his Arabian followers. Hence¬ forth, Islam was to stand alone—the abrogation, rather than the fulfilment, of Judaism and Chris¬ tianity. As the relations with the Jews became more and more strained, so did the tone of the Koran become more and more warlike. The first definite permission to use force seems to be that contained in the twenty-second Sura, in the forty- first verse of which “ Permission is granted unto those who take up arms, for that they have been unjustly persecuted, and God is certainly able to assist them.” Sura ii. v. 190 also says, “ Fight, therefore, until there be no temptation to idolatry, and the religion be God’s.” The succeeding verses even sanction a disregard of the sacred // months and the holy precincts of Mecca. Within six months of the flight from Mecca the ejected Prophet began to undertake reprisals, and to engage in the “ pious and profitable commission of despoiling the infidels.” ^ At first little expedi¬ tions were sent out to intercept caravans and waylay travellers. In the second of these Obeida, son of Harith, shot the first arrow for Islam. Meanwhile it is an indication of the 1 Gibbon, vi, 314. 36 ISLAM, enlarged sphere of Mohammed’s influence that he now made a treaty (his first) with a foreign tribe near Mecca. In November, 623 a.d., at Nakhla, where the Genii had been converted, a raiding party of Moslems seized their first booty, and shed the first blood of infidels. The breach between Mecca and Medina was daily widening, and could only be closed by the decisive victory of one side or the other. • Force was the only possible arbiter in this contest; and war was a congenial pastime for Arabs. They were far more in their element spreading the faith by the sword than by the fxuXccxixTq TruQovg, and joined to religious enthusiasm was the stimu¬ lating expectation of a large plunder. That the latter added to the ranks of Islam is clear from the tradition that when some of the unconverted citizens of Medina made as though they would accompany the true believers in their attack on the caravan, and Mohammed asked them on what grounds they wished to join the expedition, they answered, “ In the hope of plunder; ” but on Mohammed’s remonstrating and refusing to let them go, unless they believed, they were straightway converted. The success which attended the first great venture of the hloslems at Bedr,^ where, in accordance with the assurance contained in the ijan. i3tb, 624 a.d. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 37 Koran,^ 300 Moslems put to flight three times their own number, encouraged the Prophet to emphasize still more strongly the duty of “ fighting in the ways of the Lord,” and to hold forth the promise of Hell for those who were backward in the cause; of plunder for those who fought and won ; of Paradise for those who fell. “ Let those,” he says somewhat later, “fight for the religion of God who barter the present life for the life to come : whosoever fighteth in the path of God, whether he be slain or victorious, we will in the end give him a great reward.”’ Such was the warlike ardour inspired in the hearts of Moslems by these means that we hear of youths,-^ to whom life was presumably sweet, throwing away their lives to attain the joys of Paradise, its living waters and its shady gardens, its trees laden with fruit and its rivers running with wine, and, above all, its houris, with their large black eyes, and beautiful as pearls in their shells. Success discovered the weak points in Moham¬ med’s character, and he, who in adversity had played the part of a hero and a martyr, gave way in prosperity to the ignoble passions of cruelty and revenge. Several of the captives at Bedr were slain in cold blood with the Prophet’s con¬ nivance if not by his direct order, “ I thank the Lord,” he piously ejaculated, when one of these poor wretches was killed before his eyes, “who hath ^ Sura xcv. 66. ^ Koran, Sura c. Ixxvi. See story of Omeir. Muir, “ Mahomet and Islam,” p. 104. 38 'ISLAM, comforted mine eyes by thy death,” and when the dying man asked who, when he was gone, would take care of his little child, the Prophet answered grimly “ The fire of Hell.”^ It is even said that Mohammed urged the slaughter of all the prisoners in tervorem ; ^ but he apparently relented, for the eighth Sura of the Koran commands them to be gently treated and invited to embrace Islam.® Some did so to get their freedom, and others from other motives.^ The war-note in the Koran now comes out more clearly than ever, and the late success is held up as a proof of the Prophet’s divine mission, and though some of the later Medina Suras contain passages in the old peaceful strain,^ yet these are, perhaps, interpolations from earlier revelations.® The next two years form a dismal record of cowardly assassinations of opponents, and treacherous attacks on the Jews, ending in their promiscuous slaughter or exile. The situation will best be explained by the answer given by an Arab confederate of the Jews, when upbraided with deserting them : “ Hearts have changed, Islam hath blotted all treaties out.” ^ 1 Muir, " Mahomet and Islam,” p. io8, from Wackidi. ^Ibicl., pp. 114, 115, 135. ^ c.g., Walid, son of Mugheira, from disgust at his brother’s haggling about a ransom. See Muir, ” Life of Mohammed,” iii. 123, note. Ixxxi., 49; xci. 112. f’This might very well be the case, considering the haphazard way in which the Koran was put together. 7 Muir. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 39 ' The defeat of Ohod (624 a.d.) lessened for a time the aggressiveness of the martial Prophet, whose career was well-nigh ended on that dis¬ astrous day, whereon many distinguished Moslems fell, and among them Mohammed’s youngest uncle, Hamza, the “ Lion of God and His Apostle.” The cruelties of Mohammed provoked reprisals, and two missionaries, or spies (for it is not clear which they were), being seized by the Beni Lahyan, whose chief had been assassinated at Mohammed’s instigation, were carried to Mecca and put to a cruel death, not in the Christian spirit, asking forgiveness for their murderers, but praying to their God, the merciful and com¬ passionate, that He might utterly destroy their slayers. In this they were but following in the footsteps of their master, who, though he is on one occasion reported to have said ^ that he had been sent “ not to curse, but to be a mercy to man¬ kind,” yet did in fact curse his enemies, and even his friends when they begged for mercyThe next year (626 a.d.) saw the ambition of Mohammed taking a still wider scope, and a campaign against the Syrian frontier proved to be the forerunner of those wonderful Syrian campaigns, which within a very few years were to carry the missionary banner of Islam from the pillars of Hercules to the passes of the Himalayas. We may pass over the numerous passages in the Prophet’s life relating to his wives and the 1 Deutsch, "Lit. Rem.,” pp. 72, 105 : Koran, Sura xxi. 108. 2 Muir, " Mahomet and Islam,” pp. 114, 132. 40 ISLAM, scandals of his harem, though the truly blas¬ phemous revelations connected with them occupy so large a space in the contemporary Suras of the Koran. The siege of Medina, and the repulse of the Koreish, the butchery of the Jewish tribe of Koreitza, need not detain us either; though with respect to the last we may remember Muir’s ^ caution that “ this massacre was a political one, for Mohammed did not as yet profess to force men to join Islam, or punish them for not em¬ bracing it.” But it was not long before Mohammed found his material power sufficiently established to , enable him to take this course, and in November 627 A.D. we hear of an expedition sent to Djuma to call upon an Arab tribe to embrace Islam, or, in default of that, to fight for their faith. In the following year the Prophet made as though he would perform the usual pilgrimage to Mecca with his followers, but the hostile attitude of the Koreish prevented him from carrying out his intention at the time. However, before returning to Medina Mohammed concluded the famous treaty of Hodeibia,’ which guaranteed a truce for ten years, permitted Mohammed to perform the pilgrimage the following year unmolested, and— the most important provision of all—accorded every Arab free liberty to embrace Islam, if so minded. Verily, as the Prophet joyfully cried, it “ Life of Mohammed,” iii., 282. 2 February, 628 a,d. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 4I was an “ evident victory.”^ The immediate result of this liberty of conscience was that the ambas- ^ sador from the Koreish, who had negotiated the treaty, himself became a Mussulman, and so great was the influx of converts that, as Ibn Hisham points out,^ Mohammed was able two years after¬ wards to take up with him to Mecca ten thousand followers, whereas this year he had had with him only fifteen hundred. This success was followed up by the despatch of ^ embassies to the neighbouring nations, to the King of Persia, and the Emperor of the East, to Egypt and Abyssinia, to the Arabs of Syria and of Yemen. These were the “true missionaries of Islam,” ^ and one cannot but admire the audacity that could prompt, and the enthusiasm that could justify, such peremptory demands addressed by an obscure Arabian chieftain to the greatest potentates of the earth. What was Mohammed when weighed in the balance with Chosroes and Caesar? To the human eye he was as nothing, until, like Brennus, he threw into the scale the sword—the Sword of the Lord and of Mohammed. While these far- reaching schemes overstepped the narrow bounds of Arabia, the more immediate need of keeping up the religious fervour of his disciples by glutting their lust for plunder, induced Mohammed to make a treacherous attack on another Jewish settlement. 1 Koran, Sura xlviii ; see Muir. “ Mahomet and Islam,” p. 179. •'^Deutsch, ” Literary Remains,” p. 116. 42 ISLAM, that of Kheibar. ^ “ Kheibar is doomed,” shouted the exulting Prophet, as he rushed to the plunder of the infidels, “ Truly, when I light upon the coasts of any people, woe be to them in that day ! ” ^ We have previously quoted Mohammed’s prayer when, persecuted and homeless, a scorn of men and an outcast of his people, he was driven from the walls of Tayif ; it will afford an instructive contrast to compare with that earlier one his present prayer at the cruel and wanton attack upon Kheibar :— “O God, Lord of the Heavens, and of that which they overshadow. Lord of all lands, and of what they bear. Lord of the devils and of those they mislead, we beseech Thee to grant us what¬ soever good is in this town, its inhabitants and outskirts, and we implore protection from the evil thereof, from the evil of its inhabitants and of its outskirts.” ^ Next year the wish of Mohammed’s heart was at last accomplished and,accompanied by two thousand of his followers, he performed the Lesser Pilgrimage to Mecca. This proof of the approaching triumph of Islam procured for it the adhesion of its two ablest, but perhaps most unscrupulous supporters, Khalid, Ibn al Walid, “ The Sword of God,” as he was afterwards called, and Amru, destined to be the conqueror of Egypt, and the mainstay of the 1 August, 628 A.D. Muir, “ Mahomet and Islam,” p. 185. 3 Muir, “ Life of Moh., iv. 64, note, from Hishami. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 43 Umeyyade faction against the house of Ali and Mohammed. Their example was probably followed by many others. Meanwhile we hear of mis¬ sionaries being sent to summon several tribes to the faith. The Beni Saleim ^ repulsed the half¬ missionary, half-military, band of fifty men who visited them, but afterwards gave in their alle¬ giance.^ Another troop of fifteen fanatics boldly preached to an assemblage on the borders of Syria, and, being met with a shower of stones, only one of them survived to tell the tale.'* So completely had Mohammed confused the functions of Prophet and ruler, of warrior and mis¬ sionary, that it is difficult to know whether we ought to call such emissaries soldiers or preachers. In fact Islam must be credited with the creation of a new class or profession—that of soldier-mis¬ sionary, in whom were united “ the passion of the soldier and the passion of the devotee.” * “ Islam, Tribute, or the Sword” was to be their motto in future, a motto only to be varied in the case of Arabia by the equally terse formula, “ Islam, Exile, or the Sword.” Mohammed was now sixty-one years old, and he had but a short time to live ; but before his death he was destined to see his warriors definitely cross swords with the Roman armies. Three thousand men were this year (629 a.d.) sent to iMuir, “ Life of Moh.,” iv. 93. 2They apostatized, like so many others, under Abu Bekr. Muir, Ibid., p. 94. Lecky, “ Rationalism in Europe,” ii. 266. 44 ISLAM, Muta, on the Syrian border, to avenge the death of a Moslem missionary^ “ Call upon them,” said Mohammed, in his marching orders, “ to embrace Islam; if they refuse, then, in the name of the Lord, draw the sword and fight.” Nor did he fail to add the pious ejaculation, “ The Lord bring you back in peace, laden with spoil! ” Sed Dis alitev visum. The Moslem army was de¬ feated and its three commanders slain. The second of these, Djafar, brother of Ali, and cousin of Mohammed, seized with the ardour of prophetical inspiration, shouted, or rather sang, in the midst of battle : “ Paradise, how fair a resting-place! Cold is the water there, and sweet the shade ! Rome, Rome, thine hour of tribulation draweth nigh! When I close with her I will strike her down to the ground.”- Such were the thoughts that nerved the arm of the believer in battle, as he dwelt upon the joys of Paradise, or, like the youth¬ ful warrior at Emesa, cried : “ Methinks I see the black-eyed girls looking upon me, for love of whom,, should one appear in the world, all mankind would die : and see in the hand of one of them a kerchief of green silk and a cap of precious stones; and she beckons me, and calls out ‘ Come hither quickly, for I love thee ! ’ ” ^ But this repulse of Muta did not check the pro¬ gress of Islam, and tribe after tribe of Bedouin Arabs made their submission, avowing that super- 1 Muir, “ MalT^met and Islam,” p. tqc. ‘^Muir, “ Life of Moh.,” iv. loo, from Hishami. Gibbon, vi. 317. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 45 ficial conversion, which was so soon to be dis¬ avowed upon the death of the Prophet. At the same time the opportunity for taking Mecca, so long desired by Mohammed, had at last come. On the first day of the year 630 the Prophet set out with a huge array of Ansars and Mohajerin^ and allies. On his way he received the submission and conversion of his uncle, the temporizing Abbas, and of his most uncompromising enemy Abu Sofyan. Mecca surrendered without a blow, and Mohammed who had not scrupled to glut his revenge on former occasions of success, now adopted the more politic, if not so congenial, alternative of pardon. Scarcely a single life was sacrificed, when, “ after an exile of seven years, the fugitive missionary was enthroned as the Prince and Prophet of his native country.”'^ But the Kaaba was immediately purified of its idols: in the grand words of the 17th Sura (verse 82)— “ Truth had come : Falsehood was vanished.” Mohammed’s clemency had its due effect, and the whole city came over to Islam ; but, inasmuch as they were still ignorant of the rudiments of the new faith, the Prophet on his departure left the youthful Moadz ibn JabaPas a missionary to in¬ struct them.^ Nor did he neglect more mundane 1 i.e. Helpers (Citizens of Medina) and Refugees (from Mecca). ■^Gibbon, vi. 234. 2 Muir, “ Life of Mohammed,” iv. 137. 46 ISLAM, methods for securing their allegiance and main¬ taining their conversion; for he gave some of the Meccan and Bedouin chiefs such large gifts of money from the spoils as to arouse the jealousy of his own faithful followers. The usual dispen¬ sation from Heaven came to justify the action, and the Koran expressly asserts that “ alms are to be distributed to the poor and needy, and to those whose hearts are reconciled (the new converts), to redeem captives, to relieve debtors and to advance God’s religion.”^ After the fall of Mecca no serious opposition was to be feared in Arabia, and most of the Bedouin tribes at once gave in a nominal adhesion ; but they were then, as now, a perverse people, without a spark of real religiousness in them, and Mohammed, undeceived as to their character, cursed them in the vigorous words of the Koran : “ Let them alone; they are an abomination. Their dwelling-place shall be Hell, a reward which they have richly earned.”'^ Meanwhile Tayif, which had scornfully rejected the Prophet when he came as a peaceful preacher, now humbly submitted. Their delegates were graciously received, and the members instructed in the doctrines of Islam.^ On their return the citizens came over to Islam, but one of the chiefs of the tribe, going, in his new¬ born zeal, as a missionary to his fellow tribesmen 1 Koran, Sura ix., 62. ^Ibid, 97. •'^Muir, “ Mahomet and Islam,” p. 221. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 47 beyond the boundaries of the city, was slain by them.^ Now at length Mohammed felt strong enough to bring into full operation that policy, which he had already inaugurated, of spreading the faith by the sword. Many of his followers fondly believed that the fall of Mecca and the submission of the chief Bedouin tribes would do away with the necessity of further exertions in the cause of religion. They were soon undeceived by their Prophet and King, who announced emphatically that wars for the spread of Islam would never cease till Antichrist appeared.^ He signalized the next annual pil¬ grimage (631 A.D.) by proclaiming there by the mouth of his Vicar, Ali, that portion of the ninth Sura of the Koran,^ which declares that the Prophet of God is absolved of all obligations towards the unbelievers after a period of four months. “ When these months of immunity are passed,” says the oracle, “ kill the idolaters where¬ soever ye find them ; take them prisoners, besiege them, lie in wait for them. But if they shall repent and join in the prescribed prayers, and pay the legal tithes, dismiss them freely: for God is gracious and merciful; and if any of the idolaters shall demand protection, grant it him until he have heard the Word of God; then let him return in peace.” 1 Muir, “ Life of Mohammed,” iv. 204. 2 Muir, "Life of Mohammed,” iv. 201; from Kitab Wackidi. ** Verse 5. 48 ISLAM, The Koran now teems with injunctions to fight. “ Fight against those who believe not in God,” says Mohammed in another place, “ nor in the last day, and forbid not that which God and his Apostle have forbidden ... of those unto whom the Scriptures have been delivered, until they pay tribute by right of subjection, and be reduced low.” ^ And again: “When ye meet the infidels, strike off their heads until ye have made a great slaughter among them. ... As for those who fight (or fall) in defence of God’s true religion. He will not suffer their deeds to die. Verily God loveth those who fight for His religion.”'^ But though force thus became the main weapon I of conversion, the peaceful methods of persuasion and instruction were not wholly discarded, and, when a tribe tendered its submission, straightway missionaries were despatched to instruct the new converts in their religious duties. Thus con¬ version came before understanding of the doctrine, and did not, as in Christian missions of the present day, follow it. The Christian tribes of Najran, mostly taking advantage of the permission accorded to them, as People of the Book, consented to pay tribute and keep their religion. It is not surprising, however, as Muir'* points out, that their religion, trampled on and oppressed, soon disappeared before its powerful rival. The heathen tribes, on the other ^ Koran, Sura ix. 2ij. Sura Ixi. 4. 3 " Life of Mohammed,” iv. 2ig. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 49 hand, had no choice, but, as Hisham^ naively remarks, being worsted by Khalid, believed and accepted Islam, which their conqueror then pro¬ ceeded to expound to them. The following year witnessed the “ Farewell Pilgrimage,” at which the Prophet took leave of his people, saying, “ This day have I perfected your religion for you, and appointed for you Islam to be your faith, and have completed my mercy upon you.”‘^ The astonishing success of Mohammed, however, encouraged the rise of three other pre¬ tended prophets in Arabia, who, after Mohammed’s death, caused his successor no little trouble, and at the battle of Yemama even jeopardised the supremacy of I slam. Mohammed himself died in the early part of June, 632, aged sixty-three; and the army of invasion which had been held back by his sickness advanced upon Syria. The description given by an old historian of Islam will enable us to gain some idea of its proceedings.^ “ With the w^ell- known cry of Ya Mansur Aniit, ‘ Strike, O ye Conquerors,’ they slew all who opposed them, and carried off the remainder into captivity. They burned the villages, the fields of standing corn, ^Api{(i Muir, “ Life of Mohammed,” iv. 224, note. 2 Koran, Sura v. 4. 3 Moseilama the Prophet was killed at this battle. He still has followers in Arabia. See Palgrave’s “ Arabia,” ii. 202. ^K. Wackidi, 139, from Muir, “Life of Mohammed,” iv. 298. E 50 ISLAM, and groves of palm, and behind them there went up as it were a whirlwind of fire and smoke.” Such was the method by which Islam was now propagated. “ If my kingdom were of this world,” said Jesus, “then would my servants fight. Mohammed’s kingdom was essentially of this world, and stoutly did his servants fight for it. Tradition loved to dwell on the delights that awaited the strenuous fighter for Islam. “ Para¬ dise,” said a familiar proverb, “ lies under the shadow of the swords.” The sword was the key of Heaven and Hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, was of more avail than months of fasting and prayer.^ 1 St. John xviii. 36. For the contrast see an eloquent passage in Osborn, “ Islam under the Arabs,” p. 54. 2 Gibbon, vi. 257. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 51 CHAPTER IV. SARACEN AND TURKISH CONQUESTS. “ The sword is a surer argument than books .”—Arab Poet. The word missionary, in our Christian acceptation of the term, does not occur in the Koran at all. Besides references to Mohammed himself as a preacher and warner, the only other passage that can possibly be taken to refer to missionaries is in verse 100 of the third Sura : ‘‘ Let there be people * among you who invite to the best religion j ” and it is not clear that this means anything of that kind. These, and any other passages in the Koran, advocating peaceful measures were, by the convenient doctrine of abrogation, held to have been cancelled by later and more warlike utterances, and the very last Sura revealed is full of exhorta¬ tions to fight in the path of the Lord. Yet the confusion created by these contradictory passages is so great that an apologist for Christianity at the Court of the Khalif A 1 Mamun in the ninth century was able to challenge his readers to show which were the abrogated and which the binding passages, asserting at the same time that there was no canon for deciding the matter.^ However, it was then, A 1 Kindy, trans. by Sir W. Muir^ (S.P.C.K.) ,p. 93, 52 ISLAM, as it is now, the general, if not the universal, opinion of the Moslem world that the Jehad ^ is the distinctive feature of Islam while militant here on earth. “ When a people leaveth off to fight in the ways of the Lord,” said Abu Bekr, the first Khalif, in his address to the people, “the Lord also casteth off that people.” A 1 Kindy truly points out that Mohammed alone of all founders of religion, without appealing to any miracle or fulfilled prophecy as a proof of his divine mission,^ pro¬ claimed to the nations of the world ^ that, whoever did not accept him as a Prophet and the Apostle of God, the same should be slain, his goods seized, and his women and children carried into captivity. On Mohammed’s death the Bedouin tribes with one accord fell away from Islam, and all the Prophet’s work in Arabia had to be done again. Medina and Mecca alone remained true to their faith. The Arab tribes, never having been really converted, can hardly be said to have apostatized, but at all events they “ started aside like a broken bow,” and were only gradually brought back by one inducement or another, “ by kindly treatment, persuasion, and craft, by fear and the terror of the sword, by the prospect of power and wealth, and by the lusts and pleasures of this life.” That worldly motives played a large part in the conversion, not only of the Arabs but of the other nations that were conquered and converted by the 1 Or Holy War. 2 A 1 Kindy, p. 35. . ® Ibid., p. 100, ^ Ibid^, p. 63. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 53 Saracens, cannot be denied, and the Arab apologist dwells at some length upon the fact. When the Arabs of the harvestless desert tasted the delicacies of civilization and revelled in the luxurious palaces of Chosroes, “ By Allah,” said they in their wonder and delight, “even if we cared not to fight for the cause of God, yet we could not but wish to con¬ tend for and enjoy these, leaving distress and hunger henceforth to others.” ^ Yet the material inducements to fight for Islam, great as they were, seem to have been held of small estimation by many of these ardent missionaries in comparison with the glories and delights of Paradise. Muir mentions^ the story of a Moslem soldier of four score years, who, seeing a comrade fall by his side, cried out: “ O Paradise, how close art thou beneath the arrow’s point and the falchion’s flash! O Hashim, even now I see Heaven opened, and black-eyed maidens all bridally arrayed, who clasp thee in their fond embrace! ” “ He shouted Allah ! and saw Paradise, With all its veil of mystery drawn apart, And bright Eternity without disguise On his soul, like a ceaseless sunrise, dart; With prophets, houris, angels, saints, descried In one voluptuous blaze—and then he died.’’^ Some, indeed, have tried to prove ^ that Moham- 1 Tabari attributes these words to Khalid, see A 1 Kindy, p. 85, and Dr. Arnold’s “ Ishmael,” p. 224, note. 2 " Rise and Decline of Islam,” p. 16. 3 Byron, Doti yuan, VIII. cxv. 4 Sale, ” Introduction to Koran,” p. 78. 54 ISLAM, med’s Paradise was not entirely, or chiefly, a sensual one, in much the same way that other apologists have gravely asserted that slavery and polygamy are not essential parts of Islam, and that the idea of pilgrimage is no less alien to Islam than it is to Christianity. However, with respect to Mohammed’s Paradise, it is quite certain that the Koran does not speak plainly about any but sensual delights, while about these it speaks very plainly. Even if other aspects of Paradise were hinted at, they cannot have had any influence on the wild Arabs of the desert who fought under the banners of Islam. There is no more astonishing page in the history of the world than that which records the conquests of the Saracens. United for the first time in their history by the bonds of a common religious enthusiasm, and fired with the prospect of illimitable plunder, army after army of fearless, hardy, and chivalrous Arabs burst forth from their native deserts and overspread the fairest regions of the earth. The Romans, so lately victorious over their ancient enemies, the Persians,^ could not stand against this new foe, while the Syrian Arabs mostly threw in their lot with their fellow- countrymen of Arabia. Some of them even, who remained Christians, did not scruple to fight on the side of their compatriots, and in the subsequent campaign in Persia we hear of a Christian chief of the Beni Tay bravely upholding the Arab i Or Parthians. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 55 cause even in the day of defeat at the Bridge of Shaban (Oct., 634 a.d.) ; while of the Beni Namr, who joined Mothanna, the Saracen general, immediately after this battle, it is recorded that they said : “We will surely fight on the side of our people : ” and they certainly contributed largely to the victory of Boweib later in the same year. This is but further evidence of the fact that the propagation of Islam was not a prominent object of these campaigns. In fact, the above-mentioned Mothanna, when haranguing his troops, spoke of victory, endless plunder, captives male and female, and fruitful lands to be taken from the enemy, but he did not say a word about Islam. In 634 the victorious Moslems under Khalid took Damascus. In 636 they utterly defeated the Persians at Kadesia, and drove Heraclius the same year out of Syria. Jerusalem fell the following year. To this period of success has generally been assigned the so-called “ Code of Omar,” regulating the social and political position of Christians. The bitter words of the Koran, “ Fight against the people of the Book, Jews and Christians, until they pay tribute and are humbled,” were now carried out to the letter. The despotism of Islam would not even allow Christians to bring up their own children except under the teaching of Moslem masters. Even in his present state of humiliation the religious pride of the 1 See Muir’s “ Early Khalifate,” pp. 131, 134, 136, 137. p. 135. 5 ^ ISLAM, Moslem makes him look upon the polytheists with the most supreme contempt, as the following prayer, which is in common use among the children of Egyptian Moslems, sufficiently shows:— “ O God, destroy the infidels and polytheists, Thine enemies, the enemies of Islam ! O God, make their children orphans, and defile their abodes, and cause their feet to slip, and give them, and their families, and their children, and their possessions, and their race, and their wealth, and their land, as booty to the Moslems.” ^ While Khalid carried the Moslem standards to victory, in Syria and Persia, an equally able leader, Amru, opened the attack on Africa by invading Egypt in 638. Within two years Alexandria was taken, and Egypt became a Moslem dependency like Syria, Chaldaea, and Persia. In 647 North Africa was invaded, and within thirty years the victorious Moslems had reached the Atlantic Ocean, and their general, Akba, spurring his horse into the sea, exclaimed, with the disappointment of an Alexander at the Ganges: “ Great God, if my course were not stopped by this sea, I would still go on to the unknown kingdoms of the West, preaching the unity of Thy Holy Name, and putting to the sword the rebellious nations which refuse to call upon Thee.”^ Indeed, but for the “estranging sea,” a mis- iLane, " Modern Egyptians,” ii. 378, 2 Gibbon. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 57 sionary army of Arabs might have converted the Indians of the New World into staunch Moslems capable of resisting the predatory bands of Cortes and Pizarro, and the Amazon and Mississippi, like the Nile and the Niger, the Oxus and the Euphrates, might have become rivers of Eslamiah. In this connection we may, perhaps, draw a passing attention to the strange resemblance there is between the Arabs in their earlier forays for the glory of God and the accumulation of plunder, and the buccaneering expeditions of our English captains in the sixteenth century. In both cases we find the same union of religious zeal with political and worldly motives. Was Byron struck with this analogy, when he says of a bold English sailor ^ ?— “ Placed in the Arab’s clime, he would have been As bold a rover as the sands have seen.” Cyprus fell before the Saracens in 648, and Rhodes five years later, while Constantinople it¬ self was besieged in 668. By the end of the century they had reached the Oxus in Asia, and the invasion of Turkestan with the conquest of Bokhara and Samarcand in the extreme East was coincident with the invasion and con¬ quest of Spain and Lower Gaul in the West. The subjugation of Spain was quickly succeeded by the second fruitless siege of Constantinople in 716. Sixteen years later the battle of Tours ^ "The Island,” II., viii. 17. 58 ISLAM, set a limit to the Saracen conquests in Western Europe. Crete became Moslem in 823 and Sicily was completely theirs in 878, while in 846 Rome itself was partially sacked by the Arabs, and only saved by the bravery of Leo the Fourth. Though repulsed from Rome the Moslems made good their footing at one or two points in Southern Italy, from which they were not finally driven till 1058 a.d. So nearly did Italy experience the same fate as Spain. It was not until the eleventh century that the Saracens really invaded India under Mahmud of Ghazni, and within half-a-century of that time had begun the advance of the Turkish hordes, which was destined to carry the green banner of the Prophet into the heart of Europe, and almost to sweep away the remnants of Eastern Chris¬ tianity. In 1076 the Turks had reached Jerusalem, and when the Ottoman Turks took up the Sword of Islam from the failing hands of the Seljuckians, their victorious progress was not destined to be checked till Suleiman the Magnificent was foiled before the walls of Vienna. It was at the end of the thirteenth century that the Ottoman Turks first became powerful. By the middle of the four¬ teenth century they had made good their footing in Europe. Thrace, Bulgaria, Wallachia, Servia, were rapidly and thoroughly conquered, and by the end of the century Greece had become a Turkish province, and in 1453 the fall of Con¬ stantinople sealed the doom of the Eastern Empire. Seventy-six years later the unsuccessful AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 59 siege of Vienna formed the high-water mark of Moslem conquest in that direction. But many of the fairest provinces of South Eastern Europe became parts of the Turkish Empire, which ex¬ tended on the Adriatic as far as the Venetian territory, including Bosnia, Herzegovina, and the ancient Illyricum as far as Histria. From thence their border ran through Hungary midway between Buda and Vienna, and Buda and Cra¬ cow. Transylvania and Moldavia were theirs, and Bessarabia and Podolia as far as the river Bug on the north. On the Euxine the Turks were in possession of the Crimea ; the shores of the sea of Azoph were theirs, and a part of Caucasia. So that a large slice of Europe was under Moslem sway, and there needed only the capture of Rome, so confidently predicted by Bajazet, for the whole of Southern Europe to acknowledge the Moslem supremacy. Spain, too, might have been won back for the Spanish Arabs, the decay and final extinction of whose power synchronizes with the fall of Constanti¬ nople and the firm establishment of the Turks in Europe. 6o ISLAM CHAPTER V. THE SECTS OF ISLAM. “ Men have rent the affair of their religion into various sects: every party rejoiceth in that which they follow, wherefore leave them in their confusion till a certain time.” —Koran, xxiii. 58. “They who make a division in their religion and become sectaries—have thou nothing to do with them; their affair belongeth only unto God.”—Koran, Sura vi. 160. In a review of Mohammedanism as a missionary religion it is impossible to omit a description of the rise and spread of the numerous sects that have sprung up to mar the unity, or, in more Arabic phrase, to break the staff of Islam. Mohammed is said to have prophesied that his followers would be split up into seventy-three sects.^ Of the heresiarchs and their adherents he speaks with strong disapproval, as is seen from the quotation at the head of this chapter. It will not be necessary to enumerate all the Moslem sects and heresies, which made their appearance in the ninth and following centuries, but a review of the most important ones will be instructive, as showing how lightly Mohammedanism sat upon ^ See Sale’s Note on Koran, vi. 160. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 6l many of the subject provinces, and how easily they embraced doctrines utterly incompatible with Islam, and often destructive of all order, social, moral, and religious. Much has been said by historians of the ease with which the Christian populations of the East surrendered their religion for Islam, a result which was due in part to the nature of the attractions^ offered to the apostate, and partly to the fickle character of the peoples themselves, who cared little for a religion unless it were identified with the national cause. These same populations were ready enough in many cases to take up doctrines which were the negation of Islam. In this way it has come about that the whole Persian race are Moslems only in name, and stand to the orthodox Mussulmans in much the same relation that the Samaritan stood to the Jew. It is likely enough that, if Christendom had succeeded in recovering its Eastern provinces from the Saracens, re-conversion would have been rapid, and Sir John Maundeville, speaking of the Saracens in the fourteenth century, even says that “ they are easily converted to Christian law, when men preach to them and show them distinctly the law of Jesus Christ.” An examination of the rise of these various sects will also introduce us to a great development of the missionary system within the borders of Islam, and the success of these sects will be in some sort a measure of the failure of the method 1 See Gibbon, vi. 367. 62 ISLAM, of the sword. The period when these sects, which mostly combined political with religious charac¬ teristics (just as Islam itself in its essence does) first arose, falls mostly between the middle of the eighth, and the end of the eleventh, century. But the unity of Islam was broken from the earliest days by the rise of a party who resisted the rule of Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law, and the fourth Khalif. In spite of the overwhelming superiority of Ali’s claims, this faction, by the astuteness of Muawia ibn Abn Sofyan and the military genins of Amru ibn El As, contrived to secure to itself half the Empire, and at Ali’s death the succession to the Khalifate. This result was in part due to the secession from Ali’s side, at the crisis of the contest, of a party of fanatics, who were thence called Kharegites, or Revolters. They may be said, therefore, to take their rise in the middle of the seventh century, and their heretical doctrines were chiefly these : that the Imam, or head of the Moslems, need not be of the family of the Prophet, or of the tribe of Koreish, or even a freeman ; that an Imam was fallible and could be deposed; that Ali had shown his unfitness to be Imam. After the desertion of Ali’s cause they rapidly increased in numbers, but were soon after cut to pieces in a battle with their lawful Khalif, only a small remnant escaping to propagate their heresy. But the new adherents of this schism seem to have gradually changed their tenets, and we find them somewhat later in North Africa, now, as before. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 63 holding themselves aloof from other Moslems, and claiming to be representatives of pure Meccan Islam, in which capacity they protested against the infidelity of the Syrian Moslems and the quarrels of the theologians.^ Being at first preachers only and in a minority, tlrey were per¬ secuted. . Driven to desperation, they proclaimed a Jehad against their fellow-Moslems, but the fortune of war declared against them and a small remnant only escaped to Egypt. But they had already succeeded in inoculating the Berbers of Africa with their own peculiar views, and these Berbers, who had always been looked upon as very doubtful Moslems, now found that “they had been good Mohammedans all along without knowing it.” ^ Their national prejudice against the Arabs being thus fortified by a religious sanction, the Berbers bravely contested the possession of their country with their foes, until the whole province finally cut itself off from the Khalif s Empire, and came under the dominion of the Aglabites, who recognized the independence of the surrounding Berber chieftains.^ In this way Tahart and Segilmessa became independent states where the Kharegite faction was once more enabled to raise its head. Meanwhile the rest of the Moslem world was seething with heresies of all sorts. One of the 1 Osborn, “ Islam under the Arabs,” p. 195. 2/6/rf., p. 197; Dozy, “ Islamism,” p. 218. Ibid., p, 205. 64 ISLAM. most celebrated of these was that of the Motazalites, or Freethinkers, a sect founded by the Persian Wasil ibn Ath.^ They held rational and, as it seems to a Christian, sensible views as to Predestination, the Koran, and Mohammed. Similar but more sceptical doctrines were preached by Abdullah ibn al Mukaffa, who shewed great zeal in disseminating his opinions. He was put to death as a heretic in 759, but his doctrines spread very rapidly among the higher classes, who paid dais or missionaries to spread them among the masses.'^ The third Abasside Khalif himself became for a time infected with this poison of scepticism, but afterwards atoned for his lapse by persecuting heresy by means of something very like an Inquisition.^ The Rationalists had their turn in the reign of the Khalif al Mamun, who made the denial of the eternity of the Koran one of the cardinal doctrines of Islam, insisting at the same time that those who believed in the Koran as uncreated were no better than polytheists, inasmuch as they had two Gods—Allah and his Koran. In this epoch of upstart religions and ^elf- appointed prophets no name is more famous than that of Mokanna, the veiled Prophet of Khorassan. This vulgar impostor, a native of Merve, in the year 770 proclaimed himself God.^ By persuasion or 1 Born 700 A.D. 2 Osborn, “ Islam under the Arabs,” p. 167, ^ Ibid., p, 169. ^ Vambery, “ Bokhara,” p. 44 AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 65 deception he converted a body of adherents, some of whom he sent through Turkestan as mission¬ aries with this impious and incoherent message : “In the name of the merciful and all-gracious God, I, Hashim, Lord of all Lords, namely I, Mokanna, Lord of might, of glory, and of truth— know that mine is the dominion of the world, mine the omnipotence. Besides me there is no God. He that goeth with me, cometh into Paradise ; he that fleeth from me falleth into Hell.” The number of his followers grew apace, and many of those who had embraced Islam under compulsion (or their descendants) in Khorassan, Bokhara, and Samarkand apostatized, and began to make war against their orthodox neighbours. The Prophet himself judiciously withdrew from the tumult which he had raised to a secure fortress in Kesh, leaving his Turkish and Persian adherents to make head against the Khalif s forces. The latter, however, were "completely victorious, and Mokanna committed suicide in his castle to avoid falling into their hands (781 a.d.) This singular impostor took many of his doctrines, such as Transmigration and the Incarnation of God,^ from Persian and Indian sources. His sect survived him, and some secret followers of the “ White robed one ” existed even as late as the twelfth century. But it is time to speak of the great Abasside sect ^Vambery, “Bokhara,” p. 52; Dozy, “ L’lslamirrr.r,’ r- 245. 66 ISLAM, or faction (for in matters connected with Islam the terms are almost identical). After the murder of Ali in 660 A.D., though the Umeyyades secured the Khalifate and the Empire, yet there was always a strong party in the Moslem world which looked upon Muawia and his descendants as usurpers, and held that the Khalifate should have been hereditary in Ali’s family, his sons Hasan and Hosein being also grandsons of the Prophet. In particular the Persians, with their strong bias against the Arabs and their deep attachment to hereditary rule, sided almost universally with Ali and his faction, thus originating the great Shiah^ schism, which still divides the Moslem world. These Shiahs differ from the Sunnis, or Traditionists, in rejecting the accepted Mohammedan tradition (though they have traditions of their own); in re¬ fusing to recognize the Khalifs Abu Bekr, Omar, and Othman; and in regarding the rightful Imam almost as God. The means by which the Persians became converted to Shiism are obscure, but how¬ ever this result had come about, Mohammed, the great-grandson of Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet, saw that it could be utilized for subverting the Umeyyade dynasty and substituting his own. Accordingly he preached a religious reform for restoring the Khalifate to the line of the Prophet,^ thus inducing the followers of Hasan and Hosein to make common cause with him. But at the 1 Shiah means Sectarian. - Osborn, “ Islam under the Arabs,” p, 384 AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. (>7 same time he dazzled the Persians with the tempting prospect of getting rid of the Arab yoke. The missionaries of the Abasside worked in secret without exciting much attention from the autho¬ rities, though one or two of them were seized and put to death. The people of Khorassan were soon converted over to these congenial views, and among the earlier converts was the famous Abu Muslim; but Mohammed himself did not live to see the final success of his cause.^ When the standard of revolt was raised by Abu Muslim ’ adherents were found in almost every household through the country, and the insurgents, over¬ coming all opposition, succeeded in proclaiming the son of Mohammed, Abdullah the Butcher, as he was called, Khalif in 749. Besides the religious heretics like the Khare- \ gites, and political schismatics like the Abassides, | there were what may be looked upon as in some sense social heretics. The most famous of these were the followers of the Ismailian heresy. It was so called because its adherents believed in Ismail ibn Djaffar as the seventh Imam, who, as / they alleged, had disappeared, and would appear again on earth as the Mahdi, or Expected One. \ The missionaries of this sect went about their work with great tact and circumspection. Pre¬ tended piety, asceticism, mysticism, working of miracles, were all pressed into their service.^ The 1 He died a.h. 125. Dozy, “ L’Islamisme,” p 262, 68 ISLAM, initiation of the neophyte advanced by regular steps. First he was plied with questions as to the doctrines of the Koran, and a hidden meaning in these was hinted at. Then doubt was thrown on the interpretations of the Moslem doctors. Imams alone being declared infallible. There had been six of these, and the seventh, said the dais, is our master, who knows the hidden mysteries of the Koran, and his vicar and helper is Abdullah ibn Mamun. Brought to acquiesce so far, the convert ceased to be a Moslem, and was prepared to hear that the Koran and tradi¬ tions were abrogated in favour of a newer revela¬ tion, that prayer and religious observances were only symbols, which could now be dispensed with. At the end of the ninth century Said Obei- dullah, son of the seventh concealed Imam, was leader of the sect, and its doctrines were zealously- spread by missionaries, of whom the most cele¬ brated was Ibn Hansheb, in Arabia, Persia, Egypt, and Afrikia. In the latter province they converted the powerful Berber tribe of Ketama, the only considerable one that had not joined the Kharegite sect. Their enthusiasm was success¬ fully worked upon by Abu Abdullah, the Shiah, who was sent by Ibn Hansheb to succeed the missionaries in that quarter.^ His method was, by teaching young children to read, to ingratiate himself with their relations.^ When he had 1 Osborn, “ Islam under the Arabs,” p. 216. 2Dozy, “ L’Islamisme,” p. 27C. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 69 gained a sufficient number of adherents he threw off the mask, headed a Jehad against the Agla- bites, and proclaimed the appearance of the Mahdi. Said Obeidullah, who personated the Mahdi, reached West Africa after a perilous journey, and was thrown into prison by the King of Segilmessa, whence he was released by his adherent Abdullah. Almost the first act of the so-called Mahdi, after his release, was to murder his benefactor, but his subsequent attempt to force his new doctrines upon the Arabs and Kharegite Berbers, without Abdullah’s aid, proved quite unsuccessful. By the customary transformation, however, the religious reform degenerated into a political fac¬ tion, and in 950 a.d. Moez lidinallah established > the Fa^t^ide supremacy over all North Africa, from the Atlantic to Egypt. The latter province was invaded in 967, and torn from the Abasside Empire, a fate which afterwards befell Syria. Meanwhile the Fatimides had to encounter in deadly conflict another branch of the Ismailian sect, the Karmathians. A dai named Hosain al Ahwazi, sent by the Ismailian Ahmed, son of Abdullah, fell in with Karmat (or Hamdan, as he was also called in Irak), and converting him, sent him as missionary to the people of Irak. ^ He preached a sort of communism and gained a number of proselytes among the nominal Moslems of Irak and Bahrein, where a dai named 1 Dozy, “ L’Islamisme,” p. 269 70 ISLAM, Abu Said made many converts at the beginning of the tenth century. Karmat chose twelve Apostles to propagate his doctrines, and then dis¬ appeared no one knew whither. The distinctive tenets of the sect seem to have been a relaxation of the duties enjoined by the Koran, except in the case of prayer, which was required from the worshipper fifty times, instead of five, during the day. It will be seen that the doctrines of this sect were different from those of the Ismailians.^ The progress of the new sect naturally brought it into conflict with the orthodox- party. Under Abu Said and Abu Taher they mustered 100,000 strong, and, overrunning Syria, Bahrein, and Arabia, they cooped up the Sultan in Bagdad, and took the Holy City of Mecca (929 a.d.) by storm, perpetrating horrible massacres and pro¬ fanations. They even carried off the palladium of Islam, the sacred stone of the Kaaba, and it was not recovered for some years from their sacrilegious hands. They met with their first serious check in Egypt, where they were over¬ thrown by the Fatimides, who, though heretics themselves, were yet free from the impious socialism of the Karmathian fanatics. The Fati- mide rulers, however, diverged more and more from the true faith, and came at last to regard themselves as Incarnations of the Divine Reason, the infallible interpreters of a Divine Koran. ^ ^ And this makes a derivation of the one from the other somewhat doubtful. ‘•^Osborn, “ Islam under Arabs,” p. 247. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 71 The grandson of Moez, Hakim, claimed divine attributes and ceased entirely to be a Moslem, and even tried to abolish Islam, being converted to these views by a missionary named Darazi.^ But the Fatimides, not content with their dominion in Egypt, from the earliest period of their rule organized a number of dais to spread their tenets in Asia. Hakim built a college for the education of these dais, called the “ Hall of the Sciences.” ^ There was a head of the missionary department, who received all subscriptions, and presided at religious meetings for the edification of the several classes of (a) devotees and initiated persons, (b) court officials, (c) general public, {d) women, (e) royal harem. Among the hearers at one of these assemblies was a certain Hasan Ibn Sabah, the founder of the order of Assassins. At first he went forth teaching the tenets of Ismailianism in Bagdad and Ispahan, making many converts, and in 1090 a.d. he gained possession of the strong fortress of Alamat in Persia, where he assumed the title of Grand Master of his Order and nominated a hierarchy of grand priors, dais, and novices. He abrogated the Ismailian doctrines of communism and atheism, inculcating in their stead religious devotion combined with a system of political assassinations. The new doc¬ trines spread swiftly, specially among the Alite faction, throughout Syria and Persia. Later, ^ Dozy, “ L’Islamisme,” p. 289. Osborn, Ibid., p. 258. 72 ISLAM, like so many other self-constituted prophets, the Grand Master assumed the title of Mahdi and declared the Koran to be abrogated, and all moral laws cancelled. This abominable organization, after being for a long period the terror and aversion of Crusaders and Turks alike, and after resisting the attacks of large forces sent against it at various times, was finally stamped out by Houlagu in 1257 A.D. It only remains to notice the two great sects that arose among the Berbers, the Almoravides and the Almohades. Of the former we have the following account.^ Yahya ibn Ibrahim, a Sheik of one of the families of the great Sanhaga tribe, went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and on his return met at Kairoan, a doctor of theology named Abu Amram, to whom he gave an account of the ignorance and barbarism prevailing in his tribe, and finally begged him to send a missionary to his people to instruct them. None, however, of Abu Amram’s disciples was willing to go, and Yahya by the faqui’s advice had recourse to another faqui named Abu Izag, who induced a certain Abdullah ibn Yasim, who had been educated in Spain, to accompany Yahya. Arrived among the people, the missionary soon gained great influence, and established himself with a thousand followers in a fortified rabita, or convent.^ The peaceful work of a missionary as usual proved too tedious for the 1 Cond6’s “ History of the Domination of the Moors in Spain,” ii. p. 207. ‘■^Dozy, “ L’Islamisme,” p. 359. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 73 hot blood of Islam, and a Holy War was soon pro¬ claimed, which brought the whole of the Northern Sahara to accept the new modification of Islam. Among the tribes thus converted were the Lam- tunas, a brave and powerful race, who materially assisted in extending the sway of the Almoravides. On the death of Abdullah, the king of the Lam- tunas, Abu Bekr, succeeded to the supreme power, and after founding Morocco left his cousin Yusuf ibn Tasfin as governor there. This able ruler ^ and good Moslem before his death at the age of ninety had made himself master of all the north¬ west part of Africa as well as the whole of the Spanish provinces, which were still in the hands of the Arabs. The great defeat of Zalacca, which he inflicted upon Alfonso, the Christian king, retarded the advance of the Spanish monarchy for many years. When the strength of the Almoravide reformers and the vigour of their arms began to decline, their place was taken by another similar sect—the Almohades, or Unitarians (those who do not believe in the attributes of God). The Prophet of this new revelation was Mohammed ibn Abdullah, of the Berber tribe of Masmuda, who, after (in the approved fashion) travelling to the East and study¬ ing under the renowned Algazali,^ came back and acquired great influence by his austerities and bold denunciation of prevalent vices. He then attached to his fortunes and chose as his lieutenant a youth 1 Yusuf. ■■^Conde, ii. 349 74 ISLAM, of great promise named Abdelmumen ibn Ali. The Sultan of the Almoravides, Ali ibn Yusuf ibn Tashfin, in spite of the protestations of the Ulema, despised the growing power of the new reformer, who now established himself with his followers in Fez, and there set himself to reprove and punish infractions of the Koran. Expelled from that city, the Prophet established himself in a neighbouring cemetery,^ and giving out that he was the Mahdi, or expected guide, inveighed against the irreligion of the Almoravides.^ We may remark in passing that the general expectation of a Mahdi, which prevailed, and still prevails, in Moslem lands—a doctrine first formulated by the Persian followers of the Khalif Ali and due perhaps to Christian ideas—was of immense value to such self-con¬ stituted prophets. Accordingly Abdullah, in the assumed character of the Mahdi, received the allegiance of several Berber tribes, who plighted with him a new “ pledge of Akaba,” and the Pro¬ phet, following the example of his great predecessor, was soon able to throw aside peaceful methods of persuasion for the more congenial one of the sword. All foes were now stigmatized as heretics, and a Jehad was proclaimed. The Berbers being an ignorant and barbarous race were not puzzled with nice theological dogmas, but were merely required to believe in the unity of God and the mission of Abdullah. The Koran even was ignored.® The 1 Cond6 ii., 354. •^a.d. 1121. 3 Conde, ii. 357. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 75 decaying power of the Almoravides was unable to make head against the rising strength of the Almohades. The death of Abdullah in 1130 only transferred the sovereignty of the new state to Abdullah’s vizier, Abdelmumen ibn Ali, who, pro¬ secuting the war against the Almoravides with vigour and success, finally completed the downfall of their Empire by the capture of Morocco in 1146. Such were the two great Berber sects of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Our own genera¬ tion has witnessed the rise of a similar sect ^ in Africa under a new Mahdi, and it is not difficult to believe that, but for the intervention of Europe, Mohammed Achmet, the son of the carpenter of Dongolah, would have won for himself as large an Empire as the African prophets who preceded him. One other development of Mohammedanism remains to be noticed. Sufism, at first a sort of sentimental mysticism, perhaps an outcome of Christian contact, served to balance the extreme doctrines of fatalism deduced from the Koran, but gradually it degenerated into a gross Pantheism. The famous Hosain ibn Mansur al Hellaj^ claimed to be God, but, being charged before a sort of Moslem Inquisition, he was put to death in 922, his example in both respects being followed by Ali as Shalmaghani, in 934. Though apparently an ally of Islam, Sufism really did it more harm than any other heresy. It obtained the greatest hold of the 1 It appears that Senoussi, another Sheik, is setting up his claim to be the Mahdi. Osborn, “ Islam under the Khalifs of Bagdad,” p. 105. 76 ISLAM Persians, among whom it was revived in the eighteenth century by Ali Shah, a noted Sufi from India,^ who gained 30,000 followers in Shiraz alone. In the persons of Shah Abbas and of Akbar, Sufism occupied the thrones of Persia and India. But a reaction took place and after a persecution the Sufis were banished from Persia in 1797. How¬ ever, the whole country has been so undermined by this insidious heresy that it can almost be said that Persia throughout its extent contains no real Moslem. Dozy, “ L Islamisme,” p. ^76. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 77 CHAPTER VI. ISLAM IN CHINA AND INDIA. Such was the rise and extension of Moham¬ medanism when it went forth from the deserts of Arabia, conquering and to conquer. Without the sword it could scarcely have ever been more than an Arabian heresy of Christianity, interesting to the student of comparative religions, but of no great moment in the world. With the sword it became a great political faith, welding the East into one seemingly homogeneous whole, capable even of contending with Christendom for the Empire of the world. We have seen how this outward uniformity was in reality broken and undermined by all sorts of incompatible heresies. These, no doubt, would ere now have completed the ruin of Islam, had it not been for the political supremacy so long exercised by that faith over a large portion of the Eastern world. But Islam was not propagated wholly by the sword even in its infancy. Side by side with the forcible method of conversion have always been at work many other methods, coming into opera¬ tion with more or less energy in proportion as the possibility of a Holy War (far the most congenial alternative) was more or less remote. Indeed, the 7 ^ ISLAM, normal condition of Islam is a condition of warfare against the rest of the world. True to the prophecy, the hand of the Ishmaelite is against every man. The idea of any sort of equality existing between Moslems and polytheists, or pagans, is quite out of keeping with Mohammed’s notion of Islam, much loose declamation from the champions of Islam about the brotherhood and equality it inculcates notwithstanding. Brother¬ hood and equality—yes, but only between believers. To a true Mussulman, Christians even, and Jews, not to mention heathens, are as the very dust beneath their feet. This feeling found definite expression in the decree of Omar ibn Abd el Aziz (717—720), the royal Moslem Saint, to the following effect:—“ O believers, those who associate other gods with God are unclean. God hath rendered them by reason of their actions the most accursed among men. There can be neithei experience nor judgment among those ^-who provoke the wrath of God and his Prophet. Their suppression is for you a duty, not less than the destruction of their faith. Restore them to the state of disgrace and degradation to which God has assigned them.” ^ Kinglake in his “ Eothen ” gives an instructive account of the difference in the relations between the Moslems and Christians of Damascus, brought about by the arrival in that city of a British Consul. In the public streets a raised path was reserved for Osborn, “ Islam under the Arabs," p. 383. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 79 the true believers, on which path no Christian, Rayah, or Jew was allowed on any account to set his foot. One of these, seeing the writer walking unmolested along it, stopped him for the sole purpose of telling him of “ the glory and exulta¬ tion with which he saw a fellow-Christian stand level with the imperious Mussulmans.” ^ If “people of the Book” are so despised and humiliated, it is not wonderful that Negroes and other pagan peoples are looked upon by Moslems as scarcely human at all, to be shot down, mutilated, or enslaved without the smallest com¬ punction, and with a total disregard of all those natural rights which are due from man to his brother man. Consequently, for Moslems to live under the domination of idolaters is a thing never con¬ templated by the founders of the faith; and strange are the shifts to which such an anomalous state of things as the subjection of Moslems to those of another faith reduces the Moslem doctors. This is very clearly pointed out by Sir William Hunter in his book on our Indian Mussulmans.^ He tells us that the Shiahs, who form five per cent, of the Mohammedans of India, quietly shelve the difficulty by saying that the expected Mahdi, when he comes, will give instructions as to a Jehad, and that, in any case, Mussulmans are not enjoined to fight without the sinews of war, or against any but the enemies i “ Eothen,” p. 345. ‘■^p. 118, 8o ISLAM, of God, a category in which Christians can hardly be included, seeing that, according to the Shiah tradition, the coming Imam will bring Shiah and Christian into one fold. It cannot be denied, however, that their religion authorises the Shiahs by a peculiar dispensation to conceal their real tenets if necessary ; and their statements on this head may be very far from expressing their true opinions. The orthodox party, on the other hand —the Established Church of Indian Islam—have not taken up any consistent position on the Jehad question. Those of Northern Hindostan, wTile admitting that India is a Dar ul Harb, or country where Islam is 7 iot dominant, yet go on to show that religious rebellion is uncalled-for and inexpedient. The leading Moslems of Calcutta, however, in conjunction with the learned doctors of Mecca, the sheiks of the sects of Hanif, Malik, and Shafei, lay down that India is a Dar ul Islam, a country where Islam has once been dominant, and therefore, in Mohammedan law, is, theoreti¬ cally speaking, still dominant. They leave their hearers to deduce the inference that therefore a Jehad cannot be necessary; or perhaps, as Sir William Hunter suggests, the Ulema of Mecca really wish them to draw the inference that war is necessary in order that India may be in reality made what it is in law—a country of Islam. But the day of Jehads is rapidly passing by, if, indeed, it be not already past. The attempt to raise the standard of the Prophet in Persia some thirty years ago only excited derision among the AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 8l freethinking Persians. Moreover, even the fanatical fearlessness of the Arabs of the desert would be now no match for guns of precision and the other resources of civilisation. Providence is on the side of the better-armed battalions, and neither bravery, however great, nor religious enthusiasm, however exalted, can avail anything against the discipline and theexplosivesofthe West. From the earliest periods of its history, however, Islam has been, even in the restricted sense of the words, a missionary religion. It was a purely missionary religion to the citizens of Mecca and of Tayif, before the Prophet was established as King of Medina. It was also a missionary religion to some of the other Arab tribes, while the fugitives at Medina were still too weak to wield the sword. But even at this early period the am¬ bition of Mohammed seems to have embraced the world. He claimed to be sent as a preacher to all creatures,^ to mankind in general. Accordingly, those nations that were beyond his reach with the sword were to be attacked by the peaceful efforts of missionaries. The most important of these foreign missions was undoubtedly that sent to China. The industry of a French author^ has collected and compared all the inscriptions in China which attest the real advent of this mission to Canton. Previously to this a few Arab merchants had found their way to 1 Sura XXV. i ; xxxiv. 27. M. Dabry de Thiersant, “ La Mahometisme eii Chine.” G 82 ISLAM, China, but the first apostle of Islam to that land is variously called, on the Chinese inscriptions, Wang-ke-che,^ Wang-ka-se, Wang-ka-sze, or as a title, Sabhape, or Sarta.^ This could not have been Saad ibn Wakkass, one of the twelve apostles of Mohammed, who, after shedding the first blood of an enemy in the cause of Islam, gained, in 636 a.d., the great battle of Kadesia, and died (674 a.d.) in Arabia. The China mis¬ sionary was probably Wahb abu Kabcha, a maternal uncle of Mohammed, who is only men¬ tioned by an Arabo-Castilian writer. Most likely ^he was sent in 628 a.d., the year of missions, to carry presents and the new doctrines to China. Arriving at Canton the next year, he went up to the capital, Sy-ngan-fou, to see the Emperor, Tai- Tsong, from whom he obtained permission to preach at Canton. After staying at the latter place for two or three years, he returned to Arabia only to find Mohammed dead. When Abu Bekr had published the Koran, Abu Kabcha took a copy and returned with it to China, where before his former departure he had built the first mosque at Canton in 630 a.d. No doubt his preaching, which is mentioned in an inscription® on the mosques at Canton, produced considerable results, and there are at the present day 800 families of Moslems at Canton.^ 1 De Thiersant, vol. i. p. 31, ff. Asshab, or Companion (of the Prophet). 1351 A.D. See de Thiersant, i. p. 91. ^ Ibid., p. 85. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 83 But the real establishment of the faith in China, . as an important factor in the state, is due mainly to the immigration of large bodies of Moslems, Arab, Turk and Mongol, into the North-Western provinces of the Empire. Merchants as usual led the way, and we hear of Arab traders located in China before 750 a.d. They do not appear, however, to have been anxious to spread their religion, nor did they settle down permanently in the land. It may be to these that the Chinese chronicle refers, when it speaks of crowds of barbarians^ flocking into the country from the West, bringing their sacred books (713—742 A.D.), and there is evidence to show that a mosque was even erected in the capital, Sy-ngan- fou, in 742. At all events a colony of Moslems settled in China thirteen years later, when the Khalif sent 4,000 soldiers to help the Emperor against the rebel, An-lo-chan. These, as a reward for their services, were allowed to establish themselves in Chinese territory, where they settled and inter¬ married, giving rise to a large Moslem population; for in the following century we hear of 120,000 Moslems, Christians and Jews^ being massacred. In the thirteenth century Marco Polo speaks of the large number of Moslems in Yunnan, and somewhat later, a Persian vizier, Rashid ud din, says that almost all the people of that province were Mussulmans. The evidence of Ibn Batutah (fourth century) also is to the same effect, that there were large numbers of Moslems in China. 1 Thiersant, i. 153. There could not have been very many of the two latter^ 8+ ISLAM, The earlier immigration was reinforced by successive ones, especially when Djengis Khan by his conquests had brought East and West so much nearer to one another. Arab, Persian and Turkish Moslems poured into the Middle Kingdom, and these, being fostered and protected by immunities, gradually developed into an organised and a flourishing society. The attitude of the Govern¬ ment has always been favourable to their Moslem subjects, whose religion they have regarded with a politic tolerance, as a mixture between Buddhism and Confucianism. Emperors have eulogised it. Tai-Tsong said of it, in 1384, that “it raised the courage of the poor, consoled the wretched, saved the living, and delivered the dead.” ^ In the eighteenth century Yong-Ching upheld the cause of his Moslem subjects against a native Mandarin, who accused them of various crimes against the laws and morality of the country. Perhaps this fovourable decision was due to the fact that there was a Moslem Empress at the time. ^ However, from time to time restrictions were laid upon the Moslems in China. They were not allowed to go on pilgrimage to Mecca; foreign Mullahs were forbidden to enter China, and even the building of mosques w’as prohibited. From the previous account it will be seen that Islam was established more or less peaceably in China. That country owed its escape from a con¬ flict with the missionary sword of Islam mainly to Thiersant, i. 55. ‘^Ibid., 43. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 85 its distance. Yet in 713 a.d., Kuteiba ibn Muslim, having carried his victorious standards through the whole of Central Asia, advanced (if the Arab his¬ torians are to be trusted) towards China ^ sending Hubeira with the usual terms—Islam, tribute, or the sword. But pressing matters in the newly- conquered countries recalled him before he could enforce his haughty demands. The annexation, however, by the Saracens of the country between the Oxus and the Jaxartes was of great importance to the history of Islam in China ; for the establish¬ ment of Mohammedanism in Kharezm gave rise to the kingdom of the Hoey-Hoey, or Chinese Moslems. Turning to the South-Western provinces of China, we find that Islam in Yunnan owed its chief impulse to Omar, a Mohammedan from Eastern Turkestan, who was appointed to the Government of Yunnan by Kubla Khan in 1295.^ In this province more than any other have there been disturbances and rebellions between the Moslem and non-Moslem inhabitants during the present century. These will be considered later. Less is known of the introduction and spread of Islam in that part of Mongolia which borders on Khansa, and in Eastern Turkestan. The Arab tradition gives a curious account of the conversion of a young king of the country by a Samanite prince in the tenth century. Satoc, the converted prince, killed his uncle the regent, who opposed his apostasy, after first deceiving him as to his real ^Thiersant, i. 65. Ibid., iig. 86 ISLAM, belief.^ Once on the throne Satoc did his utmost to spread Islam through his kingdom, the in¬ habitants of which were hitherto Buddhists or Manicheans. He even went so far as to compel his subjects to embrace Islam, and left a dying injunction to his successor to do the same. Marco Polo, in his travels in these regions (1271—1294), found Islam dominant in Eastern Turkestan, but not so apparently between that and China proper. About the same time, Kubla Khan established at Pekin a sort of college for Moslems. In the following century the traveller Ibn Batutah remarked on the number of Moslems to be found in these parts; and gradually Eastern Turkestan and Dzungaria became entirely Moslem. The inhabitants were all of the orthodox sects, except those called Tunganis, or Converts, who, to the number of 100,000, live between Ilia and Khamil. These were originally converted to the Shafeite rite by an Arab of Damascus,^ who was brought there as a prisoner by Timur in the fifteenth century, and afford an instructive example of how the faith was in some cases spread. ^ In many instances, as we have seen, Islam was spread by the efforts of kings and of princes. The great grandson of Djengis Khan became a Mussul¬ man, and brought his people of Mongolistan mostly to follow his example. So Togoudar Ogoul, on ascending the throne of Turkestan, renounced Christianity and became a Moham- 1 Thiersant, i. p. 219, note. Ibid, i. 163, note. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 87 medan, forcing or persuading his subjects to do likewise.^ Similarly, about the beginning of the fourteenth century, Taliclava (a Tchagateide), the King of Transoxiana, became a follower of Mohammed, being the second Mongolian prince to become so ; but, carrying his proselytizing zeal too far, he was murdered by the officers of his court.^ Later in the same century, Ibn Batutah speaks of Tarma Shirin, who died a martyr for his faith, and in whose time wholesale conversions took place, owing to the pressure brought to bear on their people by the apostate princes. But while the conversion of the Uigurs and Kharezmians took place in the twelfth century, and of the Mongols in the thirteenth, the important tribe of Seljuckian Turks had been converted still earlier, in the eleventh century; we are not told by what means, but perhaps by some travelling missionary, such as Seid al Hamadani, who, after travelling and preaching all over the world, like our own Wolff, died on the Oxus in 1384. As early as 666 a.d., the Arab armies had reached Balk; and within six years Bokhara ® was attacked and with difficulty subdued, but it revolted immediately afterwards. In 704, Kuteiba, the great Arab conqueror, appeared on the scene, and is said to have advanced even as far as Turfan,^ on the extreme border of Eastern Turkestan, imposing Islam, as he went, in the 1 Dozy, “ L’Islamisme,” p. 400. ■2 Vambery, “ Bokhara,” p. 161. ^Ibid. p. 19. ^ Thiersant, i. p. 257. 88 ISLAM, usual Arab style. Three times was Bokhara conquered and converted, and three times it revolted and relapsed. On the third submission, strong measures were taken to establish Islam. Every Bokharist ^ had to share his house with an Arab ; and conduct in accordance with the injunctions of the Koran was rewarded with money (742 a.d.). Finally, the city was even taken from its owners, and given to the Arabs. Samarkand experienced the same fate. Kuteiba’s work (he was murdered in 714) was finished by Abu Muslim, who com¬ pletely subdued the Turks as far as Kashgar (746 A.D.). From Bokhara, as a centre, Islam spread gradually to Afghanistan,^ India, Kashmir, and Chinese Tartary, as far north as Kazan ; but it took 200 years of alternate coercion and per¬ suasion for Islam to supplant the Buddhism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism of those regions. ‘ Incfla first felt the force of the Moslem sword in 712, when the Khalif Welid sent an army to avenge an outrage on an Arab vessel.® Kasim, the Saracen general, offered Islam, or tribute ; but the brave Rajputs chose the arbitrament of the sword. But Kasim defeated them, and forcibly circumcised a number of Brahmans. This having failed to make them Moslems, he proceeded to put all Brahmans over seventeen years of age to 1 Vambery, “ Bokhara,” p. 26. ^Vambery, “Sketch of Central Asia,” p. 201; Dozy, “ L’Islamisme,” p. 432, says Afghanistan received Islaro from India in the tenth century. Hunter, “Indian Empire,” p. 213. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 89 death, and to enslave the rest. Contrary, how¬ ever, to the law of the Koran, the other Rajputs were allowed to continue in their idolatry, and pay tribute.^ In fact, the Arabs showed more clearly in India than anywhere else that their object was not so much the conversion of idolaters and polytheists as the plunder of temples and the enlargement of the Moslem Empire. We may search the record of bloodshed and spoliation in vain for any trace of a purely missionary effort to win over converts to Islam. An eminent authority says: “ The military adventurers who founded dynasties in North India and carved out kingdoms in the Deccan, cared little for things spiritual; most of them had, indeed, no time for proselytizing, being continually engaged in conquest and civil war.” ^ Turkish invasions of the Punjaub began at the end of the tenth century; but it was in the following century, under Mahmud of Ghazni, that Islam was really established as a dominant power in India. Mahmud made nearly a score of invasions altogether, with the usual results of obtaining incredible quantities of loot, demolishing temples, and slaughtering infidels—and that was all. Delhi became the capital of this Moslem kingdom, which was further enlarged and strengthened by Mohammed Ghori and the slave kings during the latter part of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries. 1 Wheeler, “ History of India,” vol. iv. p. 16. 2 Lyall, ” Asiatic Studies,” x. 289. 90 ISLAM, A second kingdom was formed in Bengal and Behar (of which Goiir was the capital) by Moham¬ med Baktiyar, who even made an attempt to carry Islam into Assam and Thibet. The feeble Hindus of Bengal offered no resistance to the invader. Many of the influential Brahmans were put to death and the mass of the people gradually embraced Islam,^ by which they gained more than they lost. This result—which numerically was very remark¬ able—was perhaps due to the efforts of individual missionaries—of whom, nevertheless, we know not even the names—as much as to political influence. The higher classes of Hindus were, however, practically untouched by Islam. Southern India was not really attacked till the reign of Ala ud din in the fourteenth century, and the Deccan kingdom was soon afterwards severed by a Shiah revolt from the kingdom of Delhi, and Kulbarga became the capital of a new Moham- . medan state. Mahmud, who was Sultan from 1378 to 1397 A.D., seems to have been imbued with more of the missionary spirit than other Sultans of the country, and he is said to have established schools for orphans,^ in which they were brought up as Moslems, of the same kind as the Christian orphanages established after the famine in Orissa in 1866. Meanwhile, all the strict laws of Islam were becoming obsolete, and Moslems were found fighting against Moslems, Mussulman soldiers even I Vaughan, “ Trident Crescent and Cross,” p, 168, ^ Vaughan, p. 172, AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 9I serving under heathen kings and against their co¬ religionists. The result of this was a weakening of the barrier between Hinduism and Islam ; and we hear of Islamizing Rajahs and Hinduizing Moslems.^ But the advantage lay rather with Hinduism. The shield of Islam was marked with deeper dents than the shield of Hinduism. It is a question, which has been hotly debated, whether the large number of Moslems in India at the present day is due to a rapid and long-sustained process of peaceful conversion among the popu¬ lations of India, or to large immigrations, political influence, and physical force. It is easy for an anonymous writer ^ to assert that not ten per cent, of the Indian Mussulmans are descended from immigrants, but in disputed points of this kind something more is needed than mere assertion. One eminent authority on Islam expresses a diametrically opposite opinion,^ while another mentions three great waves of immigration into India, the Turkish, the Afghan, and the Moghul. A considerable number of Abyssinians also found their way thither. What the actual number of immigrants was can never be even approximately guessed, but it must have been large, and probably a good proportion of the Moslems in the North- West provinces are descendants of these invaders. 1 Wheeler, '* History of India.” vol. iv., pp. 84, 104, 276. 2 See article in Cont. Review, Febr., 1S88. 3 Dozy, “ L’Islamisme,” p. 385. Cf. Gobineau, “Religions dans L’Asie Centrule,” ii. 23. 92 ISLAM The Bengal Mussulmans, however, who form the bulk of the Mohammedans of India, are descend¬ ants of low Hindu castes, who were converted in great numbers when the Moslem kingdom of Gori was established. The agency of conversion, as has been remarked, is not known, but it is quite certain that, as these converts were bad Hindus before their conversion, so they remained bad Moslems after it. The Moslems of the Punjaub call those of the Hindustani plains by the oppro¬ brious title of Kafir-i-Hind, or Indian infidels.^ Not one in ten of them can even repeat the Con¬ fession of Faith. Again, the Shiah element, which, at first subordinate, finally, in the person of Akbar, grasped the supreme power in the state, was one which helped to disintegrate Indian Islam. This element was chiefly conspicuous in the Deccan kingdom, where it was, perhaps, introduced by the Mongol mercenaries and Persian immigrants. The Mongols, or New Mussulmans, as they were called, were held in very bad repute, and more than once large bodies of them were massacred by the Sultans. The Shiahs, being less strict than the Sunnis, made more use of Hindus in administration and debased the character of Islam by assimilating it to Hinduism. At the same time they made it more acceptable to the native Hindus, many of whom became Moslems.^ From this ^ “ Islam in the Punjaub,” by an old Punjaubee, p. g. 2 Wheeler, “History of India,” iv. p. 87, note. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 93 compromise of religions arose the Indian Sufis, who, mingling the fire-worship of the Persians and the Pantheism of the Hindus with some of the tenets of Islam, looked upon Mohammed and Ali as incarnations of the Supreme Spirit,^ and acknowledged the truth of the Koran only in a spiritualized sense. But there were other, and more definite, attempts to amalgamate the two religions. At the beginning of the fifteenth century Kabir preached the identity of the Hindu and Moslem God. Ali and Rama were names of this God. A century later Chaitanya preached the common salvation of all races and all castes. Islam and Hinduism, he taught, both contain elements of truth.^ Midway between these two reformers comes Nanuk, the founder of Sikhism, which is distinctly a compromise between the religions. The peaceful teaching of Nanuk was transformed into the basis of a religious warfare by the Guru Govind in 1700. Idolatry and Islam were both to be uprooted and their rites abolished, while the killing of Moslems was a duty incumbent on every Sikh.® No Moslem kingdom was formed south of the Deccan, but probably offshoots of the Deccan Moslems settled in many parts of the south ; but their numerical strength in those quarters, of 1 Wheeler, “ History of India,” p. 26, 2 Hunter, “ Indian Empire,” p. 204. “ Islam in the Punjaub,” by an old Punjaubee, p. 36. 94 ISLAM. which Ibn Batutah speaks ^ in the fourteenth cen¬ tury, was due partly to another cause. As in the case of China, the earliest introduction of Islam into the peninsula of India was by traders to the coast, who undoubtedly made some converts. For we meet with the descendants of these con¬ verts, under the names of Mappilas and Moplahs, on the Malabar coast.^ Ibn Batutah mentions a Moslem king of Malabar, and says that the kingdom was subject to Hinaur, the people of which were Moslems. On the East Coast, again, there are other Moslems descended from negro slaves of the Arabs, who were driven thither by a persecution in the province of Irak. These Moslems are called Labbays or Novayates, the former being the name applied to the Hindu con¬ verts, many of whom are descended from ancestors forcibly converted to Islam,^ much in the same way, perhaps, as Sultan Tipu forcibly circum¬ cised some 30,000 Roman Catholics and deported them to the Ghats. We have no information with respect to the introduction of Islam into Ceylon, but Ibn Batutah tells us of a learned sheik, Abu Abdullah ibn Khafif, who went as a missionary there in 927 A.D.,^ and succeeded in gaining the favour of the infidels, but apparently without effecting much 1 See translation by Lee, pp. 165-6. ‘■^They number half-a-million. See paper by Rev. E.Sell, C.M.S., South Indian Miss. Conference, 1879, p. 336, 3 Ibid. ^ Translation by Lee, p. 42 AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 95 in the way of conversions, for the same authority mentions finding the people still infidels in 1350 A.D. Perhaps, however, it was he who instituted the pilgrimage to Adam’s Peak, which caused a settlement of Moslems to be formed there.^ Doubtless, also, the ubiquitous Arab trader planted the faith there as elsewhere. In the Maidive Islands Islam was introduced, as I bn Batutah expressly tells us, by a Berber named Abu Barakat, a holy man who knew the Koran by heart and could exorcise spirits.^ After a month’s teaching, the king and his family embraced Islam, and his people followed his example. This single instance, even if there were no others—and there are many others— would suffice to redeem Islam (at least in its earlier ages) from being a non-missionary religion in the strictest acceptation of that term. ^ See Yule on “Marco Polo,’’ ii. 310; Brigg's “History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in India," iv. 403. See the curious story—Lee’s Translation, p. 180. 96 ISLAM CHAPTER VII. ISLAM AMONG THE MALAYS AND NEGROES. We now pass naturally on to the Malay Archi¬ pelago, where Islam has won perhaps the most signal triumph of its later days. So complete, indeed, has been its success there that Crawfurd calls it the reigning religion of the Archi¬ pelago.^ The Malays first received a know¬ ledge of Mohammedanism in the ninth century from the usual Arab trader, who, however, seems to have been a more than usually unfavourable specimen of his class.^ There was a considerable trade at this time between Oman and China, and the traders visited the Malay islands for spice. The earliest footing which Islam gained was in Sumatra, where some of the Achinese were con¬ verted in the thirteenth century. Marco Polo^ found the king a Mussulman at the end of that century, and also many of the inhabitants of the coast. At the same time the Sultan of Malacca embraced the new faith. In 1328 an unsuccessful attempt was made to convert the inhabitants of 1 “ Indian Archipelago,” vol. iii. 76. ^Ibid., iii. 288. See Yule’s Edition, ii. 269; and Cravvfurd’s “Indian Archipelago,’’ i. 139. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 97 the Sunda Isles.^ But Buddhism and Hinduism had forestalled Islam, and the latter made slow progress. We even hear of Buddhist and Hindu temples being erected in Java a hundred years later than this. Meanwhile Mohammedanism had been preached in Sumatra by a missionary from Mecca named Ismael.^ The native chronicle of the Malays gives an account of this mission, sent by the Sherif of Mecca by way of India. After the departure from Malabar the first place arrived at was Pasuri (Pantsur),® the people of which readily embraced Mohammedanism. They then went to Lambri, which also accepted Islam. Reaching Sumatra, they converted Mara Silu, the king. Ibn Batutah, in 1346 a.d., found the Sultan, A 1 Dhahir, a most zealous Mussulman, surrounded by doctors of theology, and bent on propagating Islam in the good old way by the sword. Yet, in the fifteenth century, many of the natives were still pagan. A more determined attempt was made by a rajah named Charmen to convert the Javanese by the help of an Arab sheik, named Ibrahim, who died in 1412.^ The attempt to convert the natives wholesale failed, but the promoters of the enter¬ prise succeeded in founding three Moslem States. Islam had also obtained a footing in the Spice Islands, for the King of Ternate was half a Moslem. 1 In 1276 A.D. See Crawfurd, ii. 482. 2 Dozy, “ L’Islamisme," p. 385. 3 “ Yule on Marco Polo,” ii. 285. ^Crawfurd, ii. 306. H 98 ISLAM, In 1478 the time was ripe for a successful assault on Java. The chief agents in the conversion of this island were a certain Rahmat, son of an Arab doctor of theology, Lanang Ibrahim, and a Siamese woman, whose sister was in the king’s harem at Mojopahit,^ and Raden Patah, a supposed son of Arya Damar, chief of the Javanese colony of Palembang, in Sumatra, but really a son of Browijoyo, the Hindu King of Mojopahit. Rahmat took the title of Susuhanan or Susunan, meaning apostle, and proved his right to the title by con¬ verting many of the natives and building the first mosque in Java. Raden Patah, when grown to manhood, embraced Islam (1432) and returned to Java, settling in Damak or Bintoro. Becoming Governor of his district, he began to intrigue for the establishment of Mohammedanism, and chose as his Apostle-General a Javanese named Udang (1467). When the proselytes had become suffi¬ ciently numerous the forces were marshalled for battle, but the Ohod of Javanese Islam preceded its Bedr, and Husein, a half-brother of Patah’s, defeated the Moslems. But Patah, getting fresh forces from his native state, advanced again, and this time so successfully that Mojopahit, the capital, fell, and Islam as a political force became triumphant in Java (1478 a.d.). The work of conversion now went on apace, and nine Susu¬ hanan (or Apostles) are mentioned as being prominent missionaries. “ Such of them,” says ^ 1 Crawfurd, ii. 309 (f. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 99 Crawfurd/ “as were of foreign extraction were a set of adventurers who, as usual, traded in religion as well as in merchandise, and who were more remarkably characterized by the cunning of petty traders than by that high and chivalrous enthu¬ siasm which distinguished the hardy and high¬ born chiefs of Arabia, who spread the religion of the Prophet over the countries of Western Asia.” Among the Susuhanan was Gunung Juti, the Sultan of Cheribon, an Arab by birth, who died in 1506 A.D. Five-and-twenty years before his death his son went to Bantam, and, making proselytes, as the native annals state, “ by gentle means of persuasion and not by the sword,” ^ ingratiated himself so well with the people that he was made Sultan. He soon felt himself strong enough to make war on the neighbouring states of Pajajaran and Batavia, which were subdued and the inhabi¬ tants converted in the orthodox fashion. Before the end of the same century the King of Ternate was converted, and Islam was spread in the Spice Islands by Javanese traders, who came there for the double purpose of procuring cloves and im¬ parting Islam.® Java thus became a sort of centre for propagating Islam in the islands further east, and it was to Java that the King of Ternate came to be further instructed in the faith, and on his return he took back a missionary with him to his own country. ^ Crawfurd, ii. 315. ii. 316. ^ Ibid., iii. 482. lOO ISLAM, Islam made these conquests only just in time ; for within ten years of the fall of Mojopahit the Cape was doubled by Vasco di Gama, and the arrival of the Portuguese in 1512 was destined to place a check on the temporal extension of Islam. Already Mohammedanism had reached the Celebes, and even as late as 1546 a.d. we hear of an attack by the Moslems of Damak upon the Kingdom of Pasumban,^ and four years later the coast tribes of Borneo ^ were converted by Arabs from Palembang. In 1582, the zealous king of Ternate visited Macassar to recommend Islam to its inhabitants, and by the end of the sixteenth century Islam was general in the Celebes. The conversion of Macassar affords an interesting instance of the conflict between Christianity and Islam. The king apparently considered the question of the true religion to be an open one, and desired in¬ struction in both religions from their respective professors before he decided which he should adopt. The missionaries from Mecca, however, arrived sooner than the Jesuits from Portugal, and the king became a Mohammedan. We then hear of a native missionary, Datu ri Bandang, from Sumatra, converting several princes in the Celebes, through whose influence Islam was accepted in all the Macassar states. These latter then bestirred themselves, and forced the people of Boni and Waju to accept the faith. But on the 1 Crawfurd, ii. 313. 2 Dozy, “ L’Islamisme,” p. 386. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. lOI king of Boni attempting to follow their example, his laudable ambition was frustrated by the in¬ terference of a neighbouring Sultan. Islam also gained some hold of the Philippines, but was eradicated from thence by the Spaniards.^ The Sulus have mostly adopted the faith of the Prophet. The conversion of so large a part of the Archi¬ pelago must undoubtedly be considered a great triumph for Mohammedanism, in a missionary point of view, and we are led to enquire how such large results were achieved with such small means. There was no organised system of propagation, and the work was done almost entirely in the first place by Arab adventurers and merchants, and after them by native agents. There are only one or two known cases of regular missionaries being sent direct from Arabia to the Malay Archipelago; but they could the more easily be dispensed with, as all patriotic Arabs are potentially, and many of them were actually, itinerant missionaries com¬ bining with the profession of traders the duties of religious teachers. However, the work of con¬ version was very gradually performed. Not till the people had become habituated to the new faith were they offered the blessings of Islam. The Coast tribes were first won over; then some zealous native chief or influential Arab established a Moslem kingdom, and made war upon his neighbours. In the case of Java the natives had “Life of Sir Stamford Raffles,’’ p. 63. 102 ISLAM a hundred years of acquaintance with the new faith before any determined effort was made to induce them to embrace it. And even then things were made smoother for them by the modification of Islam in such a way as to render it more acceptable to them. The main agents in the con¬ version were Arabs of intelligence, energy and experience,^ who worked together, living with the natives and intermarrying with them, but not thereby giving rise to a privileged class or a de¬ spised set of outcasts. Now that we have rapidly glanced at the diffusion of Islam in Asia and further India, it will be necessary to follow its fortunes in Africa and Europe, before discussing at length the causes which rendered the religion acceptable to so many Oriental, and even European, races; the motives which were likely to have aided in the conversion of individuals ; and the other indirect methods of propagation which were employed besides the characteristic one of the sword, and the natural one of persuasion. It has been computed by a writer^ partial to Islam that Moslem Africa is as large as Europe, and contains sixty million Moslems.® These be¬ long chiefly to the great Negro races, and to the scattered Foulah tribes. The Hamites and Bantus have mostly kept clear of the vortex of Islam. The early conquest of Egypt by Amru and the 1 Crawfurd, ii. 313. ^giyden, p. 376. ' ® Mr. Blunt says thirty millions. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. IO3 progress of the Saracen arms through the whole of North Africa has been already spoken of. In Egypt they were materially aided by the luke¬ warmness of the Copts in the cause of Chris- < tianity. These descendants of the ancient Egyptians, being Jacobites and therefore looked upon as heretics, and persecuted by the orthodox church, or Melchites (King’s party), as they were called, welcomed the advent of the Arabs, which procured them, for the moment at least, religious freedom. This readiness to make common cause with the Arabs has won for them the approbation of the Moslems, who regard them as much more inclined to Islam than any other Christian sect.^ Indeed, they have justified this favourable opinion, - for numbers of Copts have gone over from time to time to swell the ranks of Islam, while those who still remain Christians have nevertheless conformed in many respects to the peculiar ordi¬ nances of that religion. For example, they keep regular fasts, abstain from swine’s flesh, make pilgrimages to Jerusalem with a regularity more Moslem than Christian, and, after the Moham¬ medan fashion, wear turbans, but not shoes, in church.^ They also practise circumcision, but this is a custom which has come down to them from the ancient Egyptians, and is found among many native African tribes.® Yet, though conversions have taken place, and 1 Lane, “ Modern Egyptians,” ii, 335. 2 309. 3 e.g., The Masai and the Monbutto. 104 ISLAM, still do take place from other motives, persecution has been chiefly responsible for the transference of the largest portion of apostates from one religion to the other. We are taught nowadays that coercion can never be successful, least of all in religious matters. But notable instances can be adduced to the contrary. The Albigensian “ heresy ” was stamped out by a “ booted mission.” The In¬ quisition in Spain strangled the reformed doctrines in their birth. Islam was extirpated from the same country at an earlier period by the pious zeal of princes and cardinals. The history of Coptic Christianity will aflbrd another instance of the same fact. Within a century of their conquest the cordial relations between the Copts and their conquerors had given place to far different feelings. Among other intolerable restrictions and indig¬ nities the Christian monks of Egypt were com¬ pelled, in 722 A.D., to pay tribute and be branded like cattle. If caught in attempting to evade this, they were scourged or beheaded. In 996 a fierce persecution raged under the insane tyrant Hakim. Churches were plundered or destroyed, and a decree of expatriation was contemplated, or even promulgated, against the Christians.^ Hakim, how¬ ever, seems to have relaxed in his persecution when he finally came to persuade himself that he was God. One great indignity—or what was thought such —which drove many Christians to embrace Islam, Lane, “ Modern Egyptians,” ii. 338. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. IO 5 was the decree (in 1300 a.d.) enforcing upon the Copts the wearing of blue turbans.^ Twenty years later the Moslems were incited against the Copts, and sixty beautiful churches were wantonly de¬ stroyed throughout the land of Egypt. The wretched Copts naturally retaliated. Many rioters were put to death by the Sultan, who, by way of showing his partiality for his coreligionists, gave them permission to plunder or kill any Christian whom they saw infringing the regulations laid down respecting them. About the middle of the same century a great part of the Christian popu¬ lation, unable any longer to face this persecution and ill-treatment, apostatised ; the numbers in one town alone, on a single occasion, being 450.^ The Abyssinian Christians escaped the fate which befell their Egyptian brethren; but the Arab colonies on the Coast of the Red Sea, between Suakin and Berberah,® by wresting the possession of the littoral from the Abyssinian kings in the thirteenth century, succeeded in hemming the Abyssinian Church in so closely, that they have sunk into a state of ignorance and barbarism, which makes them a byword throughout Christen¬ dom. The Abyssinians being ignorant, are also fanatical, for the two qualities are generally com¬ bined. With a barbarity worthy of the Wahabees, the offence of smoking is punished with mutilation. Following the Mohammedan example, the king 1 Lane, “ Modern Egyptians,” ii. 339. ^ Yule on Marco Polo, ii. 430. ii. 341. I06 ISLAM, even (it appears)^ published a decree forcing all Moslems in his dominions to become Christians. The Arabs have entered Africa from three different sides. These three streams of immigra¬ tion have been : from Egypt westward as far as Lake Tchad ; from the north-west, southward as far as Lake Tchad and the Niger ; from Zanzibar, westward as far as the Great Lakes. There are no Arabs to be found south of the Congo and Zambesi, though there are a few thousand Mo¬ hammedans in Cape Colony. The Moslem States of the Sudan are Senaar, Kordofan, Darfur, Wadai, Baghirmi, the first two or three of these states forming the region anciently called Nubia. The Nubians were con¬ verted early, and adopted Islam universally; so much so, that it is their boast that there is not a single Christian among them.^ Ignorant and bigoted, they have spread neither their faith nor any useful arts among the neighbouring tribes. A trustworthy traveller calls them “ as unscrupu¬ lous rascals as any in the world,^ who, mis¬ interpreting the mottoes on their banners, which incite them to war against the infidel, consider all raids for plunder perpetrated on defenceless savages as heroic actions, bearing them on to the palms of Paradise.” ^ The state of Senaar was not organised into a Mohammedan kingdom till the sixteenth century, ^ “ Gordon’s Central Africa," p. 421. 2 Lane, II. 312. Schweinfurth, “ Heart of Africa," I. 209. ^ Ibid., 371. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 107 by a branch of the Nuba Arabs, who were over¬ thrown in 1812 by Ismail Pacha. The limit of Moslem colonisation in these parts is said to be lo'^ North latitude, which is also the limit of the existence of camels. The period of the greatest immigration was that immediately following the Crusades, when the Arabs, finding their own lands inconveniently crowded, emigrated to-the neighbouring countries. One band of these emigrants passed up the Nile, settling East and West of it.^ Few in number, they took up their abode with the natives, intermarrying with them, and infusing into them some of their own noble Arab strain. Many of the Bedouins, however, retained their nomadic life. But the progress of Islam was not very rapid towards the West. It is not known when exactly Kordofan became Moslem, but it was not till well into the seventeenth century that Darfur became Islamized. Now its inhabitants, num¬ bering several millions, are all bigoted Moham¬ medans. This province retained a semi-indepen¬ dence under its Sultan Brahim until, in 1874, infamous Zebehr overthrew and killed him, turning his kingdom into a gigantic slave run. The introduction of Islam into Wadai can be * more fully described, as we are enabled to follow the account given by an Arab writer named Mohammed el Tounsy.^ He tells us that a 1 Gordon’s “ Central Africa," p. 248, note. 2 Mohammed El Tounsy, “Wadai,” French translation, by Perron, p. 71. io8 ISLAM, descendant of the Abasside Khalifs, named Saleh, being driven from Egypt by the Fatimides, took up his abode in Senaar; but, finding the people there not to his mind, he passed on to Wadai, whose inhabitants were wholly idolaters. His strict attention to the rites of Islam attracted the notice of the pagans, and their curiosity soon gave place to admiration. Finding them ready to adopt his faith, Saleh, like the Arabs in the Malay Archipelago, became their instructor, and, finally, the chief of the district of Senoun in Wadai. The inevitable consummation could not long be delayed. “God bids you,” he said, “ make war on the unbelievers. Come, let us convert by the aid of our arms those who deny the unity of God.” ^ His followers, their numbers swollen by the prospect of fighting, and nerved by the enthusiasm of a new cause, eagerly obeyed, and the pagan tribes, summoned to accept Islam or pay the penalty, agreed to believe. The four tribes which first came in, and the fifth, which followed a little later, were accorded special privileges, and from them alone the Sultan could be chosen. Meanwhile the Holy War went bravely on. Those who submitted were called free, those who held out, slave, tribes, by a strange perversion of terms. Saleh became supreme Sultan. Another account makes the Sultans of Kordofan, Darfur, and Wadai all sons of a * Mohammed El Tuunsy, “ Wadai,” French, transla¬ tion by Ferron, p. 72. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. IO9 Fezarah Arab named Seleih, who gained the supreme power in those countries something less than two hundred years ago. The Arab tribes who have settled in Wadai are partly of Yemenite origin (the Zebedeh tribe) and partly from Irak (the Areygat), while a negro tribe (the Bideyat), live like the Bedouins. The date of the intro¬ duction of Islam into Baghirmi is not known, but as late as 1871, when Ali, the Sultan of Wadai, conquered it, the people were mostly pagans. The boundary of Islam in these parts runs just south of Baghirmi, through the district of Runga, which is partly Moslem and partly pagan.^ Turning now to the second stream of Arab im- n migration and conquest in Africa, we may note that the chief period of colonization by Arabs in North Africa was the first half of the eleventh century. It was only after a long and doubtful struggle that the conversion of the Berbers was finally effected, and they hardly deserved the op- probious name of Tuwarek, or Apostates, which the Arabs gave them. ^ “ About the middle of the twelfth century,” says Gibbon, “ the worship of Christ, and the succession of pastors was abolished along the coast of Barbary.”® Islam when once adopted by the Berbers proved a very congenial religion. In physique and habits these Berbers 1 Stanford’s “Africa,” Keith Johnstone, p, 186. 2If indeed the word means this, as Barth (“ Travels in Africa,” I. 223) says. 3 Gibbon, vi. 370. I 10 ISLAM, were more like the Arabs than any other foreign race, and, moreover, they were in the right stage of development and civilization for a narrow and un¬ spiritual religion like Islam, which for the nations of Asia, like the Persians, who had enjoyed centuries of religious development, was a step backward.^ Yet the Berbers, even when crushed after a desperate resistance ^ in the crucible of Islam, kept many of their Christian habits and rites, and the Kabyles of Algeria still cherish against the Arabs the legacy of hate which they received from their forefathers.^ The first attempt from the North upon the in¬ dependence of the Negroes proper was made, if we may trust Leo Africanus, ^ in the first quarter of the ninth century, with such success that several tribes bordering on Libya were won over for the faith by the Berber tribe of Lamtuna. One hundred and fifty years later Nigritia was explored by a Moslem adventurer or trader, but Yusuf ibn Tashfin, the powerful Almoravide Sultan of North Africa and Spain, was the first ruler to extend his sway over the Negroes. The province of Melli became Moslem about the same time, and also Gaogho, the capital of the negro tribe of Sonrhay, ^ See Dozy, “ L’Islamisme,” p. 344. See Bull of Pope Leo XIII,, March, 1885, quoted by Blyden, p. 353. ® Stanford’s “Africa,” Keith Johnstone, p. 57. Hasan ibn Mohammed al Wazzar, called Leo Africanus after his conversion. AS A -'MISSIONARY RELIGION. I 11 where Islam had been introduced in 1009.^ We hear of a Moslem Apostle named Warjahi of Tekrur, who converted the district of Silla and died about 1040. When Timbuctu had been Mohammedanized it soon became the centre of Moslem influence in Nigritia, a sort of African Bokhara in fact, and continued to be so till its conquest by the Foulahs in 1826. The King of Timbuctu became a Moslem in the eleventh century, but Islam seems to have first reached that district from Egypt,^ while some of the other districts bordering on the Sahara were indebted to Segilmessa for their Islam. But even in Timbuctu, the new religion only slowly made its way. At the beginning of the thirteenth century the people of Jinne, near Sego (on the Niger), became Moslems, and Islam soon began spreading East of the Niger, ready to unite with the tide of Moham¬ medanism which was advancing swiftly in the opposite direction from the Nile. In the time of Leo Africanus (sixteenth century) there were fifteen Mohammedan kingdoms. These are now divided into three states, Timbuctu, Gaogo, and Bornu, the history of which is somewhat obscure. Barth ^ tells us that the first king of Bornu was Hume (in 1086), who, by the beginning of the next century, had extended his influence, and that of Islam, almost as far as Egypt. The first mis- 1 Barth, “ Travels,” iv. 580. 2 Jhid., /}09. 3 Ibid., 261. : . _ . II2 ISLAM, sionary to bring Islam to Kanem, in Bornii, was a certain Othman ; while the king of Katsena was converted by a missionary named Kerim ibn Maghili in the sixteenth century. It is a notice¬ able fact that the missionaries of Islam generally addressed themselves to the king or ruler of the country before preaching to the people, and the success which attended their efforts may not un¬ fairly be attributed to this fact. The king once gained over—and they generally seem to have re¬ quired little persuasion—the Moslem missionary had acquired a potent lever for the coercion and conversion of the people of that and neighbouring countries. It was in the way sketched above that the African Moslems from the North and East joined hands somewhere about the region of Lake Tchad, converting the whole of Africa north of latitude io° to Islam. This took many hundreds of years to accomplish, and we cannot so much wonder at the vast territory brought in this time under the sway of Islam—though this in itself is a matter for wonder—as at the fact that Islam having done so much, did not do more and push its conquests rapidly southward, where, from the isolation of the several tribes inhabiting the country and the absence of any powerful Empire to withstand them, they might have carried the banners of Islam as far as the Great Lakes. It has only been during the last century that the onward advance of Islam in Africa has assumed anything like its earlier proportions. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. II3 Of this we shall speak in a subsequent chapter. The third great immigration of Arabs into Africa , has been by the East Coast, South of Cape Guardafui ; but their success in converting the natives in this quarter has not been anything like so great as in the North and North-West of the continent. The Muscat Arab, from whose ranks the settlers are mostly drawn, has not here shown either the same desire to spread his faith or the same facility for settling permanently among the natives as his coreligionists in other parts of Africa. Yet some tribes have become converted. The Somalis of the Coast are among these. Arab immigrants in the seventh and eighth centuries, mingling with them, drove back all those tribes who refused to accept Islam, and occupied the country. The centre of the Mohammedan activity and bigotry in these parts was Harar, a member of the Zaila Empire, a city in which, like Mecca, like Bokhara, and like Timbuctu, an infidel might not set his foot. The Gallas, a tribe closely related to the Somalis, and bordering upon them, have only partially been converted, the remainder being either pagan or Christian. For the whole sea-board south of these, Zanzibar is the headquarters of Moslem influence. Arabs, chiefly from Oman, traded to this part of Africa in very early times, and the Waswahili tribes of the island and continent,^ were gradually converted, or 1 Burton (“Zanzibar,” I. 25 and 421.) says, early in the eighteenth century. ISLAM, II4 at least circumcised, from the force of example, we may believe, more often than from conviction, or in consequence of any attempts at persuasion. They are half-breeds descended from Arab or Persian ancestors. Some other tribes, as the Wasumbara and Doruma, are partially Moslem ; but on the whole we may say that, considering the time it has been at work, and the fair field which it has en¬ joyed, Islam as a missionary religion has been a complete failure on the Eastern Coast of Africa. Not only is the actual area where conversions have taken place comparatively very small, but the character of the Islam professed by the converted (or assimilated) tribes is very debased. Burton, a trenchant writer certainly, accuses Islam in this quarter of habitual dishonesty, intemperance, un¬ chastity, superstition, and almost all imaginable vices. Latterly, however, the jealousy of the Arabs has been aroused by the efforts of Christian missionaries, and we do hear of Arab traders, where they are not yet strong enough to use force or to perpetuate those unutterable atrocities, described by so many writers, having recourse to the arts of persuasion and instruction. The native state of Uganda has in this way been the scene of a conflict between Christian and Arab influence, the issue of which, it « seems, can now only be decided by the sword. The Arabs of Zanzibar had made their way to Uganda as early as 1822,^ but their first regular 1 See Wilson’s “ Uganda,” p. igo. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION."’I II 5 settlement there did not take place till the reign of Suna, the father of Mtesa, the late King of Uganda. Two traders, Musa Mzuri and Ahmed ibn Ibrahim, opened up trade with this country at Suna’s invitation, introducing, among other things, a cur¬ rency of cowrie shells.^ The king, however, jealous of his monopoly, would not allow the Arabs to go further into the territory of Unyoro until 1872, when Mtesa permitted two traders. Said ibn Seifi and Hasan, to make their way thither. The head¬ quarters of Arab trade in these parts are at Karagwe and Nabula-galla (Alagalla) and Uyui. The conversion of Uganda is a prize worth fighting for. The state, besides enjoying one of the strongest and most civilised governments to be found in native Africa, is the centre of such com¬ merce as the Equatorial regions can boast of. King Mtesa himself was a man of considerable power, and Stanley did not scruple to call him “ the foremost man of Equatorial Africa ”—a sort of Egyptian Pharaoh both in character and features. Over this king the Arabs gained some influence, and almost persuaded him to become a Mohammedan. General Gordon mentions his re¬ quest for two instructors to teach him the Koran, who, however, were not sent.^ The king always refused to be circumcised, a rite for which the Waganda seem to have a rooted aversion ; and when Stanley, on his African journey, came to his 1 Emin’s “ Letters,” p. 113 2 Gordon, “ Central Africa,” p. 16, cf. p. 115 ISLAM, 116 capital he asked for instruction in the Bible, and was induced, if not to embrace Christianity, yet to give up his fancy for its rival. Yet General Gordon tells us that he wished still to keep a Moslem priest ^ at his court. Both Arabs and Christians were eager not to let Mtesa slip through their fingers ; and the king, who does not seem to have been of the stuff that makes a religious enthu¬ siast, contented himself with playing off the one party against the other. Whatever his own re¬ ligious convictions might have been, he was evidently averse from Islam becoming the national creed,^ and he cruelly burned a hundred youths who had been circumcised. Mtesa died in 1884, and since then further complications have arisen. The new king, Mwanga, a weak and capricious monarch, has become more accessible to Arab influence. The Arabs have made him thoroughly suspicious of the Christians by de¬ scribing them as land-eaters, the outcome of which have been Bishop Hannington’s tragical death and the temporary cessation ^ of our missionary opera¬ tions in Uganda. But Christianity seems to have got a firm hold in the kingdom, and persecution, unless carried to the extreme of extirpation, will now hardly be able to stamp it out.^ Mwanga himself has shown a disposition to become a 1 Gordon, “ Central Africa,” p. 185. 187, 189. ®Aug., 1887. * See the beautiful letter from the native Church to the Church at home. — C. M. Intelligencer, Dec., 1887. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. II7 Mohammedan, having gone so far as to read the Koran, and to threaten death to all who refuse to follow his example. Of the neighbouring state of Unyoro we do not know much, but it does not appear that Islam has made much progress there, though the king can speak Arabic with fluency.^ Before passing on from Africa to Europe, we may dismiss the Island of Madagascar with a bare mention. There can be no doubt that in former times the Arabs had obtained a firm footing in this island. Marco Polo speaking, as is supposed, of it,^ says that the people were all Saracens, and there are traces to be found of a considerable Arab civilisation. Supposed descendants of the Arab settlers are even to be found, who employ the Arab character in writing; and the inhabi¬ tants of an island off the East Coast, call them¬ selves Beni Ibrahim. At the present day Mohammedanism is practically non-existent in Madagascar, and those who are fond of asserting that, when Islam has once taken hold of a nation or tribe, it never relaxes its hold, must reckon with this instance. We have seen, then, that as far as Africa is con¬ cerned Islam has been established over so large a part of it by various and opposite methods. The purely missionary element has not been wholly wanting, but it has been of secondary importance. 1 Emin, p. i6t. The above account was written before the news of the late revolution in Uganda arrived. Yule’s Edition, ii. 403. See note. ii8 ISLAM, Persuasion has in some cases inserted the thin end of the wedge, but force or persecution has in every case driven it home. It is really only in Uganda that the true missionary method, learnt from Christianity, has been applied before our eyes, and the success there has not been of a remark¬ able character, and by no means to be compared with the success of Christianity in the same quarter. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. iig CHAPTER VIII. ISLAM IN EUROPE. "The Great Prophet, whose o’er-shadowing wings Darkened the thrones and idols of the West . . . When the Orient moon of Islam rolled in triumph From Caucasus to white Ceraunia ! ” Shelley, Hellas. The history of Mohammedan domination in Europe centres in two points—Cordova and Con¬ stantinople. The story of the invasion of Spain has often been told, and it will not be necessary here to do more than mention the leading facts in connection with it. It was in 756 a.d. that Abdurrahman ibn Muawia, escaping from the downfall of the Umeyyade house in Syria, landed, after many adventures, in Spain. The country had been under Arab rule since 711, but the first attempt of the Arabs on the country is said to have taken place as early as 648, and to have resulted in the temporary subjection of Southern Spain.^ The Spanish historians also tell us of the Saracens being invited into the country by a Gothic prince in Wamba’s reign, and of their being beaten off. 1A 1 Makkari, i, 382. Note by de Gayangos. 120 ISLAM, But it was not till 711 that the successful invasion of Tarik was undertaken. The battle of Guada- lete, or Xeres, in that year decided the fate of Spain. With their usual celerity the Arabs over¬ ran almost all Spain and Southern Gaul in little more than three years. Unfortunately, however, for themselves, they left a corner of Spain unsubdued, and the “ thirty wretched barbarians”^ perched among the rocks of Galicia formed a nucleus of patriots, which swelled into an army, and the army into a nation, until, forcing their way southwards with the weight and persistency of a majestic glacier, they recovered every foot of ground that their ancestors had lost, nor rested till they had expelled every infidel from their borders, and the sacred soil of Spain was no longer polluted by the presence of an unbeliever. In this policy of persecution and intolerance they were but following the example of the Goths before the invasion, who harassed and exiled the Jews in their country. Curiously enough, just about the time when Omar drove out the Jews and Christians from Arabia, saying that its soil f was for the faithful alone—in Spain, at the Sixth Council of Toledo, a canon was passed by king, nobles, and bishops in Council assembled, in the following terms :—“ Nec sinit degere in regno suo qui non sit Catholicus.” In 732 the Saracens of Spain made a great effort to add the whole of Gaul to their European 1 A 1 Makkari, ii. 34. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I 2 I dominions, but their defeat at Tours put an end to all schemes of the kind for the future. Musa ibn Nosseyr, under whose auspices Spain had been conquered, did indeed indulge in far-reaching dreams of conquest whereby Southern Gaul and Italy should be added to the Moslem Empire, but the recall of Musa and his disgrace prevented even an attempt being made to realize them. There is no doubt, however, that the Southern Gauls and Italians offered an easier prey than the hardy Teutons of Central and North Europe. The conquered Spaniards were treated with remarkable clemency, and there is good reason for thinking that the advent of the Arabs was hailed with joy by all classes of the population except the Gothic aristocracy. Even of these many settled down among their conquerors, and many an Arab chief traced back his lineage with pride to a Gothic noble or prince as his ancestor. The downtrodden slaves came over in great numbers, and purchased freedom and equality by the easy repetition of the formula of Mohammedan faith. Captives taken in war were given the choice of Islam or immediate death. In this way Okbah ibn al Hejaj (734—740) is said to have converted thousands,^ Under these circumstances it is not surprising that self-interest and fear proved very successful as missionary agencies. But self- interest was at work on the other side also, and 1 Al Makkari, ii. 38; cf. the conduct of Musa ibn Nosseyr, vol. i. Appendix, p. Ixv. 122 ISLAM, tended to restrain the Arabs from attempting to proselytize too much, for fear of diminishing the tribute arising from the jezzia, or poll tax on unbelievers^ Many Christians, however, went over to avoid paying this small tax, or even to evade verdicts in the Christian Courts.^ In any case the number of renegades must have been very great; ® and these renegades, or Muwallads, as they were called, soon formed a strong party in the state. Spaniards by birth and feeling, they were also Mohammedans by religion, and though by no means friendly to the Spanish Christians, they were far from being on good terms with the Arabs and Berbers, whom they regarded as interlopers into their country, and by whom they were despised as having none of the noble Arab blood in their veins. Finally, they made common cause with their fellow-countrymen, rather than with their coreligionists, and almost succeeded, in the ninth century, in dispossessing the Arabs of the government. Their leader in this revolt was the famous Omar ibn Hafsun, who, being one of the Muwallads by birth, after¬ wards became a Christian. The Empire of the Umeyyade Khalifs, of Cordova, was only saved by the opportune victory of Hisn Belay in 891.^ But the Muwallad element, the existence of iC/. Gibbon, vi. 370; Cardonne, i. 168. 2 Samson, “ Apolog.," ii. ch. 3, 5. ®See Dozy, “History of Mussulmans in Spain,” ii. 53; and Prescott, “Ferdinand and Isabella.” ^ A 1 Makkari, ii. 452. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 123 which was so largely due to the political supremacy of the Arabs, naturally declined as the Christian power gradually advanced south¬ wards, and the ranks of the Muzarabes, or Christians, under Arab rule, must have been largely reinforced by conversions from the ranks of the Muwallads. No missionary agency, properly speaking, came into play at all in either case. Conversions were—as far as we have evidence of them—prompted solely by worldly motives ; by fear ; by domestic pressure ; by love, gratitude, admiration, or such emotions. Disputations on the relative merits of Islam and Christianity there may have been between monks on the one side and faquis on the other, and controversial works treating of the rival religions there certainly were, but direct preaching was neither permitted to the Christians nor considered necessary by the Arabs. Any attempt to convert Moslems to Christianity, or any abuse of Mohammed, was punishable by death, but in all other respects the Christians were allowed to observe their own religion. The habitual tolerance of the Khalifs only gave place to persecution when the Christians went out of their way to revile the Prophet and insult his followers. Meanwhile, the two large islands of the , Mediterranean, Crete and Sicily, were added to the Moslem Empire. A body of Andalusian exiles and freebooters attacked Crete in 823, and, burning their boats, to preclude the possibility of retreat, soon became masters of the island. What 124 ISLAM, methods of conversion they made use of to convert the inhabitants we are not told ; but, in the words of Gibbon, “of thirty cities Cydonia alone retained freedom and Christianity.” ^ Re¬ conquered within 150 years, the people returned to Christianity with the same readiness that they had shown in the reverse process; but in this case, as in the other, persuasion was eked out by force. “ Ad baptismum omnes,” says the Chronicler, “ veraeque fidei disciplinam pepulit (s^.the conqueror).” Almost at the same time Sicily fell a prey to the Aglabites of Africa. Syracuse^did not fall till 878, and Sicily was not entirely subdued till the middle of the following century. Mohammedanism quickly supplanted the religion of the Greeks. We hear of as many as 500 boys being circumcised in one day.^ The Saracen domination over the whole island lasted less than a century. With Sicily as a base of operations the Saracens were even enabled to gain a footing in the south of Italy and several ports were occupied by them in that part, and held for several years. Rome herself came near to being conquered, as it was actually pillaged, by the Saracens. Fortunately for Christendom Rome never became a Mohammedan city, and by the con¬ quests of Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain, Western Christendom was freed from the scourge of a Saracen domination. It was now the turn of 1 vi. 407. VI. 408. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 125 Eastern Christianity to suffer a similar but worse fate. The Christian conquest of Spain was ap¬ proaching its completion when Constantinople fell before the Turks. For 800 years that imperial city had stemmed the tide of Mohammedan aggression, a respite of inestimable value to Christendom and to Europe. The old crusading spirit that had battled so fiercely with Islam in Palestine seemed now to have died out except in the extreme corner of Spain, and small indeed was the succour sent by Western Christendom to the city that had served its cause so well. This criminal desertion of the Eastern Empire in its sore need was like to have cost Rome and the West very dear, and it is little short of a miracle that Bajazet did not live to fulfil his boast and feed his horse off the high altar of St. Peter’s. It has sometimes been said that Islam, while suited in origin and character to Eastern peoples, is not a religion likely to prove attractive to Europeans. It can even be urged, with truth, that the rites of Mohammed’s religion are incom¬ patible with the physical phenomena of Northern regions. The difficulty, for instance, of recon¬ ciling the stated times of Mohammedan prayer with the phenomena of perpetual day is described by the traveller Ibn Batutah, who went to Bulgar, a city of Siberia, on purpose to witness the short¬ ness of the night; “ When I was saying the prayer of sunset,” he remarks, “ in that place, which happened in the month of Ramadhan, I hasted; nevertheless, the time of evening prayer 126 ISLAM, came on. This hastily repeated, I prayed the midnight prayer and the one termed El Witr, but was overtaken by the dawn.” There is something irresistibly comic, and perhaps a little sad, in this attempt to harmonize the purely human regula¬ tions of Mohammed with those divine laws of nature of which he was supremely ignorant, and of which, therefore, he took no account. The Moham¬ medan doctors were perforce obliged to grant a dispensation from these prayers in such latitudes, and the Tartars of Azoph and Astrakhan used this objection^ to dissuade the Turks from attempt¬ ing any further conquests in that direction. The youthful vigour of the Ottoman Turks and the martial and administrative genius of a long succession of their rulers secured for Islam a new lease of life, and by the capture of Constantinople dealt Christendom a terrible and well-nigh fatal blow. The capture of Rome by Bajazet, or the fall of Vienna before the arms of Suleiman the Magnificent, would have sealed the fate of all Con¬ tinental Europe. But the retreat from Vienna marked the turning point of the fortunes of Islam. Since then its waters have everywhere receded except in West Africa and the Malay Archipelago. The dying injunction of Othman, the founder of the Ottoman Empire, to his son Orchan was, “ Give equal protection to all thy subjects and extend the law of the Prophet.” Adherence to this simple yet comprehensive precept may be 1 Gibbon, viii. 48. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 127 taken as the secret of the success of the Turks in winning over so large a number of European con¬ verts. There seems to be nothing in the character of Europeans, qua Europeans, adverse to the recep¬ tion of Islam. Almost every European nation has furnished renegades to Islam. Besides Spaniards, Greeks and Sclavonians in large numbers, we hear of Italian, Austrian,^ German,^ French,® Russian, English, Scotcld and American® apos¬ tates. Some writers have asserted that Islam only found favour with a few Albanians and Bosnians, but this is notoriously not the case. After the fatal battle of Kossova, in 1389, the inhabitants of Old Servia mostly emigrated, their place being taken by Albanians and Arnaouts, ° who were chiefly Latin Christians. These new settlers gradually abjured their faith and became Moslems, but retained their old dislike for the Turks, now their coreligionists. In Bosnia,'^ again, a considerable portion of the population apostatized, and especially of the higher classes, who became Beys and Agas. These have always been distinguished by their fanatical hatred for the Christian rayahs.® In Bosnia alone ^ Slatin at Kartum. ^Mehemet Ali, in the last Russo-Turkish war. ’’Curzon, “Monasteries of Levant,” p. 207; “Life of Abdel Kader,” by Churchill, p. 209. ^ “ Eothen,” p. 247. 5 “ Travels of Dr. Wolff,” p. 187. ^ “ Sclavonic Provinces,” by Forsyth, p, 70. Ubid.,Sx. ^Ibid., 128 ISLAM, there are nearly 2,000 mosques, but there are nearly twice as many Christians as Moslems in the whole province. Herzegovina became a province of Turkey in 1466, and a portion at least of the population be¬ came Moslems, the son of the Christian ruler, Stephen, being himself among the number. Montenegro affords a still more striking example, for though it was never really conquered, yet not a few of its inhabitants apostatized. But Islam was rooted out of Montenegro by the stern measures of Daniel Petrovitch. The Moslem converts, being given the choice of death or baptism, mostly chose death.^ Among the Greeks proper, apostasy was still more common. During the period immediately following the conquest, it was from the higher classes that the ranks of Islam were chiefly re¬ cruited. Finlay,^ after mentioning many Pashas of the name of Palaeologus, adds that there were innumerable instances of less common Greek names found among the renegades. But as time went on, and the toleration of the Turks was ex¬ changed for bigotry, by way of reprisals for the intolerance of Christian powers in Spain and else¬ where, conversions among the middle classes be¬ came more and more common. The historian ^ attributes this readiness to apostatize to the feel¬ ing of despair which their despised position called 1 Forsyth, pp. 116 and 127. “ Greece under Ottoman Domination,” p. 139. “ Finlay, p. 140. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I29 up in their minds, and to their desire to bear arms and mix in active life. However it be accounted for, the fact is indisputable. At the circumcision of Mohammed, son of Murad III., in 1582, one hundred Greek, Albanian, and Bulgarian Chris¬ tians daily abjured their faith during the whole period of forty days during which the feast was celebrated. Even among the clergy and the dignitaries of the faith were found apostates. In 1661 an ex-metropolitan of Rhodes, who had be¬ come a Mussulman, was put to death. In 1675 three of the secular clergy of Korinth became Moslems.^ Five years later the remarkable fact is recorded of a renegade monk being beheaded for reviling Christ before the assembled council. The wise policy of the Turks was to welcome these renegades and admit them, if qualified, to the highest offices. Renegades were not looked down upon in Turkey as they were in Spain, and in one period of fifty years (1520—1574) it is re¬ corded that eight out of ten grand viziers were of the renegade class. In some districts such as Albania, Euboea, and Crete a large proportion of the population embraced Islam, and by the end of the seventeenth century it is estimated that a million Mussulmans in Europe were the descen¬ dants of renegades.We may reserve for subse¬ quent discussion the causes which contributed to this result, and the skilful policy of the Turks, who, by inducing so many of their enemies to be- - Ibid., 141, K 1 Finlay, p. 182, note. 130 ISLAM come Moslems, were able to enlist in the service of Islam a large proportion of the genius and in¬ tellect of the subject nations. The real Turkish immigrants always bore a very small proportion to the total Mussulman population, and it certainly is not to the credit of orthodox Christianity that it made so much less resistance to the advance of Islam than was made by such heathen religions as Brahmanism and Confucianism. It may, how¬ ever, be pleaded that this wholesale surrender was due in great part to the intolerance and un¬ wisdom of the Papal party, who undoubtedly drove Servia and Bosnia into the arms of the Turks. 1 Luckily for the Christian cause, Islam failed to win over the Russians. Perhaps, as someone has maliciously said, it was the prohibition of wine which lost Russia to the Moslem side; and it is now Russia that, with her wonderful expan¬ sion, has engulfed a large Mussulman population.'^ But though Russia herself has withstood the attractions of Islam, she has been unable to pre¬ vent the peoples of the Caucasus from joining the ranks of her foes. In fact, the arbitrary annexa¬ tion of territory by Russia, and her proselytizing instincts have repelled the Caucasian populations,^' which, within the last 150 years, have gone to swell the thinning ranks of Mohammedanism. 1 Creasy, “ Ottoman Turks,” i. 113. 2 Before the recent annexations there were in Holy Russia more than 2,000,000 Moslems and 5,500 Mosques. — Dozy, ” L’Islamisme,” 431. ^ I’algrave, “Essays on Eastern Questions,” p. 107. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I3I Georgia was subdued by the Arabs in the thirteenth century. It is not known when Islam began to make way in the country, but we are told that in the fourteenth century Timur forced the king to renounce his faith, which was Christianity ; and at some later period a portion of the Georgian nation was forced to become Mohammedan.^ The rest, however, have never quite relinquished their fondness for wine and swine, though Gibbon credits Alp Arslan and Malik with the forcible conversion of the whole people.“ The Circassians, however, till Schamyl’s rebellion, had not embraced Islam to any very large extent, though the upper classes were mostly Moslems. We may close this review of the territorial extension of Mohammedanism by mentioning the only known instances of a race adopting a sort of sham Islam. At Trebizond and Erzeroum were, and probably still are, communities outwardly professing Sunnite Islam, whose members go to mosque and observe the rites of their professed creed, but if questioned upon their religious views, they will say they are Christians, and corroborate their assertion by also going to church and con¬ fessing the divinity of Christ. Again, there are the Nossayrys, who, while not believing in a per¬ sonal God, claim, nevertheless, to be Moslems.'^ 1 Mackenzie’s “ Schamyl,” p. 49. 2 Gibbon, vii. 158. ^ Gobineau, “Religions of the East.” pp. 16, 17. 132 ISLAM, CHAPTER IX. REASONS OF THE SUCCESS OF ISLAM. A Mussulman’s whole life—social, political, and religious—is based upon, and grows out of, the Koran. But the Koran forms a very unsure foundation for so huge and complicated a super¬ structure. Its various Suras, or chapters, revealed at odd times and arising out of peculiar circum¬ stances, to which alone they are applicable, were never intended fo cover the whole field of man’s duty towards God and his neighbour. But, apart from this undoubted fact, an additional element of uncertainty is introduced by the doctrine of abrogation. The Prophet himself thus enunciates the doctrine, putting it into the mouth of God: “Whatever verse we shall abrogate or cause thee to forget, we will bring a better than it, or one like unto it.” ^ There are reckoned to be 225 verses in the Koran of which the letter remains, but the spirit is abrogated ; but (and this is a very remarkable fact) there is no certain canon for distinguishing the abrogated from the non-abrogated verses, and the Arab 1 Koran, Sura ii., verse 100, cf. xvi. 102. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 133 apologist for Christianity, Al Kindy, does not omit to notice this.^ With such a shifting authority for his actions, the conduct of a Mussulman cannot fail to be in¬ consistent. On many disputed questions he can justify even contradictory courses by quotations from his sacred book. Consequently, we find Moslems at one time eager to convert the infidels, at another supporting their complete indifference in this respect by falling back upon the doctrine of predestination. “ Of what use would it be,” say tne fatalists, “ to convert a thousand infidels ? would it increase the number of the faithful ? By no means. Their number is decreed by God.” -^ “ The sovereign Creator,” says a pious Moslem writer, “ endows whom He will with courage or cowardice, piety or impiety; ” ^ and this view receives ample support from the Koran. But this apathetic fatalism prevails chiefly in the decadence of Islam. When Islam is vigorous, conversion of infidels, or at least an offer of Islam, becomes an imperative duty, required of every Moslem. Islam needed no missionary societies and paid preachers. A Mohammedan Avho went into dis¬ tant lands did not think it necessary to keep his religion a secret. He was not chary, as most Europeans are, of speaking of the faith that was in him. He did not regard the enunciation of his 1 See Muir’s Trans, of Al Kindy. See above, p. 51. 2 Lane, “ Modern Egyptians,” i, 364. 2 Mohammed El Tounsy, French Transl., by Dr. Perron, p. 309. 134 ISLAM, divine truths as a throwing of pearls before swine. The name of God was ever on his lips, and at the stated times he performed his prayers, wherever he happened to be, in public or in private. A Mussulman never hides his religious light under a bushel, nor yet does he, like the hypocrites of Christ’s denunciation, perform his devotions to be seen of men, but because such public prayer is part of his creed. There can be no doubt that this publicity of worship, combined with the sim¬ plicity and sublimity of the Mohammedan theology, has been of material service in spreading the creed of the Prophet, and has rendered unnecessary the establishment of any peculiarly-missionary organi¬ zation. In some sense, then, every good Mussulman is a missionary. Christian traders have not done much to spread Christianity in the various lands they have discovered and exploited, but the Arab merchants have won for Islam some of its fairest provinces. We have seen what their shrewdness, energy and administrative ability effected in the Malay Archipelago. Something, too, they have done for Islam in China, and more, perhaps, in India and Central Asia ; but it is in Africa that we have seen, and still see, their work going on before our eyes. Merchants, faquis, and even freed slaves have made numerous proselytes among the Negroes of the Niger region. Moslem missionaries are to be found in Sierra Leone,^ and, 1 Reade, “Afiican Sketches,” ii. 324 AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I35 if we may believe Dr. Blyclen, the Aloslems of that British port, taking example by Christian methods, contribute money to support missionaries from Arabia, Morocco, or Kairoan.^ That these mis¬ sionaries are to be found in the interior. Dr. Blyden affirms, saying that he has met them travelling about with nothing but a prayer-mat and a Koran, dependent for their daily food on the charity of the natives. We have similar evidence of the existence of zealous Mohammedan mission¬ aries, from speakers at the Church Missionary Conference in 1875.^ How far their efforts are successful is hard to determine, but the conver¬ sions have in all probability been numerous. The conversion of a chief—and it is the chiefs whom they first address themselves to—generally means the conversion of his clan or tribe, and that, by the regular Mohammedan sequence, means the attempted conversion of neighbouring clans or tribes by force, with the result which has evoked so much enthusiasm from that class of persons whose cosmopolitan sympathies are lavished on all that is alien, and refused to all that is of their own country. The Arabs who trade from Zanzibar are by no means eager to proselytize, and where the contrary is the case, it may be ascribed to jealousy of Christian influence, as at the court of Mwanga in Uganda. 1 Blyden, p. 12. ^Ibid., p. 194. 3 Evidence of thi Rev. C. Gollener. 136 ISLAM, Though the missionary spirit is not at all alien to Islam, and though Moslem missionaries were to be found in ancient as well as in modern times, yet most of the work of conversion was then done by other means than persuasion, and the latter was reserved chiefly for the propagation of sectarian opinions. When it was resorted to in other cases, it was due to individual zeal or selfish ambition, as the conversion of a king or a tribe was a prelude to the personal aggrandisement of the missionary. It has already been stated that Islam recognizes no missionary order. In the same way Mohammed distinctly repudiated monasticism, with the em¬ phatic assertion that there should be no monks in Islam. Yet Mohammedanism has borrowed this institution from its rival, and even priests and clergy are found in Islam, which is theoretically a religion without a priesthood. Such priests are the Ishans in Bokhara,^ the Mallams in Java,^and the Metowwaa, or the ministers of Wahabeeism in Arabia. ^ Some writers have gone so far as to call the great A 1 Azhar, or University, at Cairo, a missionary college, in which “ 10,000 students are gathered preparing to go out as missionaries of the Muslim faith ; but there are no statistics to show what proportion of these students (if any) go 1 Vambery, “ Sketches of Asia,” p. 195. ^Crawfard, iii. 36; Dozy, “ L’Islamisme,” p. 434. Pflilgrave, “ Arabia,” i 79. ^Dr. Blyden, p. 191. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I37 forth as preachers of Islam. Most of them become faquirs or dervishes, but their vocation is very- different from that of our missionaries. Neither the howling dervishes, of whose antics such strange accounts are given, nor the quieter members of the class, such as Vambery personated, can do much to further the cause of Islam. It is in the fighting dervishes in the Mahdi’s army that we must look for the true preachers of the Moslem gospel. From the faquis again Mohammedanism can ex¬ pect no help. They disgrace the faith to which they belong by pandering to the superstition of the natives among whom they sojourn. They drive a good trade making fetishes or amulets for the Negroes, these amulets being generally texts of the Koran sewn up in the dress of the wearer. Others write texts of the Koran on boards, and washing the writing off with water administer the potion as a charm. Dr. Schweinfurth ^ gives these travelling priests a very bad character, and accuses them of aiding and abetting the slave trade. They act as brokers, amulet writers, quacks, and schoolmasters, and, if of a superior class, as managers of schools and caravanserais. “ The doctrines of the Prophet are taught in the schools, while the merissa shops are dedicated in a large degree to the worship of Venus.” “ With the Suras of the Koran in one hand, and the operating knife in the other, they rove from Seriba to Seriba, living what 1" Heart of Africa,” ii. 14, cf. Emin Pasha’s “ Letters,” p. 410. ISLAM, 133 might be called in the most rigid sense, a life of perpetual prayer. Every other word that they utter is either an invocation of Allah, or a direct appeal to Mohammed El Rasoul. But the wide distinction between faith and practice is exemplified in the unrighteous dealings of these faquis. Never did I see slaves so mercilessly treated as by these fanatics.” The writer then proceeds to describe the inhuman treatment of a poor old dying Negro ^ by these men who consider themselves the pillars of their faith. The mere mechanical duties even of their profession, such as the recitation of the Koran, are so ill-performed as to be perfectly use¬ less for the edification of the faithful.'^ As Islam has borrowed monks and priests from other religions, so it has also borrowed mis¬ sionaries ; but the missionary spirit is mainly a product of the present century, and observable in West Africa, Arabia, Persia, India, and the Malay Archipelago, where it is due to the great Wahabee and other “ revivals,” which have so distinguished the last century of Islam. It has been computed that there are at least 175,000,000 of Mohammedans in the world. The population of Arabia may be about 10,000,000. It is not known how many inhabitants the peninsula of Arabia had in Mahommed’s day, but there are reasons for thinking that the number of Arabs who went forth as champions to propagate iThe skull of their victim is now in the Berlin Museum. 2 Schweinfurth, i. 330. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 139 their new creed was not less than four millions. The question arises, what made their efforts so eminently and rapidly successful ? To a certain extent we may say with Dozy,^ that the bulk of the Arabs cared very little for the conversion of infidels, while they cared very much for the reversion of- their good things, in the shape of plunder, if they were pagans, and of annual tribute if they were “ people of the Book ” — that is, Jews, Christians, or Zoroastrians.*'^ Most of the Arab generals and khalifs preferred to have Christians in subjection and paying tribute rather than that they should be converted and cease to pay the poll-tax. Yet no doubt there were some more than usually devout Moslems who did not take this sordid view, and we can quote with admiration the indignant reply of Omar Ibn Abd el Aziz, the best of the Umeyyades, when told that his harsh decrees against the un¬ believers would assuredly induce them to be con¬ verted, and that so much revenue would be lost to the state. “ Happy shall I be beyond measure,” he said, “if all the Zimmis become Moslems, for God sent his Apostle to do the work of a Prophet, and not that of a collector of taxes.” ^ Harsh measures against the infidels were evidently con¬ sidered likely to result in the conversion of many, 1 “ L’Islamisme,” p. 183. 2 This privilege of keeping their religion and paying tribute was extended to the Berbers by Othman, and afterwards to other infidels. Ibid., p. 184. 3 Dozy, p. 181. 140 ISLAM, and this reminds us that there were many motives for conversion apart from rational conviction, and many reasons which made Islam an attractive faith to infidels and pagans. Among the latter was, undoubtedly, the eclectic character of the creed offered for their acceptance. To the Jew, to the Christian, and even to the Magian, it brought a recognition of many dogmas distinctive of those religions. Converts were not required so much to surrender as to modify their old faith,^ while to the heathen grovelling in superstition Islam came, as it still comes, as a veritable message from on high. Embodying a simple and sublime truth, in terms not above the comprehension of a savage, it requires from the proselyte no change of heart, no change of life. Let him be but circumcised and repeat the easy formula, and he is ipso facto a Moslem ; to be a good Moslem, he must repeat his prayers five times a day, keep the fast of Ramadhan, and, if possible, make his pilgrimage to Mecca. Islam requires nothing of an Oriental which will dena¬ tionalize him. An African chief is a slaveholder and polygamist. The Christian Mission comes and asks him, as the price of conversion to Chris¬ tianity, to give up his wives and his slaves. The Mohammedan missionary says he may keep both —aye, and add to them. Is it surprising that he chooses Islam in preference to Christianity ? But it is not savages only that are tempted by worldly considerations to profess what they do not 1 Dczy, “ L’Is’amisn.e,” 155. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I4I believe. The rapid conversion of the Christian and other populations who fell under the Arab sway can be accounted for on no other supposi¬ tion than that material interests overpowered religious conviction. Gibbon has a characteristic passage on this subject. On becoming converted, he says, “ the subject or the slave, the captive or the criminal, arose in a moment the free and equal companion of the victorious Moslems. Every sin was expiated, every engagement was dissolved; the vow of celibacy was superseded by the indulgence of nature; the active spirits who slept in the cloister were awakened by the trumpet of the Saracens.” ^ We have direct evidence on the subject from a most interesting quarter. A speech of the latitudinarian Khalif A1 Mamun (813—833), is reported by a Christian Arab who wrote a defence of Christianity. The speech is thus translated, or paraphrased, by Sir William Muir: “ By the Lord ! I well know that one and another (and here the Khalif named a whole company of his councillors), though professing Islam, are really free from the same ; they do it to be seen of me ; while their convictions, I am well aware, are just the opposite of that which they profess. They belong to a class who embrace Islam, not from any love of this our religion, but thinking thereby to gain access to my court, and share in the honour, wealth, and power of the realm; they have no 1 Gibbon, vi. 367. 142 ISLAM, inward persuasion of that which they outwardly profess.and indeed I know of one and another (here the Khalif named a whole band of his courtiers) who were Christians and embraced Islam unwillingly. They are neither Moslems nor Christians, but impostors.” ^ Many then went over to the dominant faith from motives of personal aggrandizement and to avoid the social disabilities which attached to the pro¬ fession of other religions. In this way the Persian race, proud of its ancestry and its history, and not brooking to be trod under foot by semi-barbarians like the Arabs, raised themselves to an equality with their conquerors by embracing their religion, but revenged themselves by moulding it into a national Islam of their own, containing elements in many respects subversive of Mohammed’s doctrines. But the collapse of Christianity was due, no doubt, in a great measure to the mutual hatred and hostility of Christians—Melchite and Jacobite, Nestorian and Eutychian, Latin and Greek. We know that the Jacobites of Egypt welcomed the Saracens, and by gladly acquiescing in their supremacy found at first favourable treatment from their conquerors, while the Melchites were oppressed and humiliated. The same sectarian bigotry found vent at Constantinople in the time of the Turks, and we hear of a Grand Duke asserting that he would rather see the turban of 1 “ Apology of A 1 Kind}’,” S.P.C.K., p, 29, cf. p. 85. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I43 the Sultan in Constantinople than the tiara of the Pope.^ Mohammed the Second, immediately after the fall of Constantinople, proclaimed himself pro¬ tector of the orthodox Church against the Latins — a politic measure, the first fruits of which showed themselves in the submission of Bosnia. A Servian tradition^ relates that Hunyades, being asked what he purposed to do with regard to the orthodox religion, if he was victorious, answered that he would compel the conquered to become Roman Catholics. Amurath the Second, the reigning Sultan, in answer to the same question, said he would grant complete tolerance to his subjects to worship according to their own inclina¬ tions. Thereupon the Servians submitted. We can trace a little of the same spirit in the downfall of the Spanish Church, but there we find the native Church in opposition to the Pope, and the latter (in the opinion of some writers) countenancing their subjugation by the Arabs. If this ever was the case, it soon ceased to be so, and the Christians under Arab rule, or Muzarabes, as they were called, were enabled, under the Mohammedan segis, for several centuries to maintain their spiritual independence and ancient liturgy against all the pretensions of the Pope, backed by the subservient zeal of the free com¬ munity of Christians in the north of Spain, 1 Fin’ay, “ History of the Byzantine Empire,” ii. 627. ^Creasy, “History of the Ottoman Turks,” i. 114, cf. i. 113. * See J. S. Semler, quoted by Mosheim, ii. 120, note. 144 ISLAM, Personal ambition and religious animosity un¬ doubtedly brought many adherents to Islam, but baser motives were not wanting. A 1 Kindy, the Arab apologist of Christianity, expressly mentions that his friend, whom he is answering, had tried to ensnare him with the prospect of many wives and concubines,^ and we may well suppose that such a motive did operate with some ignobly- minded Christians. Wheeler says that it in¬ fluenced some of the Hindu converts,^ and we find it still at work, for Bishop Steere mentions that Christian native converts are sometimes tempted to apostatize in order to get wives.^ Islam can still hold forth to converts temptations such as these—admission into a great social caste, freedom from the lightest restrictions in the matters of divorce and marriage, and the joys of a material Paradise. Moreover, its unity and vastness are not without their effect on the imagination. But it has lost the main source of its success in the decline of its political supremacy. Speaking of. India Sir Alfred Lyall says, “ Islam has now had to bear the disadvantage of a too near identity with rulership, which forces it to stake the authenticity and practical proof of its claim to •Divine favour upon the success of unstable human institutions. Of course the misfortunes of a Mussulman dynasty ruling over unbelievers must 1 Sir W. Muir’s Translation, S.C.P.K., p. 107. ^Talboys Wheeler, “ Mussulman Rule in India,” p. 197. 3 Sir Bartle Frere, “ African Missions,” p. 41. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I45 affect the proselytizing influence of the doctrines which are held to justify the dominion.” ^ In many cases Islam has had to adopt a humbler tone, and Moslem rulers and missionaries have not hesitated to accept a very imperfect version of their creed, and have betrayed their trust by admitting modifications and compromises into what was intended by Mohammed to be entirely beyond the necessity of modification, and out of the sphere of all compromise. We know how he answered the people of Tayif when they wished to be allowed to accept Islam, but with a difference. Moham¬ med’s successors have not been so unbending, and the unedifying spectacle is seen of Javanese Moslems (to take an instance) keeping a thoroughly pagan festival in honour of Mohammed’s birth and death by a discreet concession, which Crawfurd attributes to the first Mohammedan missionaries in Java.^ “ Every part of the ceremony puts Mohammedan decorum at defiance—the king in idolatrous garb ; the great number of women ; the regalia of the king, including images of a snake, a bird, and a deer ; the serving out of wine. Every year may be seen the strange spectacle of a Mussulman prince and his court celebrating the festival of the sacrifice, or commemorating the death and nativity, of the Prophet by a Bacchanalian feast in the house of a Christian! Most of the Mohammedan institutions of the 1 Lyall, “ Asiatic Studies ” v. p. no. 2 Crawfurd, i. 262 ; iii. 307. L / 146 ISLAM, Javanese betray marks of Hinduism. The Moslem priests are themselves merely the successors of the Hindu bonzes, and do not scruple to assist at many heathen observances and super¬ stitions. Much the same may he said of their brethren in Africa, who take the place of the local fetish or medicine man, and secure their influence over the superstitious natives by pretended skill in making charms. Even the most fervent admirers of Islam in Africa confess that compromises have been made by it to such an extent that the resulting religious compound “ occasionally presents a barren and hybrid character.” ^ The same writer in another place, where he is speaking of a modified Islam, based upon an indigenous sub¬ structure by a healthy amalgamation, hastens to add that this is done, “ not by a degrading com¬ promise with the pagan superstitions, but by shaping many of its traditional customs to suit the milder and more conciliatory disposition of the Negro.” ^ To this it may be said that, even if it were so, a non-aggressive Islam would not be the true Islam, but, as a matter of fact, the modifications introduced into African Islam are not in the direction of making it a peaceful and conciliatory faith, as is shown sufficiently by the doings of the Foulahs and others in Western Africa, but rather in the direction of putting Islam on a level with the superstitions to which the 1 Blyden, p. 200. 14. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I47 Negro races are especially prone.^ It was this debased character of African Islam that supplied the Foiilah prophet with a pretext for a Jehad to coerce not only pagans but Moslems, or those who called themselves such. There is no doubt that the missionaries of Islam accept of very imperfect conversion. Two instances from Mungo Park will suffice to prove this. “On the 5th of January (1796),” he says, “an embassy of ten people belonging to Almami Abd el Kader, king of Futa-Toro, arrived at Teesee ; and, desiring Tiggity to call an assembly of the inhabitants, announced publicly their king’s determination to this effect : ‘ That unless all the people of Kasson would embrace the Mohammedan religion, and evince their conversion by saying eleven public prayers, he, the king of Futa-Toro, could not possibly stand neuter in the present contest, but would certainly join his arms to those of Kajaaga.’ A message of this nature from so powerful a prince could not fail to create great alarm ; and the inhabitants of Teesee, agreed to conform to his good pleasure, humiliating as it was to them. Accordingly one and all publicly offered up eleven prayers, which was considered a sufficient testimony of their having renounced paganism, and embraced the doctrines of the ^ See Mungo Park, vol. I., p. 93 (Cassell). “ He was one of those Negroes who, together with the ceremonial part of the Mohammedan religion, retain all their ancient superstitions and even drink strong liquors.” 148 ISLAM, Prophet.” ^ In another place the traveller is describing the death of a young Negro who had been shot through the leg by the Moors, whom his attendants endeavoured to convert in his last moments. “ After many unsuccessful attempts the poor heathen at last pronounced ‘ La illah el Allah, Mahomet rasowl allahi; ’ and the disciples of the Prophet assured his mother that her son had given sufficient evidence of his faith, and would be happy in a future state.” ^ An Arab writer of the Sudan, Mohammed El Tounsy, furnishes us with another instance. He recounts with pride how a young girl, torn from her home by the slave traders, was taught the Profession of Faith the very day she was taken, and who (he naively remarks) “pronounced it without hesitating, without showing any emotion or anxiety, or changing the expression of her face.” ^ A Christian missionary who will not admit a convert to baptism until and unless there is a reason for supposing that he has really determined to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, is taunted by the enemies (or “ candid friends ”) of Christianity with making so few converts, while the rapid success of the Moslem propaganda is held up to his admiration by way of emphasizing his supposed failure. But it 1 Mungo Park, i., p. 80. ^Ibid., p. 103. 2 Mohammed El Tounsy, "Wadai,” transl. into French by Dr. Perron, p. 490. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I49 certainly is a matter of congratulation that the Protestant Church has refused to follow the example of the IMoslems in this respect, or even of the Roman Catholics, who in South India and China admitted to baptism converts who were heathen in all but the name, and they still number their descendants in the roll of their proselytes. Xavier is said in this way to have baptized incredible numbers of Indians; and these Indian converts, like the Chinese proselytes of the same Church, retain many of their heathen superstitions. The success of the Propaganda of Islam should not, therefore, surprise us. Islam, moreover, is Oriental in its character ; it appeals to the natural man in us; it legitimatizes sensualit}^; it connives at slavery; it requires no great sacrifice of a man’s inclinations, or even of his vices. In spite of Mr. Bosworth Smith’s disclaimer, Islam is an easy religion.^ It does, indeed, prohibit drinking of wine or spirits, and it enjoins a diurnal fast for a whole month, but it requires no holiness in a man. Speaking of the Arabs of Damascus, Dr. Porter says; “ They are a praying people, as they are a washing people, and there is just as much religion in their ablu¬ tions as in their devotions. Prayer with them is a simple performance. They pray as they eat, or as they sleep, or as they make their toilet. The Moslem merchant will lie and cheat, and swear and pray, and lie and cheat and swear again— 1 See A 1 Kindy, p. 109 (Muir). ISLAM, ^50 these are like different scenes in the same drama, each in its place.” ^ But there is another reason for the greater success of the Mohammedan missionary in Africa. This is, that he can enter into the social and domestic life of the Negro in a way that no European could. The climate is not fatal to him as to the European, and he can take up his residence in a heathen village, exciting attention by his daily prayers and religious rites, and seeming to the simple natives to have a mysterious communication with higher powers.^ By this means he becomes a power in the village, and by his personal influence induces its inhabitants to embrace Islam. The convert is not denationalized, and is merely required to change his belief in his tribal and ancestral god for an acknowledgment of the One God and his Prophet. Again, an European missionary, removed as he is by race, associations, and every conceivable characteristic, from the natives to whom he preaches the Gospel, can never bring himself to inter¬ marry with them. He loses caste at once if he does so. But for an Arab to marry even with Negroes is nothing unusual, and brings no degradation. Marriage with infidels, except Jews and Christians, is, indeed, forbidden to Moslems, but concubinage is freely permitted, and the difficulty of marriage can be evaded by nominal conversion. 1 “ Five years in Damascus,” vol. I., p, 141. See Blyden, p. 203. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I5I In this way a large half-caste population has sprung up in the Waswahili of Zanzibar and the African Coast, among the Malays,^ in China,^ in Eastern Turkestan,'* and in India, where this inter¬ marriage was common even among the Sultans. In Spain intermarriage was especially frequent, and gave rise to many difficulties in regard to the children of these mixed marriages. In lands subject to Moslem rule, the child of even heathen parents is looked upon potentially as a Moslem, and if one of the parents be a Moslem, all the children must be brought up in that faith.^ In the early days of Mohammedan conquest, during the Persian campaign, we hear of Khalid capturing forty Christian youths, whom he placed in a sort of college and had them brought up as good Moslems. One of these was Nosseyr, the father of the conqueror of Spain.® Similarly Almanzor, the great Prime Minister of the Spanish Khalif, Hisham II., used to bring up the Christian children in the faith of Mohammed.'* The practice of taking up orphans and exposed children, which is not unknown to Christianity is 1 Cravvfurd, i. 139. 2 De Thiersant, “ La Mahometisme en Chine,” i , pp. 37,47. 3 Marco Polo (Vule), i. 45. ^Finlay, ‘‘Greece under the Ottomans,” p. 47, says, “A Mohammedan is authorised, or rather commanded, to educate as Moslems all children that fall legally into his power.” 5 Muir, ‘‘ Early Khalifate,” p. 86. <5 A 1 Makkari (De Gayangos’ Transl.) ii. 214. 152 ISLAM, frequently met with in the annals of Islam. Mohammed, the sovereign of the Deccan (1378— 1397), collected the orphans after a severe famine and had them brought up as Moslems.^ h)r. J. M. Arnold attributes the same practice to the Moham¬ medans of Malabar at the present day ; ^ and the Rev. E. Lewis, (L.M.S.), of Bellary, in South India, mentions a Mohammedan missionary who, at the time of the last great famine opened an orphanage for the purpose of receiving waifs and strays and instructing them in the Mohammedan religion.® In China exposed infants and orphans are similarly brought in, and it is recorded that on one occasion 10,000 infants were thus taken up and cared for by the Chinese Moslems.^ In mentioning these cases of infant conversion, we are naturally reminded of two other more celebrated developments of the same principle, the principle, namely, of taking infidels when ycung and educating them as followers of Islam. These two were the maiden tribute in Spain, and the tribute of boys exacted by the Turks from the Greek Christians. Let us take the maiden tribute first. Most modern historians have thrown doubt upon the existence of this tribute, and the general impression seems to be that it is not mentioned by any early writer. But it is distinctly spoken of in 1 Wheeler, “ Hist, of India,” iv., p. 97. 2 “ Ishmael,” p. 234. South Indian Missionary Conference,” i., p. 342. ^Dozy, ” L'lslamisme,” p. 399 ; Thiersant, i,, p. 4c, AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 153 an old charter quoted by Florez ^ (without any hint as to its not being genuine). “ Our ancestors,” says Ramiro, “ consented to pay the Saracens a shameful tribute of a hundred maidens distinguished for their beauty — fifty of noble birth, and fifty from the people.” Again, Conde ^ quotes a letter of Ibn Alaftas, King of Algarve, to Alfonso VI. in 1086 A.D., in which he bids the Spanish king remember the times of Alohammed Almanzor, and the treaties in which the Christian forefathers of the king offered the IMoslem Sultan the homage even of their own daughters, and sent him those damsels in tribute. IMoreover the tribute is alluded to in the oldest Portuguese ballad,^ and in a Spanish ballad translated by Lockhart:— “ For he who gives the Moorish king a hundred maids of Spain, Each year when in the season the day comes round again, If he be not a heathen, he swells the heathen’s train — ’Twere better burn a kingdom, than suffer such disdain. If the Moslems must have tribute, make men your tribute money. Send idle drones to tease them within their hives of honey ; For when ’tis paid with maidens, from every maid there spring Some five or six strong soldiers to serve the Moorish king.” 1 “ Espana Segrada,” xix. 329. “ Privilegium, quod dicitur Votorum anno 844 a rege Ranemiro tcclesiae B. Jacobi concessae.” “ Dominion of Arabs in Spain,” ii. 238. ® Or rather, the oldest known to Southey. 154 ISLAM, Lastly, Lucas of Tuy says Ramiro was asked for it in 842, and Roderick of Toledo attributes its institution to the weak administration of Maure- gatus, one of the earliest kings of the North (783—788)- The tribute, then, may be taken to be a his¬ torical fact, and it no doubt had some effect in increasing the ranks of the Muwallads (or rene¬ gade Spaniards). At all events the unhappy maidens themselves most probably all became Moslems, and their children, of course, were Mohammedans. Elsewhere in Moslem lands we do not hear of any similar exaction being levied, except in the single instance of the people of Kuka, in the Central Sudan, who have to pay to the ruler of Wadai, 60, 100, or even 500 maidens a year.^ The tribute of children paid to the Turks is more famous and more important, and the levying of it has been called “ the distinguishing feature of the Turkish administration ” ^ in Europe. It was first introduced by Murad I., in the shape of a tithe on the increase of male population among the conquered Greeks. The fifth of all plunder taken in war belongs, by Moslem law, to the Sultan; all conquered populations being looked upon by the conquering Turks as captives to their bow and spear, the Sultan originated the ingenious theory that 1 See Perron, Introd. to Translation of Mohammed el Tounsy’s “ Wadai,’ pp. 22, 23. 2 Finlay, " Greece under Ottomans,” p. 47. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I55 the legal fifth of each generation of subjects was due to him. Rather than have submitted to an exaction so humiliating and so prejudicial to their honour and religion, every Greek should have died. But they did, in fact, accept what they regarded as inevitable, not only with apathy, but even, it seems, with eagerness.^ The historian of the Byzantine Empire gives an interesting account of the method of collection.^ The Sultan’s officers went round the subject countries, and in every village all the children between the ages of six and nine were mustered by the head man of the village in the presence of the priest. The healthiest, strongest, and most intelligent were then chosen for the service of Allah and the Sultan. Taken to Constantinople, they were placed in colleges to be instructed, and were then sorted out, the inferior ones being placed out as slaves. Those who showed marked intelligence or talent were kept to fill administrative offices, and even came to have a prescriptive right to these offices against the born Turks. But the vast majority were trained up to serve as soldiers in the famous corps of Jani¬ zaries.^ Following another account. Creasy^ attributes the foundation of this corps to Ala ud din, the brother and vizier of Orchan (1326 — 1359. Kara Khalil Tschendeseli first suggested the raising of a corps of Christian children brought up as Moslems. The 1 Creasy, “ Ottoman Turks,” i. 161, p, ^ Yengi Cheri.or New Soldiers. ^ Creasy, i. 20. 156 ISLAM conquered, he said, are the property of the conquerors. Such action is not only lawful, but benevolent. On the children themselves we confer an incalculable boon, for is it not written in the Koran that all children are at their birth naturally disposed to Islam? He also argued that the for¬ mation of a Mohammedan army out of Christian children would induce other Christians to adopt the creed of the Prophet, so that their ranks would be recruited not only from the ranks of the conquered nations, but by volunteers from their friends and kindred.^ This tribute continued to be levied for three centuries. The last instance is said to have been in 1675, when 3,000 were paid in.^ As the royal fifth amounted in the earlier years to 1,000 chil¬ dren, and in later years to many times that number, the total of children exacted was pro¬ bably at least 500,000, constituting the very flower of the subject races—Greeks, Albanians, Bosnians, Servians, Bulgarians and Sclavonians, and even Genoese.^ Deeply as we must lament a result so prejudicial to Christianity and to Europe, we cannot but admire the masterly policy of the Turks and their success in making the subject races furnish the instruments of their own con¬ tinued subjection. Not only did the Janizaries by their discipline and valour enforce the decrees of 1 Creasy, i. 21. 2Perhaps i.ooo in 1703. See Finlay, pp. 194-5. “ Creasy, i. 14c. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 157 Islam, but the genius that directed the armies and navies of the Turks,^ and the ability that presided over the administration of the state, was in very many cases of native origin :— “ ’Twas her own genius gave the final blow, And helped to plant the wound that laid her low ; So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again. Views his own feather on the fatal dart. And wings the shaft which quivers in his heart. Keen are his pangs, but keener far to feel. He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel; While the same plumage which has warmed his nest. Drinks the last life drop of his bleeding breast.” 2 The number of Janizaries was 10,000 under Murad II., 12,000 under Mohammed II., and 40,000 under Suleiman. After the middle of the sixteenth century a great change took place in their constitution.^ Originally celibates, they had before this partly gained the privilege of marrying, and now they extorted the right of recruiting their numbers from their own children. This caused a great increase in the corps, and by the end of the century they amounted to 100,000. Soon the children of the Janizaries came to regard the right of entrance into the corps as their own ex¬ clusive privilege, which they resented sharing 1 e.g., Mahmud Pasha, twice Grand Vizier to Moham¬ med II., was a child of tribute from Greece. Also Ali Pasha, Grand Vizier to Suleiman the Great. Byron, ” English Bards.” 42 ff. 158 ISLAM, with the tribute children. The natural con¬ sequence was that the tribute came to be neglected. This result, however, was partly due to the decline in numbers of the Christian rayahs, many of whom in Albania and Asia Minor em¬ braced Islam to avoid the tax, as also did the Cretans after their conquest by the Turks. ^ Henceforth the Janizaries depended on their own children or on renegades for keeping up their strength, and their distinctive character was gone. They were no longer warriors specially dedicated from early years to the service of Islam, and taught to consider that as their peculiar duty and privilege. “ Few men,” says Finlay, “ have ever fulfilled the duties they were taught to perform in a more effectual manner. The Jesuits in South America were not more successful missionaries of Christianity than the Janizaries were of Moham¬ medanism in Christian Europe.”^ Corresponding to the infantry of the Janizaries were the Sipahi, or cavalry, recruited also at first from tribute children. But this ceased to be the case with them sooner than with the Janizaries. The Turks must receive the credit for this re¬ markable institution of a corps recruited from in¬ fidel children, but there was at least one case of imitation.® The Mamelukes of Egypt were re¬ cruited from slaves of Caucasian birth, bought ^Finlay, p. 194. p, ^2- 8 With the important difference that the Mamelukes did not serve against their own countrymen. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 159 when young, and brought up as Moslems. An inferior grade of Mamelukes were composed of Abyssinian slaves. Perhaps the Sclavonian body¬ guard of the Spanish Sultans,^ formed of slaves sold into Spain by the Franks, may come under the same category. The institution of slavery in Moslem lands no doubt tends to swell the numbers of Islam by the almost inevitable conversion of the slaves. Whether from persuasion, or more likely by force of example, or from self-interest (for a slave secures better treatment for himself by becoming a Mohammedan), most slaves in Moslem house¬ holds become Moslems. Mohammed el Tounsy, the Arab writer quoted above, distinctly asserts that the Pagan Fertyt, in the Sudan, when en¬ slaved, embrace the religion of their masters.'^ Even slaves used for domestic service by Euro¬ peans in Moslem countries tend to become Mohammedans; for, speaking of such. Sir Stam¬ ford Raffles^ says: “ Perhaps not, a single one of them becomes a Christian, but the whole become Moslems, and hate and despise their masters as infidels.” Similarly Gordon mentions the case of a black boy whom he brought from Khartum to Cairo becoming a Mussulman, “ Which evidently showed,” he adds, “ that he did not appreciate 1 Al Makkari (De Gayangos, i. 380). ■“^See his “ Wadai,” p. 280 (French translation.) 3 Life of, p. 83. l6o ISLAM, modern Christianity.” ^ Again, some tribes have accepted Islam in order to secure themselves against slavery,^ and to share in the more profit¬ able occupation of enslaving others. On the other hand, of course, the effect in many quarters has been to set the natives against the inhuman strangers who attack their peaceful villages, burn their houses to the ground, and hurry off the wretched inhabitants (who survive the slaughter) into slavery. One apologist of Islam does not scruple to assert with a heartless quibble that “ If the slave trade thrives, it is because Islam has not been introduced to those regions (viz.. East Central Africa).”^ The converse would be far more true, that Islam does not thrive because slave raids have been introduced. And what will the writer say to the following state¬ ment by Professor Vambery?^ Speaking of the slave trade in Central Asia he remarks that, “ As it is not lawful to make a Moslem a slave, his captors force the captive to deny his religion, and when called to account they say that the man had confessed to being a Shiite when he was taken. If he has now become a Sunnite, that must be attributed to the influence of the sacred soil of Turkestan. Thus is religion employed to cheat religion.” 1 “ Central Africa,” p. 400. See Sir Stamford Raffles; Life. App., p. 32. ^ Mr. Thomson, in “ Nineteenth Century,” Nov., 1887. ^ ” Sketches of Central Asia,” p. 222. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. l6l In this connection it is curious to note what is the opinion of an educated Mohammedan on this question of slave raids. Mohammed el Tounsy/ in his book on Wadai, while defending slavery and slave raids as permissible, laments that the Moslems do not first invite the people, whom they attack, to embrace Islam. “Without any at¬ tempt,” he complains, “ at peaceable proselytism they attack, fight and take them as slaves.” Once taken, their sale as idolaters is legitimate. And slave raids only require to take the colour of a Jehad to become not only legitimate but a positive duty. There is one other form of missionary effort which deserves mention. This is education. The value of education (not divorced from religion) as an aid to the propagation of Christianity, is re¬ cognised by all Christian missions. Has Moslem education been an equal aid to the spreading of Islam ? And what sort of education is this which is supplied among others to the Negroes of Africa, and of which we have lately heard such eulogies ? Some writers hostile to Protestant Christianity have even asserted that the educa¬ tion furnished in Moslem schools is better than that given in the Mission schools of Sierra Leone. It may be conceded that the Mohammedans have aroused in the natives some desire for education and have done something to satisfy this desire. Schools of a sort are to be found in Moslem 1 “ Wadai,” p. 486. i 62 ISLAM, villages ^ and even in some pagan ones. But the education given is not always of a useful character. The evidence of a missionary of Lagos® will prove this. He entered a Moslem school at Ibadan, in the Yoruba country, and after hearing them repeat their Arabic lesson, asked them to give the mean¬ ing of the words they had been saying. Not one of the scholars could do so. The master in explana¬ tion said : “ This is our sacred language. I teach them to repeat and to write certain portions of it. When these are written on paper, they are folded up and stitched in a leather cover to be used as charms. But when they are written on a board and washed off into water, that water is given to sick persons and acts as a charm when they drink it.” Though this may be an extreme instance, yet the meagre character of the education given by Moslem teachers, in Africa at least, is evident from the complaint of Mahommed el Tounsy,^ that the Sudan Moslems, though not deficient as regards the pleasures of the table, relations of the sexes, and arrangement of their dwellings, remain profoundly ignorant of all the attainments which characterise man and constitute the proper domain of his intelligence. His studies, when he has any, are 1 At these schools, just as at our mission schools in India, pagan children, as well as believers, are taught. See Mungo Park, i. 63, ii. 132 (Cassell’s Nat. Libr.) 2 Rev. E. Roper, quoted in C.M. Intelligencer, Feb., 1888. ^P. 307. On page341 he says; “ The books which sell are on jurisprudence and the traditions.” AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 163 religious and civil jurisprudence, according to his rite (generally that of Malik ibn Ans). To this he adds some theological notions on the unity of God, some elements of analytical grammar, which com¬ prise the whole field of knowledge explored by the Ulema, the savants of Islam. In their eyes, to study the science of physics, medicine, botany, or such things, stamps the student as a philosopher or atheist. An advocate of the “ new learning ” would most likely be met by the characteristic objection : “ How can we find time for these studies and for our five daily prayers and pre¬ scribed rites ? ” which objection, if we consider it, goes really to the root of the matter. Islam was never intended for a civilization higher than that of the Arabs in the seventh century. “ UrA}'-ers, war, women,” form, as Palgrave epigrammatically says, “ the core of the Koran.” Anything outside the charmed circle of the Koran is, in the Bible sense of the term, naught. The celebrated dictum of Omar sums up the question : “ All knowledge that agrees with the Koran is superfluous, all that differs from it pernicious.” Is not all this talk, then, about Moslem education in Africa exaggerated and misleading ? We are told that throughout Mohammedan Africa, educa¬ tion is compulsory.^ If it be so, it is so much in the same way that Mohammedanism itself is compulsory in those regions. Non-attendance at school and a failure to learn the Koran may be iBlyden, p. 360. 164 ISLAM, punished with stripes, just as non-attendance at mosque, and a failure to say the requisite prayers is punished with stripes in Bokhara, Nejd, and other centres of Mohammedan bigotry. But even the partiality of an apologist, in describing the books taught, has only been able to adduce the titles of such works as the Moallakat, or Prize Poems; the Makamet of Hariri (a grammatico- philological work); a grammatical poem of Ibn Malik ; and the traditions of Bokhari, which, with a little arithmetic and the everlasting Koran, form the staple of this vaunted education, which teaches nothing but Arabic and Islam. Such are the methods by which Islam has been propagated, and the elements which have contri¬ buted to its success. In this part of the subject it only remains to mention the difficulties which still attend any attempt by a Moslem to apostatize from his religion. On this point the law of Islam is plain. For an apostate there is but one punish¬ ment—death, and that often of a most barbarous character, as when Geronimus was built into the wall of Algiers, in 1569. A female apostate is subject to any punishment short of death. This inhuman law, which still remains unrepealed in Moslem countries, and was actually enforced in Turkey as late as 1854, now scarcely be applied within the sphere of European influence ; but the teaching of Islam on the subject is quite plain, and no doubt it has had, and in some places still has, its deterrent effect. But it is quite in¬ correct to say, as some are saying, that a man once AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 165 a Moslem is always a Moslem. That is by no means so. The shield of Islam is not of so impenetrable a material. On the other hand, the days when Christians could go over to the Moslem faith by scores and by hundreds are over for ever, and the balance is slowly but steadily tending in the opposite direction. Yet even in former times, when Islam was still a great power in the world, Mohammed¬ anism was driven out of Sicily, Crete, Spain, and Madagascar. But apart from these, it is an un¬ doubted fact that conversion from Islam to Christi¬ anity is by no means the uncommon thing it is supposed to be. Not only did many Moriscoes abjure their faith after the fall of Granada in the fifteenth century, but even under the Arab domination apostates from Islam were sufficiently numerous to have a class name, viz., Muraddiin.^ On the conquest of the Morea by the Venetians, many Moslem families (the accounts mention as many as 1,317 families) were converted to Christianity, which their ancestors had forsaken in order to escape persecution.^ Palgrave mentions the conversion to Maronite Christianity of the old Arab family of Shehab, on Mount Lebanon, who claim relationship with the family of the Prophet; also of a Druse family in the same district.® While another author men- 1A 1 Makkari, ii. 458, (De Gayangos ) 2 Finlay, “ Greece under Ottomans,” p, 237. 3 ” Essays on Eastern Subjects,” 196. ISLAM, 166 tions the spontaneous conversion of an Arab Sheik on his death-bed and Kinglake that of a Bedouin woman.^ In a letter published in the Record of December 5, 1887, the Rev. T. R. Wade, C.M.S., pointed out that in the Punjaub the conversion of Moham¬ medans by Christian missions cannot be called rare in any sense. Out of twelve native clergy¬ men working in the Punjaub six are converted Mohammedans, while one other at least has been ordained to another province. In Amritsur four out of the five catechists are converted Moham¬ medans, and also a former member of the Civil Service now working as a lay missionary. In the Lahore divinity school from its foundation in 1870 to 1876, out of forty-six students, twenty-one were converts from Islam, ten others being Hindus, and one a Sikh. The same evidence is forthcoming from Africa. Archdeacon Farler, writing to the Guardian^ says: “ Last week a Mohammedan Mualim was baptized by our Bishop in one of the sub-stations ; yesterday I baptized a young man, the dying son of a Mohammedan, at his father’s earnest request. I am now preparing for baptism another Moham¬ medan Mualim and two Mohammedan master tradesmen. Three of our most promising teachers, two of whom are preparing for holy orders, are Mohammedan converts. I am speaking now only 1 See “ I go a-fishing,” by W. C. Prime, p. 172. 2 “ Eothen,” p. 197. ® Dec., 1887. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 167 of the results of our work in one tribe. In a number of villages in the neighbourhood of this station (Magila) where I remember seeing a mosque a few years ago, there is now a school chapel, while the mosques have fallen down and no one rebuilds them.” ^ All this, rather than bearing out the pessimist view, seems to recall the sanguine words of honest Sir John Maun- deville, quoted above with respect to Moslems: “ And because they go so nigh our faith, they are easily converted to Christian law, when men preach to them and show them distinctly the law of Jesus Christ, and tell them of the prophecies.” 1 At the recent Missionary Conference in London, the Rev. Dr, Schreiber, speaking of Dutch India, mentioned that the number of converts from Islam was considerable. See the Christian, June 15th, 1888. ISLAM, 168 CHAPTER X. THE WAHABEES AND FOULAHS. It remains for us now to examine the present condition of Islam, the extent of its sway, the number of its adherents, and especially the recent developments it has undergone and the accessions it has received during the present century, con¬ cluding with an estimate of its probable history in the future. An author favourable to Islam ^ has estimated the total number of its follow’ers in all parts of the world as 175 millions, deducing this result from the supposed number of pilgrims to Mecca. The pilgrims amount to rather less than 100,000, and the Moslem population are thus given ; Ottoman sub¬ jects, 22 millions; Egypt, 5 ; Arabia, 11 ; North and North-West Africa, 18 ; Negroes, ; Persia, 8 ; Indians, 40; Chinese, 15 ; Malays, 30 ; Central Asia, 6 ; Lazistan and Circassia, 5 ; Afghanistan, 3. But this total is probably under the mark. Cardinal Lavigerie, quoted by Dr. Blyden, ^ holds that there are in Africa 60,000,000 Moslems, which is nearly double Mr. Blunt’s estimate; while the W. S. Blunt. ^ P- 37 ^« AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 169 greatest authority on Chinese Islam ^ states that the number of Moslems in China, not including de¬ pendent countries, is 20 millions at least, and that they are distributed as follows : Kansu, 8f millions; Shensi, 6d; Shansi and South Mongolia, 50,000 ; Tcheelee, 250,000; Shantung, 200,000; Kuang- tung, 21,000; Honan, 200,000; Yunnan, 3I mil¬ lions; and the other districts nearly half-a-million. Again, in India the census reports show that the total Moslem population is 50 millions or near it. We shall not be far wrong, then, if we reckon the total muster of the followers of Islam at 200 millions, a number exceeded by the adherents of no other creed with the exception of Christianity, for we cannot acquiesce in the enumeration which ac¬ credits Buddhism with 500 million followers. More than three-quarters of these Moslems belong to the orthodox or Sunnite sect. The Shiites number some 15 millions, and are almost confined to Persia and India. The only other sects of im¬ portance are the Abadyites in Omar, Bahrein, and North Africa, and the Wahabees, and their off¬ shoots, who have been called the Puritans of Islam. Their history is as follows : A certain Arab ^ Abd al Wahab, of the tribe of Temyn and of the clan Wahab, born at Al Hauta, in Nejd, in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, after spending several years in travelling among the chief cities of the East, returned to his iDe Thiersant, “ La Mahometisme en Chine,” i., p. 38 ff. 2 Burchardt, “ Notes on Wahabets,” ii. 95. 170 ISLAM, native land with a deeprooted conviction that Islam had become badly corrupted from its divine original. With these feelings he retired to Dereyeeyah, a neighbouring town of Nejd, and there inoculated with his own discontent Mo¬ hammed ibn Saoud, the local chieftain, who married his daughter. The Bedouins never had embraced Islam sincerely, and Mohammed, in the Koran, had hurled his anathemas at them for their hypocrisy and apostasy, and on his death, it was only the firmness and policy of Abu Bekr and Omar that brought them back to the Moham¬ medan fold. For the most part they knew little, and cared less, for the doctrines of the Prophet. Their attitude now is one of complete indifference, where it is not one of direct opposition, to Islam.^ In any case they will have none of it. An epi¬ grammatic writer sums up their arguments thus : Mohammed’s religion was never intended for us. It enjoins ablution—but we have no water ; alms— but we have no money; a fast—but we are always fasting ; pilgrimage—but God is everywhere.^ In fact of all Moslem nations the Arabs of the desert were, and are, the least Mohammedan; while the Arabs of the cities, Mecca and Medina above all, are notorious for their evil living.® “The torch burns dark at its foot,” says the Eastern proverb, iPalgrave, “Arabia,” ii. 168. The cry at Hofhof was “ Down with the Moslems! ” Dozy, “ LTslamisme,” 527. ^Palgrave, “Arabia,” i. 257 ; Burchardt, ii. 147. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I7I in acknowledging and accounting for this state of things. Abd al Wahab and his ally attempted to re¬ kindle the flame of Islam in its native Arabia, or, as Palgrave, by a happy metaphor, expresses it, “ to put back the hour hand of Islam to its starting point.” ^ In thirty years their doctrines and po¬ litical influence were spread by missionaries over nearly the whole of Arabia, except the Hedjaz. A Jehad was the inevitable consequence, but a Jehad not only against infidels, but even more against heretic Moslems, which, in the mouth of a a Wahabee, meant all other Moslems except those of his own persuasion. The Turks with the Sultan, the titular head of Islam, retaliated by retorting the charge of heresy. Consequently the Reformers found arrayed against them all the weight of vested interests, all the vis inevticd of those who wished to remain as they were, and they had to deal with a military power which, though no match for European states, was even in its decay no con¬ temptible foe. The first direct collision with the Turks occurred in 1792, when the Shereef of Mecca, alarmed at the progress of the Reformers, took up a hostile attitude. In the first year of the current century the Wahabees showed their iconoclastic tendencies by sacking the sacred city of the Shiahs, Imam Hosein, thus setting against themselves the schis¬ matic Persians as well as the orthodox Turks. In 1 i. 372. 172 ISLAM, the following year they alienated the sympathies of the wdiole Moslem world by interrupting the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Shortly afterwards the sacred city itself fell into their hands, being evacuated by the Shereef Ghalib. In 1804 Medina was taken, and the sacrilegious destruc¬ tion of the Prophet’s tomb aroused against the Wahabees the indignation of every true believer. The star of the Wahabees now began to wane, and their onward career was checked by Mohammed Ali, the Turkish General, under whose command a renegade Scotchman, Thomas Keith, of the 72nd Highlanders, known by the Moslem name of Ibrahim, specially distinguished himself by his extraordinary bravery till he fell in battle. In 1813 Mecca and Medina were re-taken by the Turks, and the Wahabees received a final defeat at Byssel in the year when Waterloo was won. Abdullah, the leader of the Wahabees at this time, was executed at Constantinople three years later, and finally Dereyeeyah, the head¬ quarters of the sect, was taken by Ibrahim Pasha. But the Wahabees are by no means extinct, and though their power has been curtailed, their fanaticism is as fierce as ever. We owe to the Arabian traveller Palgrave a very graphic account of their bigotry and the gross immorality which is associated with it—and yet the reform of moral abuses w^as one of the cardinal points of their crusade!^ In almost every respect their doctrines ^ Burchardt, ii. 99. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I73 were identical with the primitive doctrines of Islam. They inveighed against the worship of Mohammed and of Moslem saints, denying that men could be intercessors for men. They anathe¬ matized the use of rosaries and of silk, and the smoking of tobacco. Lastly, they upheld the right of private interpretation of the Koran and Tradition. Like the Almohades of Africa, they called themselves Unitarians and proclaimed war against all other Moslems and polytheists in the true Mohammedan fashion. But, unfortunately for them, things had changed since the successful Jehad of Mohammed’s time, and the warlike mis¬ sionary is now an anachronism except in the heart of Africa ; to which w^e will now turn. A French writer^ complacently attributes these warlike movements which have agitated Moham¬ medan countries in the early part of this century to the influence of Napoleon and his doings in Egypt. Absurd as such a contention is, it is a curious coincidence that the Wahabee power was overthrown in the very year of Waterloo, and that parallel with the Wahabee reaction in Arabia ran the rise of the Foulahs in West Africa. The Fulbe,^ or Foulahs, are probably of Berber race and migrated southward at some unknown period in the past. Though by frequent inter¬ marriage with the Negroes they have become 1 M. Jomard, Preface to Perron’s Translation of Moham¬ med el TouQsy, p. 10. 2 Singular, Pulo or Fula ; a word meaning “brown” or “ } ellow.’’ 174 ISLAM, almost as dark as they, yet they differ from the Blacks in features, and still boast of their own fair colour. Settled as aliens among the Negroes they pursued the peaceful and somewhat despised calling of shepherds, like the Wahuma (a similar race) in Uganda. In this their helpless and home¬ less condition a deliverer arose up among them in the person of Othman dan' Fodio,^ one of the priests of Gober. Born in the middle of the eighteenth century, he went, when grown to man¬ hood, as a pilgrim to Mecca,^ and there perhaps became inoculated with Wahabee notions. At all events on his return he had a vision in which Mohammed appeared to him, and informed him that all the fine country in which they lived belonged by right to the true believers, to wit, the Foulahs,^ and that he, Othman, the son of Fodio, was divinely commissioned to be the missionary of Islam, and to drive out the infidels, devoting to the sword everyone who refused to believe. Welded into one compact whole by the re¬ ligious enthusiasm excited by their Prophet, the Foulahs were suddenly transformed from shep¬ herds into warriors. The armed Foulah became the missionary of Islam in Africa just as the Arab had been elsewhere. On the spot where the vision had appeared to him Othman founded a city—Sokoto, the capital of his Empire. The ^ Barth, “ Travels in Africa,” ii. 39. 2 Koelle, “ Polyglotta Africana,” p. 18. "The Foulahs had become Moslems at some unknown time previously. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I75 Jehad began at the very beginning of the present century, and Othman, aided by his brother, A 1 Allahi, led on his fellow-tribesmen to attack their neighbours, Moslem or pagan. That their motives were those of temporal, as well as spiritual, ambition is clear ; and we know that some of the conquered tribes felt no doubt on this point.^ The Arab El Tounsy expressly asserts that in his opinion the pretence of religious reform was only a pretext, invented by the Prophet to give his ambition a colourable motive. The same author has fortunately given us a very interesting account of the Reformer’s doc¬ trines.^ After inveighing against the Foulahs for daring to shed the blood of true believers, in flagrant violation of the Koran, he goes on to give their principal tenets. They accused all the other Moslems of the Sudan of impiety and heresy, maintaining that they ought to be broughi back to the right way by force of arms—a doc¬ trine manifestly drawn from Wahabeeism. The chief sins imputed to the Sudanese were : (a) Violation of the Koranic law by commuting punishments for money. (b) Illegal innovations, such as Saint-worship. ' (r). Adultery; incest; the use of fermented liquors and amulets ; and the indulgence in songs and dances. 1 W. Reade, “ African Sketches,” iv. 42S. 2 El Tounsy, p. 304. 176 ISLAM, [d). Omission of prayers and alms, and the discontinuance of the veil. As an example of the Prophet’s proclamations, we may take the following, quoted by the same author: “ The Servant of God, the faqui Zaky,^ to the king of Mella. Hearken ! God hath given His ordinances, and you and yours have transgressed them ; He has enjoined duties, and you forget them; has established prohibitions, and you set them at naught. I forbid you to violate the precepts of God and His Prophet. I order you to conform to the law of God, and to abolish the customs and transport duties, and to follow exactly the penal regulations revealed in the Koran. In a word, do you and your subjects submit rigorously to the maxims of Islam, because otherwise you can be Moslems only in name. Obey my words, or I shall rise against you as the first Abu Bekr did against those who refused to bring the alms destined for the poor and needy.” ^ This epistle being disregarded, the Foulahs attacked and subdued Mella, putting the king to death. Marching with texts of the Koran on their banners, and looking for Paradise under the shadow of their swords, the Foulah warriors 1 This is the name by which Othman seems to be known in this book. 2 El Tounsy (French translation) p. 291. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 177 successively subdued the countries of Mella, Noufah, Kachneh, Afnan, Adiguiz, Bornu—in fact, all Central Sudan. In all these provinces Islam of the most Puritan kind was established and enforced.^ Those who were absent from mosque were even threatened with death, and minor offenders were fined or flogged. On the fall of Bornu, the Sultan fled to Kanem, where the Governor, Mohammed Emyn, calling to his aid the same religious enthusiasm ^ which consti¬ tuted the strength of his rival, succeeded in defeating the Foulahs and putting a limit to their conquests in the direction of Egypt. This occurred in 1805, at the very time when W ahabeeism was beginning to retreat before the Turks in Arabia, and, in Europe, Napoleon’s dream of world-wide empire had found a rough and decisive awakening at Trafalgar. But though foiled in their advance eastward, the Foulahs have not ceased to make conquests in other directions up to this day. Two other notable Negro tribes have adopted Islam and joined the Foulahs in their aggressive movements. These are the Mandingoes and the Jaloffs; and a large portion of Africa, including much of the Sudan, has felt the force of their arms. Dan Fodio died in 1817, dividing his empire 1 cf. for similar proceedings at Bokhara, Vambery’s book on that country, p. 362, and Burnes, “Bokh.,” ii. 243; W. Reade, “ African Studies,” i. 438, 2 A year was spent in preparation, prayer, and humiliation before God. See El Tounsy, p. 304. N 178 ISLAM, between two successors. The easterly portion with the capital Sokoto, a territory about the size of Spain, went to Bello; the westerly with the capital Gando,^ as far as the Binue, to Abdullah. No doubt these two kings carried on the good work of coercing the infidels, so ably begun by their predecessor, but we know nothing of their proceedings. It will be sufficient, in order to get an idea of the method employed by these Foulah fanatics to convert their neighbours and the success which attends them, if we trace the doings of their later military apostles. These are Omaru the Pilgrim, and Alimany Samadu. Omani the Pilgrim ^ was a native of Futah Toro. He was brought up by the Sheik Tijani, a Aloslem missionary from Arabia, and after spending several years with him and becoming proficient in Arabic, he visited Mecca thrice. After his teacher’s death he took up the part of Prophet and leader against the infidels.^ Conquering several tribes east and south-east of Futah Toro, he banished paganism from Sego and restored the corrupt Islam which prevailed in these districts to its original purity. In 1864 he attacked Timbuctu and expelled the Arabs from it,^ but was killed soon after by the treachery of the Arabs. 1 See Stanford’s “ Africa,” p. 163. • ^Blyden, p. 10. '^The C.d/. Intelligencer, Dec., 18S7, says, “ Omar, at the head of 20,000 fanatics and plunderers, swooped down upon the Mandingoes of Bambuk and then of Bambarra. * Blydt n, i. 41. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 179 His son Ahmada reigns over Sego, and another son over Hamd allahi. We may, perhaps, judge of the way in which the Jaloffs became Moslems by the instructive account given by Mungo Park ^ of the proceedings of Abd el Kader, king of Futa Toro, a devout Mos¬ lem at the end of last century. This worthy, after converting Kasson in the manner described above, sent a similar embassy, requiring submission to Darnel, the Jaloff king. The ambassadors carried with them two long poles, with knives fixed to the top. In presenting these emblems to Darnel, the chief ambassador said: “ With this knife Abd el Kader will condescend to shave the head of Darnel if Darnel will embrace the Mohammedan faith ; with this other knife Abd el Kader will cut the throat of Darnel, if Daniel refuses to embrace it; take your choice.” Darnel refused to accept either alternative, and Abd el Kader invaded his dominions, not with success, however, his army being cut to pieces and himself taken prison. Being brought before Darnel, the Jaloff king addressed him as follows : “ Abd el Kader, answer me this question : If the chance of war had placed me in your situation, and you in mine, how would you have treated me ? ” “I would have thrust my spear into your heart,” returned Abd el Kader with great firmness ; “ and I know that a similar fate awaits me.” “Not so,” said Darnel; “my spear is indeed red with the blood of your subjects killed in battle, and I could even give it a deeper stain III. 160. Cassell’s Nat. Lib. i8o ISLAM, by dipping it in your own ; but this would not build up my towns, nor bring to life the thou • sands who fell in the woods. I will not, therefore, kill you in cold blood, but retain you as my slave until I perceive that your presence in your own kingdom will be no longer dangerous to your neighbours.” He finally restored him to his kingdom. In the face of this story, what becomes of the contention of Mr. Bosworth Smith and others that Islam has humanised, civilised, and improved in every way the native races of West Africa ? The other apostle of the Jehad, who is still living, Almani Samudu (or Samory), a Mandingo of Sanankodu in the Koniah country, was born about 1830.^ Being taken prisoner when quite young he became the slave of a Marabout named Fodi Moussa.^ Here he developed a Moham¬ medanism of a very bigoted type, and collecting a band of followers round him, soon felt strong enough to follow the example of all Mohammedan Prophets and proclaim a Jehad. A native account of Samudu, quoted by Dr. Blyden, says:® “God conferred upon him His help continually after he began the work of visiting the Pagans who dwell betw^een the sea and the country of Wassulu, with a view of inviting them to follow the religion of God, which is Islam.” His first effort was at a town named Fulindiyah. “ Following the book and the law and the traditions, he sent messengers to the king 1 Blyden, p. 357. 2 See Standard, Oct 10, i 88 t 5 . ®p.358. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. l8l at that town, Sindidu by name, inviting him to submit to his government, abandon the worship of idols and worship one God. . . . but they refused. Then he imposed a tribute upon them as the Koran commands on this subject ; but they persisted in their blindness and deafness. The Imam then collected a small force of about 500 men, brave and valiant, for the Jehad, and he fought against the town, and the Lord helped him against them, and gave him the victory over them .... until they submitted.” This was in the decade 1870—1880. After a period of uninterrupted success he encoun¬ tered the French in the course of his conquests to the North. Three crushing defeats at the hands of very inferior forces sufficed to convince him that any further aggression in that quarter had better be abandoned. Accordingly he turned his arms southward and overran the districts of Koranko, Limba,andSulimia. The kingdom ofFutah Jallon, or Lower Futah, was occupied, with its capital Timbo ; but the Sulimus, a Susu race, declining either “ to pay or pray,” ^ migrated and founded a new centre of opposition to the Moslem power at Falaba. Here for many years they made a brave and successful resistance against the Hubus, a tribe of Mahommedan fanatics (who having seceded from the Foulah Empire, were conducting a Jehad of their own under a certain Mohammedan Jubi),^ and also against Samudu himself. In 1884 Falaba fell. 1 W. Reade, ii. 412. 2C.M. Intelligencer, Nov., 1887. i 82 ISLAM, Dr. Blyden gives the following account of its cap¬ ture on the authority of the Government interpreter of Sierra Leoned The King Sewah invited the members of his royal family and many of his chief men into a large house stored with gunpowder, and thus addressed them :—“ Falaba is an ancient country and never has been conquered by any tribe : it has always been ruling, never ruled. I will never submit to Islam. If any of you choose to become Moslems you are at liberty to do so.” All replied, “We would rather die than become Moslems.” The king then fired the powder. Such are the methods by which the much-lauded Islam is propagated within 250 miles of the Christian Republic of Liberia, and such is the acceptance it finds among the natives. But a worse picture remains behind, which the correspon¬ dent of the Standard has drawn for us in an article on the death of Major Besting.^ “ The messengers report that every town and village which they passed was in ruins, and that the road, from the borders of Sulimania to Herintakono was lined with human skeletons, the remains of the unfortunates who had been slain by Samudu’s fanatical soldiery, or had perished from starvation through the devastation of their entire country. Around the ruined towns were hundreds of doubled-up skeletons, the remains of prisoners, who, bound hand and foot, had been forced upon their knees and their heads struck off .... 1 Blyden, p. 359. 2 Oct. 10, 188S. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I S3 The most horrible atrocities were committed; peace¬ able agriculturists were slaughtered by thousands, and their women and children carried into slavery.” Keba, the Bambarra King, when last heard of, was still holding out in his last stronghold. His destruc¬ tion will leave the “ Mahdi of the West ” free to fulfil his boast of invading the British settlements on the coast. This danger to us would be much increased if the powerful native states of Dahomey and Ashantee^ were to embrace the religion of the Foulahs, and make common cause with them. The size of the Foulah Empire has been estimated at 175,000 square miles, but the sphere of their activity is not entirely confined to this region. Individual Foulahs are to be found holding high posts in the Government of Darfur and Wadai, though regarded with fear and dislike.'^ Mohammed el Tounsy, who thoroughly dislikes them, compares them to the Russians in their passion for conquest, and to the Spaniards in their bigotry. It remains to be seen whether this nation of Puritan Moslems will be able to effect any considerable conversions among native Africans without an appeal to that potent missionary agency — the sword. The day for such an appeal in Mohammedan countries is well nigh 1 Dr. Blyden regards this conversion as a question of time merely fp. 357), but his partiality lor Islam perhaps mis¬ leads him. 2 Perron, Introd. to translation of El Tounsy’s ” Wadai,” p. 16. 184 ISLAM, over. Africa, in particular, is being parcelled out between the nations of Europe. Timbuctu is already in French eyes a dependency of France. The Lower Niger is practically an English river. The vast Congo State is under Belgian protec¬ tion. Emin Pasha—we may still hope—makes head against the forces of anarchy and communism, whose head-quarters are Kartum, and against the unspeakable atrocities of the cowardly Danagla ; while the thrilling accounts of the collision between the Arabs and the English in Equatorial Africa, combined with the establish¬ ment of a British East African Company, and the talk of German interference in those regions, tend to show that the reign of the Arabs is over in that quarter at least of Africa. Any further conquests they may make for their religion will be —must be — due to preaching alone. But the Koran without the sword, or at least without political influence to back it, has always proved but a feeble instrument of persuasion. But has not the actual success of Islam in Africa, as a converting power, been made rather too much of by Messrs. Bosworth Smith, Blyden and the rest ? North Africa and Egypt, which contain the vast majority of African Moslems, were conquered and converted a thousand years ago. Even to this day, as an Arab writer himself con¬ fesses, the Sudan Moslems are very few in number compared to the idolaters — “ like a ring cast into the desert.” ^ It has been the genius 1 Mohammed el Tounsy, p. 274. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 185 and enthusiasm of a single scattered tribe in West Africa which has done all that has been done for Islam during the last lOO years, and there can be little doubt that any European state, however small, could, if the climate were less deadly, have done as much and far more for Christianity, if conversion by the sword had been (still) permissible to Christians. When we consider the immense influence that General Gordon had over the bigoted Moslems of Darfur and Kordofan, we cannot but deeply regret that England, owing to the incredible futility of her Party Government, lost the golden opportunity, which may never recur, of governing the Sudan on the principles of Christian Govern¬ ment. Moslem misrule has made the inhabitants of the Sudan ready to appreciate the blessings of a civilized Christianity ; and General Gordon tells us how the Darfurians, who used to be so fanatical that they would never let a Christian into their country, even begged him ’ to appoint Christians governors over them.^ It is doubtful whether any professed missionary ever accom¬ plished so much for Christianity among a Moslem population as Gordon did in the Sudan. The introduction and spread of Islam in the Central Sudan has been already fully dealt with, but it must always remain a surprise that that religion, having done so much in these regions, has long ceased to do any more. A large immigration of 1 Gordon, '• Central Africa,” p- 239- ISLAM I 35 Arabs, and the conversion of four or five influential tribes, who, in turn, have conquered certain others, —that isthe extent of Moslem success in the Sudan. Instead of converting their Southern neighbours, the Sudanese Moslems have spent their whole energies in trying to enslave them. The base motives of greed and cruelty have taken the place of the religious enthusiasm and chivalrous gene¬ rosity which formerly distinguished the followers of Islam. We are not, therefore, surprised, when Emin Pasha tells us^ that Islam, in the last twenty years, has scarcely made ten proselytes in the whole of the Central Provinces. “ A greater proof of administrative failure (he adds) could hardly be given.” Even the revolt under the Mahdi, which has been ascribed by some to true religious I enthusiasm, was much more probably due, as I Gordon^ held, to social and economic causes. \ These the Mahdi turned to the furtherance of his own ambitious ends ; and, in his assumed cha¬ racter of Prophet and religious guide, claimed to be the leader of a new Crescentade against all heretics, infidels, and pagans alike. In fact he arrogated to himself, under a higher title than they, the mission of the Wahabee and Foulah Prophets. The following proclamation will throw light on his claims:— “ Let all show penitence before God, and abandon all bad and forbidden habits such as the 1 “ Letters,” p. 414. ‘‘ Journals,” p. iS, etc. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 187 degrading acts of the flesh, the use of wine, to¬ bacco, lying, false witness, disobedience to parents, brigandage, non-restitution of goods to others, the clapping of hands, dancing, improper signs with the eyes, tears and lamentations over the dead, slander, calumny, and the company of strange women. ^Clothe your women in a decent way, and let them be careful not to speak to unknown persons.” ^ Had the Mahdi lived and been able to effect a junction with the Foulah element in the West, the Mohammedan revival would assuredly have been a formidable phenomenon, but in its present condition the power of the Dervishes does not give much cause for alarm. If the Moslems of the Sudan have been unsuc¬ cessful in converting the pagans around them, or indifferent to doing so, those of East Africa have been no better. Beyond the nominal conversion of the kings, Mtesa and Mwanga in Uganda, and a few of their people, where the Arabs have been aroused to missionary activity by their jealousy of Christian influence, they have done nothing for their religion in the last i,ooo years. The incredible atrocities of their slave raids have been sufficiently described by Livingstone,^ Professor Drummond,^ Mr. Thomson,^ and not even the 1 Gordon’s “ Journals,” p. 483. ^ a Last Journals,” ii. 33. 3 Drummond, ‘‘Tropical Africa,” pp. 71,73. 4 Jos. Thomson, ‘‘ Through Masai Land,” p. 506. ISLAM, 188 professed apologists for Islam can say a good word for the East African Moslems. We hear much of the good that Islam is supposed to have effected in Africa—the civilization, even education, which it has introduced, the superstitions and debasing rites which it has abolished; but these encomiums, if deserved at all (and it is doubtful how far they are deserved), can only apply to the Moslems of West Africa, and these loud panegyrists of all that is Mohammedan have omitted to explain how it is that the most advanced and finest races of Africa, with the exception of the Foulahs and Mandingoes, have refused with one accord to accept Islam. Not to mention the Dinkas and Bongos in Central Africa, the great Monbutto race, of whom Schwein- furth gives so interesting and surprising an account, is utterly hostile to the Danagla, who have in¬ vaded and devastated their country, killing their king, and taking their countrymen into slavery. Again, the traveller Mr. H. H. Johnston ^ notices it a curious subject for reflection, that Islam should have been powerless in its appeals to the Masai, who would, it might be supposed, have made ideal warriors for Islam. It has been the same, or nearly the same, with the Waganda, Wanyoro, and Wanyika, who abhor Islam and its followers. This part of the subject Canon Taylor dismisses by admitting that the Bantu races have shown no liking for his much-praised religion. Even in the West of Africa the strong and masterful races of 1 '• Kilimanjaro Expedition,” p. 408. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 189 Dahomey and Ashantee remain pagans, because they are powerful enough to resist the Moham¬ medan argument of the sword. The Arab has failed, and his day is over. May we hope that Christianity, which has gained so fair a footing in Uganda, may succeed where Islam has failed, and triumph in spite of the sneers of her enemies at home ; in spite of Arab opposition and German jealousy ; and in the face of the disadvantages of a deadly climate which has already girdled Africa with a chain of English graves.^ 1 Drummond, p 45 ISLAM 190 CHAPTER XL THE PRESENT CHARACTER OF ISLAM. The Wahabee revival has not been confined to Arabia and Africa : it has found its way by means of pilgrims even to India, and the Malay Archipel¬ ago. Its appearance and progress in India has been hailed by some as the advent of a brighter day for Islam, but the grave political danger, which underlies the very essence of Wahabeeism, has made the cooler-headed reasoners look with alarm on any further development of this Puritan Islam in our great dependency. The foremost tenet of this reformed creed is the necessity of a Jehad, and the trouble these doctrines have caused the British Government in India have been ably set forth by Sir W. Hunter in his book on “ Our Indian Mussulmans.” ^ A certain Sayyed Ahmed, born 1786, after living for some years as a bandit, became a student of Moslem theology, and set up as a reformer, making many disciples, at first among the Rohillas, and afterwards in Calcutta and Bombay. He made Patna his headquarters and levied regular taxes on trade profits. His subordinate officers were iPp. 13 ff. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. IQI four vice-regents and a high priest named Moham¬ med Husain. In 1822 he went to Mecca, and on Ihs return, being filled with Wahabee zeal, he preached a Jehad against the Sikhs, whose de¬ struction was to be followed by the extirpation of all infidels from Afghanistan to China. The Pathans and the Hill tribes on the North-West frontier of the Punjaub speedily joined him. The Jehad opened on Dec. 21, 1826, but did not meet with much success against the brave and disciplined Sikhs. Nor does Ahmed seem to have won the con¬ fidence even of the Mohammedans of this region, for the Moslem governor of Peshawur tried to poison him. The rebels, however, managed to take Peshawur in 1830, and Ahmed took the title of Khalif; but in the following year he fell in battle against the Sikhs. The Jehad then resolved itself into the establishment of a camp of marauders on the Punjaub frontier, who were being constantly recruited by missionaries in British India. Chief among these agents were two of the vice-regents, I nay at and Wileyat Ali, who preached with such impunity and success that between 1850 and 1857 sixteen frontier wars were required against these fanatics. In 1857 the Sittana colony was de¬ stroyed by the British, but it soon gathered head again, and was not decisively dispersed till 1863. The belief in Ahmed’s prophetic character was kept up by his lieutenants in India, who gave out that he was not dead, and in spite of their impostures being detected, they continued to make hundreds of converts or recruits. Wileyat All 192 ISLAM, went on a missionary tour through Bengal, Bom¬ bay, the Nizamat, and Central India, while his colleague traversed the lower provinces. Other missionaries were Karamat Ali and Zain ul ab din, and Titu Mayan, an ex-prizefighter and Hadji, who, resorting too soon to the familiar Moslem weapon of the sword, was slain. Ahmed’s reform was intended to purify Islam from the Hindu taint contracted in 800 years of close contact. This showed itself chiefly in idola¬ trous ceremonies as to marriage, funerals, pro¬ cessions, and such like, as well as wmrship of saints and angels, which was, perhaps, due partly to the Shiite influence. The usual incitements were employed to stir up the true believers to battle. The apostles of Patna, untiring in their zeal, and exemplary in their lives, met with an astonishing amount of success, some of their con¬ verts being worked upon by a true religious awakening, others by their hatred for a foreign raj. Fanatical crowds were forwarded to their destination at the rebel settlement, ^ and the more promising converts were chosen and instructed as missionaries. A true Moslem—this was their teaching—must either fight or flee the country. Sir William Hunter speaks highly of these missionaries as spiritual and unselfish men, and such is the character they still bear in Delhi and elsewhere. “ They don’t preach treason,” says the same authority, “ but doctrines which lead to 1 Hunter, p. 6g. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I93 it.” It is unfortunate that reform of Islam cannot be divorced from rebellion against the ruling power. Islam, unhappily, never contemplated its own subjection, and a return to Mohammed’s Islam means a revolt against all that is not Moslem. This being so, it is not at all surprising that some of the fiercer missionaries appeal to the seditious impulses of their hearers. Sir William Hunter^ gives four methods by which the sect was spread in India by, (i) treasonable literature, (2) the headquarter staff at Patna, (3) missionaries, (4) rebel settlements throughout Bengal. The history of one of the converts is interesting. Munshi Jaffir, of Thaneswar, was till 1856 a scrivener and writer of petitions. Being then converted to Wahabee principles and thinking his profession degrading and contrary to his religion, he joined the Mutineers in 1857, and returned to his pettifogging work after the fall of Delhi, but remained a secret rebel until charged with treason and condemned. The Farazis or New Mussulmans, another reforming sect of Islam, which numbered some 100,000 followers in Bengal, coalesced with the Wahabees, and the two together caused the Indian Government an amount of trouble out of all pro¬ portion to their numbers, in spite, too, of the dis¬ like and suspicion with which they were regarded by the orthodox Moslems who hold the position, and have to defend the interests, of an established 1 P. 78. o 194 ISLAM, church. So far has this hostility gone that in the purely Moslem state of Hyderabad Wahabee preachers have been expelled, while in Berar they have had to be protected by the police against the violence of their own coreligionists.^ There can be no doubt, indeed, that Islam is still preached to unbelievers in India, and when preached it is almost always of the uncompro¬ mising Wahabee type—since the IMutiny this has been more the case than formerly. In the dis¬ tricts bordering on the Nizam’s dominions,^ in Madras, and in the Malabar district in the Pun- jaub,^ these IMohammedan missionaries are to be found. They make converts mostly among the lower races, but their efforts are not confined to preach¬ ing to unbelievers; ^ Moslems, too, are called upon to abandon their idolatrous practices, kloreover, a regular organization exists for opposing Christian missions, and preachers are sent out for this pur¬ pose from Bangalore, Delhi, and Lahore.^ Though there can be no doubt that there are accessions to Islam every year in India, mostly perhaps among the lower races of the Malabar coast,yet the statement made by Canon Taylor that Islam 1 Lyall’s “ Asiatic Studies,” ch. ix., p. 247. 2“South Indian Missionary Conference, 1879,” i. 336. ^Census of Punjaub, 1881. ^ See Hughes’ “ Diet, of Islam,” p. 403. Article on Moham¬ medanism. ^ Missionary Conference at Calcutta, 1882. Address of Rev. E. M. Wherry. See “ South Indian Missionary Confer.,” 1879, i.336. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I95 absorbs millions of converts in a decade, has been j shown to be a ridiculous exaggeration, based on a , mistaken comparison of census reports made with-| out a due regard for disturbing causes.^ Sir Alfred LyalP asserts it as his opinion that for the last two centuries, while Brahmanism has been spreading in India, Islam has made no progress. In his recent address on the “ Religions of India,” Sir W. Hunter ( describes Islam as relatively stationary since \ 1872. What few accretions there have been, have been due to other than religious reasons. Con¬ versions of this kind have been chiefly from the lower orders, and more often from women than men. “Years of famine are fruitful in such changes : persons of all ages and sexes who have been forced by distress into acts which destroyed their status, go over to a religion which accepts all without distinction.”^ The writer of the census report for the North-West Provinces declares that in the general opinion of all the district officers no active propaganda of Islam is to be met, and one officer^ writes that in this part of India there has been no such thing as a religious conversion from Hinduism to Islam. And the reference to true census statistics is conclusive on this point. In Bengal the normal increase of population is 10*89 1 For a similarly gross perversion of statistics with respect to Sierra Leone, and its complete refutation, see C. M. In¬ telligencer,'Dec., 1887. 2 “ Asiatic Studies,’’p. no. 3 See Census Report for N.W.P., 1881. ^Ibid. 196 ISLAM per cent., while the IMohammedans have increased 10*96 per cent. In the North-West Provinces with¬ out Oudh the figures are 6*30, 7*16 respectively ; in Sind 9*56 and 9*93 ; in Assam 19*23 and 19*17 : in theCentral Provinces25*2i and 18*55. The evidence of these is against Islam, and till later statistics are forthcoming, may be accepted as conclusive.^ The Wahabee movement which, as we have seen, played an important part in India, found a field for its activity in the Malay Islands also. Some Hadjis, who had been to Mecca in 1803, when the town was in the possession of the Waha- bees, came back impregnated with their peculiar doctrines,^ and forming, or joining, a sect called Padris (from padre, a priest) in Sumatra, preached a strict observance of the Koran and the Ahadis, requiring transgressors to be severely, even capitally, punished. Betel, tobacco, opium, together with games of chance and cock-fighting, were prohibited; and of course a Holy War against the recusants was enjoined. This brought them into collision with Holland ; and their headquarters, at Bondjol, were conquered by that power in 1821. A few followers of the sect still survive, but the attempt to reform Islam has failed there as in Arabia and India. The Chinese Moslems have not been affected by the Wahabee revival. But the question of the future of Chinese Islam is one of great interest. 1 See Hunter’s "Address on Religions of India,” Feb. 24,188S. 2 Dozy, " L’Islamisme,” p. 437. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 197 There are some who think that the Moslem element will overpower the Buddhists and Confucianists in the end,^ However that may be, Islam has shown its strength in more than one hotly-contested revolt. The great rebellion of Yunnan, which began in 1855 with a quarrel between Moslem and Pagan miners, was not finally suppressed till 1874 ^fter the destruction of half-a-hundred towns and a quarter of the population of the province.^ A similar in¬ surrection broke out in Shensi in 1862, and was not put down until the usual Government defeats and massacres had taken place. It is recorded that many of the inhabitants in their terror embraced Islam.^ Another revolt in Kwei Tcheu about the same time (i860), was due to illegal and outrageous acts on the part of Government officials. A bloody war with its inevitable concomitants of famine and desolation followed.^ At Hing-y-fou, after its capture by the Moslems in 1862, human flesh was openly sold in the markets. The revolt finally came to an end by the intervention of the French mission and the surrender of the Moslems. During these insurrections in China Proper, a body of insurgents overran Dzungaria,® or Chinese Turkestan, taking all the towns except Kashgar, Yarkand, and Yangi-hissar. Moslem priests, under the title of Khodjas, became petty kings of several districts. In 1864 Yakub Beg, the lieutenant of iThiersant, “La Mahom6tismeen Chine,’’ i. p. 50. ^Ibid., p. 142. ^ Ibid., 164. ^ Ibid., p. 238. ’^Ibid., p. 266. 198 ISLAM, one of these priest kings, came to the front, and took Yangi-hissar. The religious character of this war comes out in the fact that the garrison of this town, 2,000 in number, were massacred with the exception of 100 men who embraced Islam. In the next year we hear of a mandarin named Ko becoming a Moslem and betraying the citadel of Kashgar. On the fall of Yarkand, shortly after, Yakub seized the supreme power and assumed the title of Atalik Ghazi (Guardian of the Champions of the Faith). He ruled over his one-and-a-half million subjects like an Oriental despot, and they submitted, says Bellew, with a submission worthy of Islam.^ He remained Sultan of his Seven States till his death in 1877. Since then China has re-absorbed his kingdom, which found itself unable to maintain its independence. The strength of Chinese Islam has been amply demonstrated by these conflicts with the supreme Government, and Moslems need not despair of accomplishing (if they desire it) what the Taipings with a travesty of a religion so nearly did accomplish—the conquest of China. If external interference were provided against, there is little doubt that the Mohammedans in China would end by being the dominant, if not the most numerous, party in that country. As it is, the success of Islam in China, gained more than anywhere else by persuasion and not force, is a remarkable phenomenon. Conversions still go on, ^ iThiersant, “ La Mahometisme en Chine,” i. 50. 2 See Chinese Times, quoted in St. James' Gazette, Feb. 13, 1S88. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. I99 and perhaps, if the truth were known, in a faster ratio than anywhere except in West Africa. Still, active proselytizing is not undertaken for fear of religious complication with the Government, and such accessions as take place are due to the silent influences of contact and example, and to such methods as the rearing of orphans and exposed children. Two other phases of Moslem development require notice, for they show that the old methods of persuasion followed by the sword are still as efficacious as ever, even on the borders of Europe, especially if they can be combined with the national sentiment of a people. Russia is a Christian country and her Circassian foes are mostly Moslems, but we cannot help feeling a sort of sympathy with the latter in their gallant struggle against the “ overgrown Barbarian of the North.” At the end of last century the dervish Mohammed, or Elijah Mansur, preached the Koran to the tribes of the Caucasus and converted the chiefs of Ubichistan and Daghestan.^ He endeavoured with some suc¬ cess to unite them and influence their zeal against Russia, but being taken prisoner in 1791, he soon after died. Some years elapsed and his place was taken by a certain Kasi Mullah, the leader of a sect of fanatics called Murids,or Devoted ones; without himself carrying arms, he led his followers against the Russians. Being killed at the capture of Himri by the Russians n 1832 he was succeeded by iSee ‘ Schamyl, by H. R. Mackenzie, pp. G ft. 200 ISLAM, Schamyl, who combined the functions of General and Prophet. The war-cry of his followers was “ Mohammed was Allah’s first prophet ; Schamyl is his second.” He pretended to have direct com¬ munication with the Deity and used to retire to a grotto for this purpose before undertaking any expedition. All his leisure time was passed in reading the Koran and in prayer. But all his efforts failed to prevent Russia from absorbing the Caucasus people, as she has since absorbed the INIoslem kingdoms in Central Asia. But though we may grieve for the lost independence of the Circassians, no lover of civilization and progress can do anything but rejoice that the foul enormities of Bokhariot Islam, as pictured by Vambery ^ and Burnes,^ are now things of the past. With the waning of the Crescent in these regions it is highly improbable that there will be any further accessions to Islam there, such as those forcible conversions of Shiaposh Kafirs, mentioned by Hughes,^ or the few peaceful conversions of Hindus alluded to by Burnes.^ An appeal to force is growing every day more hopeless in Mohammedan lands, and there is not much reason to suppose that Islam will develop any great aptitude for a purely missionary propa¬ ganda among non-Moslem peoples, though there will probably always be individual cases of 1 Vambery, "Bokhara,” pp. 364, 365. ^gumes, ii. 243. “‘‘Diet, of Islam.” Article on Mohammedanism, p. 403. ^Burnes, " Bokhara,” ii. 244 AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 201 conversion, even from Christianity, to swell its ranks.^ One remarkable modification of Islam still remains, viz., Babyism. Mirza Ali Khan, born at Shiraz in 1824, visited Mecca as a pilgrim, and came back not confirmed in his faith, but dis¬ illusionized in respect to it.^ A subsequent pil¬ grimage to the national shrine at Kufa, raised in him a determination to attempt a new revelation. He soon gained followers by the elegance of his expositions, and the piety of his life, and assumed the name of Bab, or The Gate. In his disputes with the Mullahs of the orthodox party, he alwa3^s came off victorious, and the Government, alarmed at his popularity, was soon obliged to interfere. They confined him to one spot, but do not seem to have checked his proselytizing efforts. The Bab then claimed divine attributes, and appointed two missionary apostles, Husein Bushrewyeh and Mohammed Ali, who proclaimed their leader to be the Mahdi, the Expected One, and made numerous converts even in the capital. They were assisted in their efforts by an extraordinary woman, named Zernyn Tadj, who denounced the use of the veil and the practice of polygamy. In 1847 the mis¬ sionaries conferred together as to the advisability of an appeal to the sword, but decided that the time had not yet come for that, and continued 1 cf. Palgrave, “ Essays on Eastern Subjects,” p. 124. 2 Gobineau, "Religions et Philosophie dans I’Asia Centrale,” chap. vi. 202 ISLAM, their preaching. Finally a revolt was precipitated, and the two divisions of Babys were cut to pieces. The prophetess was burned, and many others died as martyrs to their faith. The Bab himself, who seems to have lost all control over his followers, was taken from his prison, humiliated, and con¬ demned to death. An extraordinary occurrence at his attempted execution confirmed his followers in their belief in his divinity. Being bound to a cross, he was condemned to be shot, but at the first discharge the bullets merely severed the cords which bound him, and he fell to the earth unhurt. A second attempt, however, proved more success¬ ful, and the Bab fell a martyr to his new doctrines. His followers were permitted, in order to escape persecution, to resort to that peculiarly Persian device—the Takiyyah, or concealment of tenets. The doctrines of Babyism, which from 1842—1857 spread over the whole of Persia, are still professed by many Persians, who show a friendly disposition towards Christians.^ It seems not impossible that they may play an important part in the future, and the dream of a reformed. Christianised, Mahomme- danism, if ever destined to be realised, can only be so in lands like Persia, where Islam has never really conquered the convictions of the people. One observer has ventured to doubt whether the whole of Persia contains a single true Mussulman.^ The government and people are tolerant of Christians, 1 See Dr. Bruce in the Record, Dec. 30, 1887. ^Gobineau, giving the opinion of a Persian Sufi, p. 20. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 2O3 and the only trouble our missions experience is from Roman Catholics and Romanising Arme¬ nians.^ In fact it is quite certain that Islam, if it ever was a living power in Persia, is so no longer, as the derision with which the raising of the Green Banner for a Jehad was received, sufficiently shows. A Moslem Crescentade could not count on Persian help, even if the orthodox Moslems would accept it, for the orthodox Sunni looks upon the Shiite Persian as a dog and an infidel.^ The prospect, as far as Mohammedanism is con¬ cerned, it must be confessed, is far from bright. In Arabia, the cradle of the faith, Islam may be said to be non-existent, if we except the imme¬ diate precincts of the Holy Cities and the Wahabee district of Nejd ; and there Islam is but the cloak for the grossest vice and immorality. In Africa the case is not so bad, but even in Egypt, where African Islam shows at its best, owing to its contact with European civilization and Chris¬ tianity, it is sadly deteriorated from its former state. In East Africa it only serves to intensify the worst vices of the Arab trader and his half-caste convert, and like salt that has lost its savour, has become worse than valueless. In the Central Sudan it is much the same. Dr. Schweinfurth, Sir Samuel Baker, General Gordon, Emin Pasha, men most unlike to one another in character and sympathies, are at one on this point. Cruelty, immorality. ^Record, Dec. 30, 1887 ; C. M. Intelligencer, Feb., 1888. 2 So declared by a public Fetva at Bokhara in 945 a.h. 204 ISLAM, hypocrisy — these are the qualities which charac¬ terise the Arabs of the Sudan, and which led to the Mahdi’s revolt. The hope, or the chimera, of a regenerated Islam under the Mahdi, has failed, and unless Emin Pasha has succeeded in stemming the tide, the Sudan will slowly, but surely, relapse into its former state of semi-anarchy and cor¬ ruption. It is only along the Niger basin that an at all hopeful form of Islam is to be found. There Islam has been embraced by races of a superior type to the ordinary Negroes—by the Foulahs, the Mandingoes, and the Jaloffs, and is consequently of a purer and manlier character, but even these tribes have imported some of their Pagan rites into their new religion.^ Of the other Negro races that have become Moslem, the best that can be said is that they are less bigoted and intolerant,^ but at the same time more ignorant and supersti¬ tious, than the Arabs of civilization. Moham¬ medanism is not ingrained in them, and it is allowed us to hope that Christianity may find its way prepared, and not blocked by its presence. Mdth Islam in its pristine pride and vigour, there would have been only war to the knife, but with the imperfect ^ Islam that prevails a better under¬ standing is possible. 1 See Wilson’s “ Western Africa,” p. 75 ; Barth, " Travels in Africa,” v. p. 643. 2 Barth, iii. 304, 370. Schweinfurth, i. 308. 3 Blyden, p. 26. AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 205 The evidence from India is not very different. There the Wahabee revival has purged Moham¬ medanism of some of its errors. Speaking on this subject, however, Sir William Hunter says: “ The proselytes carried their old superstitions into their new faith. Their ancient terror of the unseen malignant powers re-asserted itself with an in¬ tensity that could not be suppressed, until the whole light of Semitic Monotheism almost flickered out amid the fuliginous rites of low-caste Hinduism.”^ Among the Malays, too, Islam has similarly degenerated. Most of the old indigenous rites and superstitions, mingled with Hindu customs and Buddhist beliefs, have been retained and grafted upon Mohammedanism. Ignorance and superstition—the same two words suggest them¬ selves irresistibly when we think of Malayese Islam. Like the Negroes, the Malays are tolerant and susceptible to Christian influences, if not brought to bear upon them from the mouths of cannons. Chinese Islam has a distinctive character of its own, like everything connected with that wonder¬ ful people. Orderly and law-abiding, like other Chinese, the Chinese Moslems strive as much as possible to sink their differences of creed, and, if possible, to hold Confucianist doctrines in conjunc¬ tion with the distinctive tenets of Islam. Those in high position do not scruple to perform 1 Hunter, " Address on Religions of India,” Feb. 24, t888. 2o6 ISLAM, the idolatrous ceremonies required by the state. Lax in the matter of wine, they even, in some cases, partake of pork. Their accommodating and politic conduct has gained for them the support of the central Government, and under its protection they have increased and multiplied, while the other foreign religions are nearly stationary. This brings us to the end of our subject, and it remains only to recapitulate the conclusions arrived at. Islam, then, may be truly ranked among mis¬ sionary religions. Mohammed for ten years of his ministry was a preacher only. Borrowing the missionary idea from Buddhism and Chris¬ tianity, he had not the patience to trust to its slow efficacy, but, with an ardour more than Jewish, he threw the sword into the scale. The wonderful progress of Islam was due to the joint and skilful use of both the agencies of force and persuasion; but the employment of force has always been the distinctive feature of Islam as a missionary religion. But since Islam claims a political as well a spiritual supremacy, it is diffi¬ cult to see how, while remaining the same, it can survive the loss of temporal dominion. The most flourishing periods for Mohammedanism have been at the times of its greatest political ascen¬ dency ; and it is at those times that it has received its largest accessions from without. As Moslem lands gradually come under Christian rule, we may feel pretty sure that Islam, while improving its morality, will also cease to offer AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 207 attractions to the members of other creeds ; and, though it may flourish for centuries more, yet will cease to expand. The supposition, indulged by some writers, that India and China will one day be wholly gathered into the Mohammedan fold, rests on reasoning more ingenious than solid. There seems very little likelihood of such a consummation, and the rate of increase by con¬ versions is not, where statistics are available, of an alarming character. Christianity in India is increasing relatively very much faster than Islam.^ In West Africa no doubt the balance is as much in favour of Islam ; but any comparison between the success of the two religions there is essentially an unfair one. There everything is against the European, everything for the Arab, and, a fortiori, everything for the native Mandingo or Foulah. Christianity requires a change of heart, a convic¬ tion of sin, and a perception of mysterious doc¬ trines. Islam requires nothing except circumcision and six words by way of creed. Slavery, con¬ cubinage, and things worse than these, thrive in the presence of Islam, but are so many barriers in the way of Christianity. Given a climate in which a European can live, and a strong neutral Government, Christianity would fear no compari¬ son, in the matter of results, with Islam or any other creed. The present missionary activity of Islam is due —(a) to the fanaticism of the Wahabee revival, 1 See Sir William Hunter’s Address, “ Religions of India.” 20S ISLAM. (d) to jealousy of Christian missions, (c) to lust of conquest, as in West Africa. It is only the latter phase that is likely to give any trouble, but the partition of Africa among the nations of Europe has practically struck the sword from the hand of Islam. Any attempt to regenerate the Arabs and reconstitute Islam, as a counter¬ poise to Europe and Christianity, is certain to fail. Such was the attempt of the able and chivalrous Abd el Kader in Algeria ^“ To make the Arabs of Algeria one people, to recall them to the strict observance of their religious duties, to inspire them with patriotism, to call forth all their dormant capabilities, whether for war, for commerce, for agriculture, and for mental im¬ provement, and then to crown the whole with the impress of European civilization. Such was his mighty and comprehensive ideal ”—and it failed. Islam is a lost cause. When Abdul Medjid, Sultan of Turkey, was taken to see the fresco of our Saviour, then recently uncovered on the Eastern wall of St. Sophia’s, he gazed at it for a few moments, and then solemnly said : “ Cover it up ; His time has not_y^^ come.”^ 1 See Col. Churchill, “ Life of Abdel Kader,” p. 139 ^ See Notes and Queries, July 28, 1888. WORKS BY THE REV. P. 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