Part 11 (2/2)

Much loose a.s.sertion has been made regarding the progress of Islam in Africa; but I have found no proof of it apart from armed, political, or trading influence, dogged too often by the slave-trade; to a great extent a social rather than a religious movement, and raising the fetich tribes (haply without intemperance) into a somewhat higher stage of semi-barbarism. I have met nothing which would touch the argument in the text. The following is the testimony of Dr. Koelle, the best possible witness on the subject:

”It is true the Mohammedan nations in the interior of Africa, namely, the Bornuese, Mandengas, Pulas, etc., invited by the weak and defenseless condition of the surrounding negro tribes, still occasionally make conquests, and after subduing a tribe of pagans, by almost exterminating its male population and committing the most horrible atrocities, impose upon those that remain the creed of Islam; but keeping in view the whole of the Mohammedan world this fitful activity reminds one only of these green branches sometimes seen on trees, already, and for long, decayed at the core from age.”--_Food for Reflection_, p. 37.

[70] _Apology_, p. 34.

[71] _Annals_, pp. 61, 224.

[72] Sura iv, v. 33.

[73] _Life of Mohammed_, p. 348.

[74] _The City of G.o.d_, p, 91. Hodder & Stoughton, 1883.

[75] _The Turks in India_, by H.G. Keene, C.S.I. Allen & Co., 1879.

[76] _Annals_, etc., p. 457.

[77] See Sura x.x.xiv, v. 32. The excepted relations are: ”Husbands, fathers, husbands' fathers, sons, husbands' sons, brothers, brothers' sons, sisters' sons, the captives which their right hands possess, such men as attend them and have no need of women, or children below the age of p.u.b.erty.”

[78] John xviii, 36, 37.

[79] Dr. Fairbairn, _Contemporary Review_, p. 865.

[80] _The Early Caliphate and Rise of Islam_, being the Rede Lecture for 1881, delivered before the University of Cambridge, p. 28.

[81] _The Koran_, etc., p. 65.

<script>