Chapter XIII · CONCLUSION.
Reading edition
When the convert has accepted and learned this simple creed, he has then to be instructed in the five practical duties of his religion: (1) recital of the creed, (2) observance of the five appointed times of prayer, (3) payment of the legal alms, (4) fasting during the month of Ramaḍān, and (5) the pilgrimage to Mecca.
Many other circumstances might be adduced that have contributed towards the missionary success of Islam—circumstances peculiar to particular times and countries. Among these may be mentioned the advantage that Muhammadan missionary work derives from the fact of its being so largely in the hands of traders, especially in Africa and other uncivilised countries where the people are naturally suspicious of the foreigner. For, in the case of the trader, his well-known and harmless avocation secures to him an immunity from any such feelings of suspicion, while his knowledge of men and manners, his commercial savoir-faire, gain for him a ready reception, and remove that feeling of constraint which might naturally arise in the presence of the stranger. He labours under no such disadvantages as hamper the professed missionary, who is liable to be suspected of some sinister motive, not only by people whose range of experience and mental horizon are limited and to whom the idea of any man enduring the perils of a long journey and laying aside every mundane occupation for the sole purpose of gaining proselytes, is inexplicable, but also by more civilised men of the world who are very prone to doubt the sincerity of the paid missionary agent.
The literature of the Crusades is rich in such appreciations of Muslim virtues, while the Ottoman Turks in the early days of their rule in Europe received many a tribute of praise from Christian lips, as has already been shown in a former chapter.
At the present day there are two chief factors (beyond such of the above-mentioned as still hold good) that make for missionary activity in the Muslim world. The first of these is the revival of religious life which dates from the Wahhābī reformation at the end of the eighteenth century; though this new departure has long lost all political significance outside the confines of Najd, as a religious revival its influence is felt throughout Africa, India and the Malay Archipelago even to the present day, and has given birth to numerous movements which take rank among the most powerful influences in the Islamic world. In the preceding pages it has already been shown how closely connected many of the modern Muslim missions are with this wide-spread revival: the fervid zeal it has stirred up, the new life it has infused into existing religious institutions, the impetus it has given to theological study and to the organisation of devotional exercises, have all served to awake and keep alive the innate proselytising spirit of Islam.
Side by side with this reform movement, is another of an entirely different character—for, to mention one point of difference only, while the former is strongly opposed to European civilisation, the latter is rather in sympathy with modern thought and offers a presentment of Islam in accordance therewith,—viz. the Pan-Islamic movement, which seeks to bind all the nations of the Muslim world in a common bond of sympathy. Though in no way so significant as the other, still this trend of thought gives a powerful stimulus to missionary labours; the effort to realise in actual life the Muslim ideal of the brotherhood of all believers reacts on collateral ideals of the faith, and the sense of a vast unity and of a common life running through the nations inspirits the hearts of the faithful and makes them bold to speak in the presence of the unbelievers.