Note 36 — Chapter X · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN CHINA.

An unsuccessful attempt to convert the Bambara was made by a marabout, named ʻUmaru Kaba, early in the twentieth century. This man had founded a new religious confraternity, connected with the Qādiriyyah, and having failed to attract his co-religionists to it, he turned his attention to the pagan Bambara, and endeavoured to convert them to Islam and enrol them in his order. He seemed to be on the road to success and had already converted a pagan village in the province of Sansanding, when the chief of the province drove the missionary across the frontier and ordered the newly-converted Bambara to return to their old religious observances.36