Note 62 — Chapter XI · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN AFRICA.

With regard to these militant movements of Muhammadan propagandism, it is important to notice that it is not the military successes and territorial conquests that have most contributed to the progress of Islam in these parts; for it has been pointed out that, outside the limits of those fragments of the empire of al-Ḥājj ʻUmar that have definitively remained in the hands of his successors, the forced conversions that he made have quickly been forgotten, and in spite of the momentary grandeur of his successes and the enthusiasm of his armies, very few traces remain of this armed propaganda.62 The real importance of these movements in the missionary history of Islam in Western Africa is the religious enthusiasm they stirred up, which exhibited itself in a widespread missionary activity of a purely peaceful character among the heathen populations. These Jihāds, rightly looked upon, are but incidents in the modern Islamic revival and are by no means characteristic of the forces and activities that have been really operative in the promulgation of Islam in Africa: indeed, unless followed up by distinctly missionary efforts they would have proved almost wholly ineffectual in the creation of a true Muslim community. In fact, the devastating wars and cruel violence of conquerors such as al-Ḥājj ʻUmar and Samory and especially the emissaries of the Tijāniyyah have caused the faith of Islam to be bitterly hated by the pagan tribes of the Sudan in the countries watered by the Senegal and the Niger. Hostility to the Muslim faith has almost assumed with them the form of a national movement, but still this Muhammadan propaganda has spread the faith of the Prophet in many parts of Guinea and Senegambia, to which the Fulbe63 and merchants from the Hausa country in their frequent trading expeditions have brought the knowledge of their religion, and have succeeded during the last and the present century in winning large numbers of converts. Especially noteworthy is the activity of those Qādiriyyah preachers and Muslim traders who have won fresh converts to their faith since the French occupation has brought peace to the country; this peaceful penetration has been facilitated in the French Sudan, as in other parts of Africa that have recently come under the sway of European powers, by the consideration shown by French officials to the educated classes, who are of course all Muhammadans, and by the open contempt with which the degraded habits and superstitions of the pagan fetish-worshippers are regarded.64