Note 81 — Chapter XI · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN AFRICA.

In Ashanti there was a nucleus of a Muhammadan population to be found as early as 1750 and the missionaries of Islam have laboured there ever since with slow but sure success,81 as they find a ready welcome in the country and have gained for themselves considerable influence at the court; by means of their schools they get a hold on the minds of the younger generation, and there are said to be significant signs that Islam will become the predominant religion in Ashanti, as already many of the chiefs have adopted it.82 In Dahomey and the Gold Coast, Islam is daily making fresh progress, and even when the heathen chieftains do not themselves embrace it, they very frequently allow themselves to come under the influence of its missionaries, who know how to take advantage of this ascendancy in their labours among the common people.83 Dahomey and Ashanti are the most important kingdoms in this part of the continent that are still subject to pagan rulers, and their conversion is said to be a question of a short time only.84 In Lagos there are well-nigh 10,000 Muslims, and all the trading stations of the West Coast include in their populations numbers of Musalmans belonging to the superior Negro tribes, such as the Fulbe, the Mandingos and the Hausa. When these men come down to the cities of the coast, as they do in considerable numbers, either as traders or to serve as troops in the armies of the European powers, they cannot fail to impress by their bold and independent bearing the Negro of the coast-land; he sees that the believers in the Qurʼān are everywhere respected by European governors, officials and merchants; they are not so far removed from him in race, appearance, dress or manners as to make admission into their brotherhood impossible to him, and to him too is offered a share in their privileges on condition of conversion to their faith.85 As soon as the pagan Negro, however obscure or degraded, shows himself willing to accept the teachings of the Prophet, he is at once admitted as an equal into their society, and admission into the brotherhood of Islam is not a privilege grudgingly granted, but one freely offered by zealous and eager proselytisers. For, from the mouth of the Senegal to Lagos, over two thousand miles, there is said to be hardly any town of importance on the seaboard in which there is not at least one mosque, with active propagandists of Islam, often working side by side with the teachers of Christianity.86