Note 99 — Chapter XI · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN AFRICA.

The suppression of the slave-trade, with the extension of European rule over East Equatorial Africa, was followed by a remarkable expansion of Muslim missionary activity; peace and order were established in the interior, railways and high roads were made, and the peaceful Muslim trader could now make his way into districts hitherto closed to him. The administration selected its officials from among the more cultivated Muhammadan section of the population; thousands of posts were created by the government of German East Africa and given to Muhammadan officials, whose influence was used to bring over whole villages to Islam.99 The teachers of the state schools were likewise Muhammadans, and as early as the last decades of the nineteenth century Swahili schoolmasters were observed to be carrying on a lively and successful mission work among the people of Bondëi and the Wadigo (who dwell a little inland from the coast) in German East Africa.100 But it was in the beginning of the twentieth century, especially after the suppression of the insurrection of 1905 in German East Africa, that the activity of this new missionary movement became strikingly noticeable in the interior.101 This movement of expansion has especially followed the railroads and the great trade routes, and has spread right across German East Africa to its western boundary on Lake Tanganyika, northward from Usambara to the Kilimanjaro district, and southward to Lake Nyasa.102 The workers in this propaganda are merchants, especially Swahilis from the coast, soldiers and government officials.103 The acceptance of Islam is looked upon as a sign of an elevation to a higher civilisation and social status, and the ridicule with which the pagans are regarded by the Muhammadans is said often to be a determining factor in their conversion.104 An instance of the operation of this feeling may be taken from West Usambara, which was said in 1891 to be still closed to Islam; the feeling of both chiefs and people was hostile to the Muhammadans, who were hated and feared as slave-dealers; but when the days of the slave-trade were over and an ordered administration was established, the first native officials appointed were almost entirely Muhammadans; they impressed upon the chiefs and other notables who came in touch with them that it was the correct thing for those who moved in official circles to be Muhammadans, and thereby achieved the conversion of some of the greater chiefs, who afterwards exercised a similar influence on chiefs of an inferior degree.105 There seems to be little evidence of the activity of professional missionaries or of any of the religious orders, but there are not wanting evidences of systematic efforts, such as those of a Muslim teacher, who is reported to have regularly visited a district in the Kilimanjaro country every week for five months, preaching the faith of Islam; his ministrations were welcomed by the people, whom he entertained with feasts of rice, etc.106 In this zealous propaganda it is noticeable that the preachers of Islam do not confine their attention to pagans only, but seek also to win converts from among the native Christians.107