Note 155 — Chapter XI · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN AFRICA.

The words above quoted were written before the partition of the greater part of Africa among the governments of Christian Europe—England, France and Germany—but the imposing character of Muslim civilisation has not ceased to impress the Negro mind, or to operate as one of the influences favourable to the conversion of the African fetish-worshippers. Brought suddenly into contact with European culture, these have received an impulse to advance in the path of civilisation, but being unable to bridge over the gulf that separates them from their foreign rulers, they find in Islam a culture corresponding to their needs and capable of understanding their requirements and aspirations.155 So far, therefore, from the extension of European domination tending to hamper the activities of Muhammadan propagandists, it has to a very remarkable degree contributed towards the progress of Islam. The bringing of peace to countries formerly harassed by wars of extermination or the raids of slave-hunters, the establishment of ordered methods of government and administration, and the increased facilities of communication by the making of roads and the building of railways, have given a great stimulus to trade and have enabled that active propagandist, the Muslim trader, to extend his influence in districts previously untrodden, and traverse familiar ground with greater security. Further, the suppression of the slave-trade has removed one of the great obstacles to the spread of Islam in pagan Africa, because it was to the interest of the Arab and other Muhammadan slave-dealers not to narrow the field of their operations by admitting their possible victims into the brotherhood of Islam.156 Converts are now won from pagan tribes which in the days of the slave-trade were untouched by missionary effort. To this result the European governments have contributed by employing Muhammadans to fill the subordinate posts in the civil administration (since among the Muhammadans alone were educated persons to be found) and distributing them throughout pagan districts, by employing Muhammadan teachers in the Government schools, and by recruiting their armies from among Muhammadan tribes; they have thus added to the prestige of Islam in the eyes of the pagan Africans—a circumstance that the Muslims have not been slow to make use of, to the advantage of their own faith.157