Note 117 — Chapter XII · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.

In their native island of Celebes also the Bugis have combined proselytising efforts with their commercial enterprises, and in the little kingdom of Bolaäng-Mongondou in the northern peninsula117 they have succeeded, in the course of the present century, in winning over to Islam a Christian population whose conversion dates from the end of the seventeenth century. The first Christian king of Bolaäng-Mongondou was Jacobus Manopo (1689–1709), in whose reign Christianity spread rapidly, through the influence of the Dutch East India Company and the preaching of the Dutch clergy.118 His successors were all Christian until 1844, when the reigning Raja, Jacobus Manuel Manopo, embraced Islam. His conversion was the crown of a series of proselytising efforts that had been in progress since the beginning of the century, for it was about this time that the zealous efforts of some Muhammadan traders—Bugis and others—won over some converts to Islam in one of the coast towns of the southern kingdom, Mongondou; from this same town two trader missionaries, Ḥakīm Bagus and Imām Tuwéko by name, set out to spread their faith throughout the rest of this kingdom. They made a beginning with the conversion of some slaves and native women whom they married, and these little by little persuaded their friends and relatives to embrace the new faith. From Mongondou Islam spread into the northern kingdom Bolaäng; here, in 1830, the whole population was either Christian or heathen, with the exception of two or three Muhammadan settlers; but the zealous preachers of Islam, the Bugis, and the Arabs who assisted them in their missionary labours, soon achieved a wide-spread success. The Christians, whose knowledge of the doctrines of their religion was very slight and whose faith was weak, were ill prepared with the weapons of controversy to meet the attacks of the rival creed; despised by the Dutch Government, neglected and well-nigh abandoned by the authorities of the Church, they began to look on these foreigners, some of whom married and settled among them, as their friends. As the work of conversion progressed, the visits of these Bugis and Arabs,—at first rare,—became more frequent, and their influence in the country very greatly increased, so much so that about 1832 an Arab married a daughter of the king, Cornelius Manopo, who was himself a Christian; many of the chiefs, and some of the most powerful among them, about the same time, abandoned Christianity and embraced Islam. In this way Islam had gained a firm footing in his kingdom before Raja Jacobus Manuel Manopo became a Muslim in 1844; this prince had made repeated applications to the Dutch authorities at Manado to appoint a successor to the Christian schoolmaster, Jacobus Bastiaan,—whose death had been a great loss to the Christian community—but to no purpose, and learning from the resident at Manado that the Dutch Government was quite indifferent as to whether the people of his state were Christians or Muhammadans, so long as they were loyal, openly declared himself a Musalman and tried every means to bring his subjects over to the same faith. An Arab missionary took advantage of the occurrence of a terrible earthquake in the following year, to prophecy the destruction of Bolaäng-Mongondou, unless the people speedily became converted to Islam. Many in their terror hastened to follow this advice, and the Raja and his nobles lent their support to the missionaries and Arab merchants, whose methods of dealing with the dilatory were not always of the gentlest. Nearly half the population, however, still remains heathen, but the progress of Islam among them, though slow, is continuous and sure.119