Note 140 — Chapter XII · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.

As has been already mentioned, Islam has been most favourably received by the more civilised races of the Malay Archipelago, and has taken but little root among the lower races. Such are the Papuans of New Guinea, and the islands to the north-west of it, viz. Waigyu, Misool, Waigama and Salawatti. These islands, together with the peninsula of Onin, on the north-west of New Guinea, were in the sixteenth century subject to the Sultan of Batjan,140 one of the kings of the Moluccas. Through the influence of the Muhammadan rulers of Batjan, the Papuan chiefs of these islands adopted Islam,141 and though the mass of the people in the interior have remained heathen up to the present day, the inhabitants of the coast are Muhammadans largely no doubt owing to the influence of settlers from the Moluccas.142 In New Guinea itself, very few of the Papuans seem to have become Muhammadans. Islam was introduced into the west coast (probably in the peninsula of Onin) by Muhammadan merchants, who propagated their religion among the inhabitants, as early as 1606.143 But it appears to have made very little progress during the centuries that have elapsed since then,144 and the Papuans have shown as much reluctance to become Muhammadans as to accept the teachings of the Christian missionaries, who have laboured among them without much success since 1855. The Muhammadans of the neighbouring islands have been accused of holding the Papuans in too great contempt to make efforts to spread Islam among them.145 The name of one missionary, however, is found, a certain Imām Dikir (? D͟hikr), who came from one of the islands on the south-east of Ceram about 1856 and introduced Islam into the little island of Adi, south of the peninsula of Onin; after fulfilling his mission he returned to his own home, resisting the importunities of the inhabitants to settle among them.146 Muhammadan traders from Ceram and Goram are reported to have made a number of converts from among the heathen during the first decade of the twentieth century.147 Similar efforts are being made to convert the Papuans of the neighbouring Kei Islands. In the middle of the nineteenth century there were said to be hardly any Muhammadans on these islands, with the exception of the descendants of immigrants from the Banda Islands; some time before, missionaries from Ceram had succeeded in making some converts, but the precepts of the Qurʼān were very little observed, both forbidden meats and intoxicating liquors being indulged in. The women, however, were said to be stricter in their adherence to their faith than the men, so that when their husbands wished to indulge in swine’s flesh, they had to do so in secret, their wives not allowing it to be brought into the house.148 But in 1887 it was noted that there had been a revival of religious life among the Kei islanders, and the number of Muhammadans was daily increasing. Arab merchants from Madura, Java, and Bali proved themselves zealous propagandists of Islam and left no means untried to win converts, sometimes enforcing their arguments by threats and violence, and at other times by bribes: as a rule new converts were said to get 200 florins’ worth of presents, while chiefs received as much as a thousand florins.149 At the close of the nineteenth century about 8000 of the Kei islanders were said to be Muhammadan out of a total population of 23,000.150