Note 2 — Chapter XII · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.

Whatever disadvantages may be entailed by this want of a priestly class, specially set apart for the work of propagating the faith, are compensated for by the consequent feeling of responsibility resting on the individual believer. There being no intermediary between the Muslim and his God, the responsibility of his personal salvation rests upon himself alone: consequently he becomes as a rule much more strict and careful in the performance of his religious duties, he takes more trouble to learn the doctrines and observances of his faith, and thus becoming deeply impressed with the importance of them to himself, is more likely to become an exponent of the missionary character of his creed in the presence of the unbeliever. The would-be proselytiser has not to refer his convert to some authorised religious teacher of his creed who may formally receive the neophyte into the body of the Church, nor need he dread ecclesiastical censure for committing the sin of Korah. Accordingly, however great an exaggeration it may be to say, as has been said so often,2 that every Muhammadan is a missionary, still it is true that every Muhammadan may be one, and few truly devout Muslims, living in daily contact with unbelievers, neglect the precept of their Prophet: “Summon them to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and with kindly warning.”3 Thus it is that, side by side with the professional propagandists,—the religious teachers who have devoted all their time and energies to missionary work,—the annals of the propagation of the Muslim faith contain the record of men and women of all ranks of society, from the sovereign4 to the peasant, and of all trades and professions, who have laboured for the spread of their faith,—the Muslim trader, unlike his Christian brother, showing himself especially active in such work. In a list of Indian missionaries published in the journal of a religious and philanthropic society of Lahore5 we find the names of schoolmasters, Government clerks in the Canal and Opium Departments, traders (including a dealer in camel-carts), an editor of a newspaper, a book-binder and a workman in a printing establishment. These men devote the hours of leisure left them after the completion of the day’s labour, to the preaching of their religion in the streets and bazaars of Indian cities, seeking to win converts both from among Christians and Hindus, whose religious beliefs they controvert and attack.