Note 13 — Chapter XII · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.

Even the Muslim prisoner will on occasion embrace the opportunity of preaching his faith to his captors or to his fellow-prisoners. The first introduction of Islam into Eastern Europe was the work of a Muslim jurisconsult who was taken prisoner, probably in one of the wars between the Byzantine empire and its Muhammadan neighbours, and was brought to the country of the Pechenegs13 in the beginning of the eleventh century. He set before many of them the teachings of Islam and they embraced the faith with sincerity, so that it began to be spread among this people. But the other Pechenegs who had not accepted the Muslim religion, took umbrage at the conduct of their fellow-countrymen and finally came to blows with them. The Muslims, who numbered about twelve thousand, successfully withstood the attack of the unbelievers, though they were more than double their number, and the remnant of the defeated party embraced the religion of the victors. Before the close of the eleventh century the whole nation had become Muhammadan and had among them men learned in Muslim theology and jurisprudence.14 In the reign of the Emperor Jahāngīr (1605–1628) there was a certain Sunnī theologian, named Shayk͟h Aḥmad Mujaddid, who especially distinguished himself by the energy with which he controverted the doctrines of the Shīʻahs: the latter, being at this time in favour at court, succeeded in having him imprisoned on some frivolous charge; during the two years that he was kept in prison he converted to Islam several hundred idolaters who were his companions in the same prison.15 In more recent times, an Indian mawlavī, who had been sentenced to transportation for life to the Andaman Islands by the British Government, because he had taken an active part in the Wahhābī conspiracy of 1864, converted many of the convicts before his death. In Central Africa, an Arab chief condemned to death by the Belgians, spent his last hours in trying to convert to Islam the Christian missionary who had been sent to bring him the consolations of religion.16