Note 20 — Chapter XII · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.

Bishop Lefroy considers that the “secret of the extraordinary power for conquest and advance which Islam has in its best ages evinced” is to be found in its recognition of the Existence of God rather than the Unity of God. “Not so much that God is one as that God IS—that His existence is the ultimate fact of the universe—that His will is supreme—His sovereignty absolute—His power limitless … the conviction that, amidst all the chaos and confusion and disorders of the world which so fearfully obscure it, there is nevertheless, an ultimate Will, resistless, supreme, and that man is called to be a minister of that Will, to promulgate it, to compel—if necessary by very simple and elementary means indeed—obedience to that Will—this it was which welded the Mohammedan hosts into so invincible an engine of conquest, which inspired them with a spirit of military subordination and discipline, as well as with a contempt of death, such as has probably never been surpassed in any system—this it is which, so far as it is still in any true sense operative amongst Mohammadans, gives at once that backbone of character, that firmness of determination and strength of will, and also that uncomplaining patience and submission in the presence of the bitterest misfortune, which characterise and adorn the best adherents of the creed.”20