Note 103 — Chapter IX · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN INDIA.

In more recent years there have been abundant witnesses for Islam seeking to spread this faith in India—and with very considerable success; the second half of the nineteenth century especially witnessed a great revival of missionary activity, the number of annual conversions being variously estimated at ten, fifty, one hundred and six hundred thousand.103 But it is difficult to obtain accurate information on account of the peculiarly individualistic character of Muslim missionary work and the absence of any central organisation or of anything in the way of missionary reports, and the success that attends the labours of Muslim preachers is sometimes much exaggerated, e.g. in the Panjāb a certain Ḥājī Muḥammad is said to have converted as many as 200,000 Hindus,104 and a mawlavī in Bangalore boasted that in five years he had made as many as 1000 converts in this city and its suburbs. But that there are Muslim missionaries engaged in active and successful propagandist labours is undoubted, and the following examples are typical of the period referred to.