Note 105 — Chapter IX · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN INDIA.

Mawlavī Baqā Ḥusayn K͟hān, an itinerant preacher, in the course of several years converted 228 persons, residents of Bombay, Cawnpore, Ajmīr, and other cities. Mawlavī Ḥasan ʻAlī converted twenty-five persons, twelve in Poona, the rest in Ḥaydarabad and other parts of India.105 In the district of Khandesh, in the Bombay Presidency, the preaching of the Qāḍī of Nasirabad, Sayyid Safdar ʻAlī, won over to Islam a large body of artisans, who follow the trade of armourers or blacksmiths.106 A number of persons of the same trade, who form a small community of about 200 souls in the district of Nasik, were converted in a curious way about 1870. The Presbyterian missionaries of Nasik had for a long time been trying to convert them from Hinduism, and they were in a state of hesitation as to whether or not to embrace Christianity when a Muhammadan faqīr from Bombay, who was well acquainted with their habits of thought, expounded to them the doctrines of Islam and succeeded in winning them over to that faith.107