4 THE RELIGION OF THE CRESCENT.

other parts of China its devotees maybe numbered by tens of thousands. It is the religion of Egypt and of the whole of the Sudan, and its professors may be found not only in Zanzibar but as far inland as the Lake Victoria Nyanza, in Buganda and the neighbouring countries. We find it again in the Niger Basin, in the regions of Hausa and Sokoto, and it is by no means unknown or void of power at Sierra Leone. The Tawariks and other fierce tribes of the Sahara profess their belief in Muhammad, and the Arabian prophet is acknowledged by sovereigns and people alike throughout Tripoli, Tunis, and Morocco, and by the natives of Algiers.

To what extent this faith is still being spread1 in Africa it is difficult precisely to ascertain, but it is already the

Still
Spreading

Its Past.
dominant religion of fully one half of the entire continent, and is still spreading there to a very considerable extent, principally though not exclusively by the persuasive power of the sword. The mighty billows of the ocean of Arabian faith and zeal swept over the Strait of Gibraltar in days

1 The question of the spread of Islam in our own day is a far more serious one than most people think. For example, the Madras Census Report for 1881 (vol. i. § 151) estimates the increase of Muslims in the Malabar Collectorate alone during the ten years 1871-1881 as about 50,000, drawn from the lowest ranks of the Non-Aryan population (v. George Milne Rae's article "The Last of the Perumals," in "Madras Christian College Magazine" for Nov. 1890 (vol. viii., No. 5, p. 340). Vide also Bosworth Smith, "Mohammed and Mohammedanism," 2nd Ed., pp. 27-40.
THE STRENGTH OF ISLAM. 5

of yore, and hurled themselves far beyond the adamantine barrier of the Pyrenees, striking terror into all but the stoutest hearts that beat beneath the breastplates of the warriors of the Franks. The valour of John Sobiesky and his Poles was needed to check the hitherto irresistible advance of the Turkish armies as they rushed forward in their victorious career over the plains of Austria.

And although the sword of Islam1 is broken

Its Present.
to-day and its political power is fading away, yet as a religion it shows little tendency to surrender its claims to the sovereignty of the human race. The Muslim boasts that the Crescent gleams and the cry of the Muezzin is heard even in London2 and Liverpool. The, classic land of Greece has

1 The word means "self-surrender," and is the name given by Muhammad himself to the religion which he proclaimed: vide e.g. Surah iii. 17[19]:
إِنَّ الدِّينَ عِندَ اللّهِ الإِسْلاَمُ
  2 The idea that Muhammadan worship is practised in London is founded upon what people in the East have heard of Dr. Leitner's Institute at Woking (!) with its attached Mosque. Whether any one worships there at all or not is not known. Omne ignotum pro magnifico. As for the so-called Mosque at Liverpool, the report of Dr. H. Martin Clark's visit of inspection, and of his interview with Mr. Quilliam, the President of the Muhammadan Association there, shows that the movement is a fiasco. (Vide verbatim report in the Panjab Mission News for Jan., Feb., and March 1892, and also Sir Wm. Muir's article on the subject in the C. M. S. "Intelligencer" for June, 1892.)
1 Those who show patience, Firmness and self-control; who are true (in word and deed); who worship devoutly; who spend (in the way of Allah); and who pray for forgiveness in the early hours of the morning. —Yusufali's translation