Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/49

 Europe. Seafaring communities are rare along the African coasts. The list is almost exhausted by the mention of the Somali at the eastern " horn," and of the Kra or Kroomen on the Atlantic side. But the former scarcely get beyond the Gulf of Aden, passing with the shifting trade winds from shore to shore, while the latter seldom venture fur from the coast lagoons and estuaries. Since the fall of Carthage and the decadence of Egyptian culture, the most important event in African history has been the Moslem invasion. In the Dark Continent the zealous missionaries of Islam have reaped the richest harvests. The simplicity of the Mussulman creed, which limits itself to proclaiming the unity, omnipotence, and goodness of God; the clearness of its precepts, recommending above all prayer, and cleanliness as the outward symbol of purity; the zeal of its preachers, the prestige of its victories over the "infidel," all combined to seduce the Egyptians, the Berbers, and Negroes. From age to age the Mohammedan domain has grown in extent, until it now comprises nearly half of the continent, from the Isthmus of Suez to the sources of the Niger, and even to the Gulf of Guinea. During the first period of its triumphs, Islam, heir to the sciences received from the Byzantine world, infused new life, as it were, into Egypt and Mauritania, endowed them with a fresh civilization, and through the caravan trade with Morocco, already the emporium of Mussulman Spain, raised Timbuctu, on the Niger, into a great centre of commercial and intellectual movement.

In Nigretia the propagation of Islam also coincides with important political and social changes. Large states were founded in regions hitherto a prey to a hundred mutually hostile and savage tribes. Manners were thus softened, and a sentiment of solidarity sprang up between communities formerly engaged in everlasting warfare. Mohammedanism thus enjoys more material cohesion in Africa than in Europe and Asia, where the faithful, scattered amid populations worshipping at other altars, are often separated from each other by extensive wastes and arms of the sea. In the Dark Continent they occupy a compact domain as large as all Europe, stretching uninterruptedly from the Red Sea to the Atlantic, and here their common belief tends everywhere to diffuse the social ideas, the habits, usages, and speech of the dominant Arab race.

In recent times Christianity has attempted to dispute the field with its Mohammedan rival. Protestant missionaries have even obtained some little success, especially in South Africa. But compared with the apostles of Islam they stand at a great disadvantage, for they are unable, except in a figurative sense, to annoimce themselves as the brethren of their black proselytes. The "messenger of the good tidings" cannot give his daughter in marriage to his Christian Negro convert. Colour keeps them apart, and both remain men of different race and caste.

Having become the inheritance of the faithful by the triumph of Islam, Africa has witnessed the birth of prophets powerful enough to declare the "holy war."