Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/743

* MOHAMMEDANISM. 665 MOHAMMEDANISM. f ion to <-oiiVfil iiif: many JJtrbers, he is said to have forced Christians and .Jews to apostatize. The Berbers, however, under the Idrisides as under the Afjhhildtes (a dynasty founded in 801 by Ibraliini ibn' Aghlab, hereditary governor of Ifrikiyyah) were in constant revolt. In the hegiuuing of the tenth century Abu Abd Allah appeared among them as the apostle of tlic Ismailian sect, and succeeded in winning over the whole of the jjowerful Kitaniah tribe to the sup- port of the Inianiate of L'baid Allah : and the dynasty of the Faliniites was thus successfully established in Kairwan. Early in the eleventh century the faith spread rapidh' among the Berbers of the Sahara also, among whom it had been introduced in the ninth century. The re- vival was due principally to a chieftain of the Lamtuna tribe, Abd Allah ibn Yassin, who founded a monastery and won many disciples from various tribes, to which he sent them back as missionaries. In 1042 he led his followers, known as the Mtirnbbitiii ( Almoravides), against the neighboring tribes, and by force and persua- sion succeeded in establishing a vast empire. Before the end of the century it extended from Senegandjia to .Igiers; Mohammedan Spain was brought under the sway of the Almoravides. In the beginning of the seventh century another dynasty was founded among the Berbers, when .bu Abd Allah Muliamniad ibn Tumart ap- peared in the IMauretanian mountains and preached especially against the la.xity of morals and the excessive veneration paid to saints. His followers became known as the Muicahhidin (Al- niohades, or Unitarians). The conquests and conversions of the Almohades were likewise enormous; by 1100 they had an empire extending from Barea to the .tlantic, and embracing Mo- hammedan Spain. After these events but few of the Berbers remained heathens. From Northern Africa Islam soon penetrated into the interior of the continent. The .Almora- vides made many converts in the eleventh century among the negroes of the Sudan, who had al- ready become familiar with the new faith through the visits of merchants and missionaries. The negro tribes of the west were first won over; as early as 1010 the King of Surhay (southeast of Timbuktu) liecame a Moslem; the States on the up]ier Niger, Timbuktu (founded in 1077) and Melle (West Sudan, founded by the ^landingos), followed and furnished active missionaries as well. The kingdoms of Bornu and Kaneni, along Lake Chad, became converted in the eleventh century, the latter kingdom extend- ing as far as Egypt and Nubia. In Darfur a Moslem <lynasty was founded in the fourteenth century and is reigning to-day; at the end of the sixteenth century W'adai and Bagirmi, and in the seventeenth, |Hirtions of the Hausa country, be- came Moslem. In the nineteenth century there was a remarkable revival of Mohammedanism due to the inlliienee of the Wahliabis. The Fu- lahs wore united into one political organization by Sheikh Othnian Danfodio. and compelled all the reinaiuing tribes to accept Islam. To-day there are four jiowerful Mohammedan kingdoms in Senegambia and the .Sudan. The nineteenth centui'v movement was aided by such religious orders as the .Amirghaniyyah. the Tijani^-yah. the Kadri^■^•ah. and the Sanusiyyah. The vast the- ocracy of the Sanusivyah has settlements and schools extending from Egypt to Morocco, in the Sudan, Scnegaiiibia, Soiiialiland, the Sahara, and the Galla country ; they have gained many converts by education and the purchase of slaves, -Vlong the west coast of Africa Islam has made steady progress; e.g. on the Guinea Coast, in Sierra Leone, in the Ashanti country, Dahomey, the Gold Coast, Lagos (where there are 10.000 Moslems), and Liberia (where there are more .Moslems than heathen). Often the common people are con- verts where the chieftains are not. There is hardly a town along the coast for 2000 miles from the Senegal which has not a mosque. On the east coast the Emozaydij made settle- ments before the tenth century ; they were Shiites, and were followed by Sunnis, who found- ed the town of JIagadoxo, and other towns on the coast from Aden to the Tropic of Caiiricorn. Arab traders made Zanzibar Mohammedan. Inland, however, only the Galla and Somali tribes are een ])artly Moslem. In Cape Colony there have been Moslems since the seventecntli and eigh- teenth centuries, Islam having lieen carried there by the Malays. Even among the Hottentots there are converts who make the pilgrimage to Mecca, w-liile in the diamond fields the coolies are said to be missionaries. Islam was introduced into Spain in 711 by Tarik with 12,000 Berbers. The first converts were from among the ill-treated slaves. The rem- nant of the heathen population followed, then the nobles and the middle and lower classes of the Christians, so that the majority of the popula- tion soon consisted of Mohammedans of non-Arab blood. In 1311 there were 200,000 Mnliauiiiie- dans in Granada alone, only 500 of them being of Arab descent. On the whole, conversion was carried on peacefully except when the Almora- vides at the close of the eleventh century came to Spain. The Moslem power began to crumble away as early as the eleventh century: the last Moriscos were driven out in 1009. The other Mohammedan empire in Europe, that of the Turks, ma4 its first conquests at the time of the decline of Islam in Spain. The inception of the Ottoman Empire dates from the beginning of the thirteenth century, when 50,000 Turks settled in the northwest of Asia Jlinor. In 1353 they entered Europe for the first time and in 1361 made Adrianople their capital. Be- fore the end of the century Bulgaria, Slacedonia, Thessal,y, and most of Thrace had been subdued by Bajazet; Amurath II, (1421-51) added to this territory, and Mohammed II. (1451-81), after taking Constantinople in 1453, extended his rule over Greece, Servia, Bo.snia. and Albania. . A large part of Hungary was added by Solyman II. I 1.520-66) ; in the seventeenth century Crete was taken, and Podolia was ceded bv the Poles. The most noted example of forced conversion was the enrollment of Christian children in the ranks of the .Janizaries (q.v. ). Large numbers were con- verted peaceably from all ranks; in the fifteenth century Adriano])le w-as the home of countless renegades; in the seventeenth converts were made even among the Christian clergy. Progress was very rapid at this time. The power of Servia was broken by the Turks in 138!), but the country was not reduced to the position of ,a Turkish province until 1450, when the inhabitants chose ^lohamniedan rule in preference to the Roman Catholicism of Hung<'"",v. However, though the nobles became Moslems, only in Old Servia . (northeast of Albania), since the seventeenth I