Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/745

* MOHAMMEDANISM. 667 MOHAMMEDANISM. sia. even into Tibet. In the various parts of India there are about 00,000,000 iloslenis, the luiniber of annual converts being estimated va- riously from 10,000 to (iOO.OOO. It is worth noticing, however, that in Agra and Delhi, the centres of iloslem power, but from one-tenth to one-fourth of the population is Jloslcni. Mohammedanism penetrated into China from the soutli and from the west. Friendly relations were established between the Caliphs and the Kmjjerors in the time of the Caliph Walid (705- 717), when the general Kutaibah il)n Muslim sent ambassadors to the Chinese Court. Later Moslem traders entered from Arabia, Bokhara, and Transoxiana. The first mosque was built in 742, in the eapital city, Shen-si, Northern China. In 7.58. 4000 Arab soldiers were .sent by the Caliph .-Mansur to aid the Emperor Sah-Tsung in crushing a rebellion ; they remained in China and intermarried with the natives. The annals of the Thang dynasty (1318-907) record the arrival of Moslems at Canton; there in the ninth century they lived as a separate conununity. They were joined later by other arrivals, and intermarried with the natives. Mohammedans entered the Province of Kan-su (part of the Empire of Hoey-hu), and the Khan was converted, in the tenth century. The Uigurs, a Turkish trilK> trans- ferred to the Great Wall in the Thang dynasty, became Moslems in the ninth century. All of these Moslem communities formed centres for the spread of Islam throughout the Empire. Further accessions of Syrians. Arabs, and Per- sians followed the great Mongol conquest. Under the Mongol Khakans Mohanunedans were well treated and rose to positions of trust (in 1244 Abd al-Rahman was head of the Imperial finances). At the beginning of the fourteenth century all the inhabitants of Yunnan were ^Moslems, and in every town throughout the Empire there was a special Moslem quarter. After the expulsion of the Mongols the Moham- medans avoided all external signs of their re- ligion, and assimilated themselves as far as pos- sible to the rest of the population, while keeping the essentials of their religion intact. Missionary cH'orts were continued quietly and slowly but surely; the only conversion in large numbers took place in 1770. when a revolt was put down in Sungaria. and the 10,000 military coloni.sts who were sent there all embraced Islam, and after a famine in 1790 in the Province of Kwang- tung, when 10.000 children are .said to have been bouglit, and brought up as Moslems. There was a general revival of interest in the eigh- teenth centurj'. when commercial relations were reestablished with the outside ^lohannncdan world. To-day there are 20.000.000 Mnhamme- dans in the Chinese Empire, of which three- fourths are in the provinces of Kan-su and Shen- si, in the northwest. As an example of the cities in the east, Peking has 20,000 Moslems, with 13 mosques. The spread of Islam into the Malay Islands dates from the twelfth century, when more or less successful attempts were made to introduce it into Sumatra ; in the fourteenth century the sherif of ^lecca sent missionaries to the island and succeeded in making many converts. In the fifteenth century the great Kingdom of Menang- Kalmn had many converts, and the larger part of central Sumatra is now Moslem. On the Malay Peninsula the Kingdom of ^lalacca was con- VOL. XIII.— 43. verted in the thirteenth or fourteenth century; the Moslems of the peninsula to-day are said to be most strict in their religious practices, though extremely tolerant, t'onverts liae been made among the Siamese Buddhists of the north and among the wild trilies of the peninsula. In .Java the first notable success of Islam took place in the fourteenth century; and in the following cen- tury the new- faith was firmlj- established on the east coast. In the fifteentii century Radan Kah- mat, nephew of the Hindu King of Majapahit, made many converts in Ampel, and in other places on the east coast ; at the same time con- versions were made in the west. Radan Patah headed a confederacy which, in 1478, defeated the King of Majapahit, replacing the Hindu with a iloslem dynasty. To-day nearl}' the whole of Java is ilohammedan. In Celebes, general con- version along the coast l)egau in the seventeenth century. The Macassars were the first converts; they then, after much resistance, converted the Bugis. who likewise became propagandists. In the north the Kingdom of Balaang-Mongondou, which was Christian for centuries, -nas finally converted in 1844. The population of this king- dom is now half heathen and half Jloslem. The island of Sumbawa has had a Moslem population since 1.540: Lombok was one of the scenes of conversion by the Bugis. In the Philippine Islands there has been a long struggle between Christianity and Lslam. In Jlindanao and the Sulu Islands civilized Moham- medan tribes existed as early as 1521, when the Spaniards came to the islands. Owing to their obnoxious and ill-advised methods, the Span- iards could make no progress in the face of Islam. The Mohammedans, as elsewhere, learne<l the language of the pco]ile. adopted their cus- toms and intermarried with them, thereby win- ning great success. The independent Kingdom of Mindanao had 360,000 Moslem subjects in the nineteenth century. The Sulu Islands have also been a Mohammedan stronghold, though nomi- nally Catholic. Among the ruder inhabitants, those of the lower classes, in the northern islands, Islam has not made much headway, as indeed has been the case throughout the archipelago. In New Guinea and the islands to the northwe.st of it. progi'css has been made only on the coasts. In the archipelago as a whole, however, Islam is spreading; in Java, for instance, there were 33.- 802 pilgrims to Mecca in 1874, and 48.237 in 1886. Books are printed in Mecca in the various Mjlay languages: in 1882 the Mohammedan schools of Java had 255,000 students. The relig- ious orders, especially the Sanusij-yah, are very active. It is almost impossible to give reliahle figures of the total INIohamniedan population of the world. The oflicial estimate of the Turkish Gov- ernment, which may be considered very conser'a- tive, places the number at 176.000.000. Tliis is divided as follows: In the Turkish dominions. 18.000.000: in other parts of Asia. 90.000.000: in .Africa. 36.000.000; in other countries and in the islands of the Eastern seas. 23.000,000. The whole of British India, with its dependencies, according to the census of 1901. contained 62.458.000 Mo- hammedans. Mann(.Vor//i Aiin'ricnii Ifi'rieir, No- vember. 1900) gives the following figures: India, 57,061.796: Burma, 210,049; Malav Archipel- ago. 31.042,000; China. 32.000.0(10; Africa. 80.000,000; a total of 200.313.845. There are