Page:The Preaching of Islam, by T. W. Arnold; 1935.djvu/23



CHAPTER I.

since Professor Max Muller delivered his lecture in Westminster Abbey, on the day of intercession for missions, in December, 1873, it has been a literary commonplace, that the six great religions of the world may be divided into missionary and non-missionary; under the latter head fall Judaism, Brahmanism and Zoroastrianism, and under the former Buddhism, Christianity and Islam; and he well defined what the term,—a missionary religion,—should be taken to mean, viz. one "in which the spreading of the truth and the conversion of unbelievers are raised to the rank of a sacred duty by the founder or his immediate successors.... It is the spirit of truth in the hearts of believers which cannot rest, unless it manifests itself in thought, word and deed, which is not satisfied till it has carried its message to every human soul, till what it believes to be the truth is accepted as the truth by all members of the human family."

It is such a zeal for the truth of their religion that has inspired the Muhammadans to carry with them the message of Islam to the people of every land into which they penetrate, and that justly claims for their religion a place among those we term missionary. It is the history of the birth of this missionary zeal, its inspiring forces and the modes of its activity that forms the subject of the following pages. The 200 millions of Muhammadans scattered over the