The Preaching of Islam: A History of the Propagation of...

As has been already mentioned, Islam has been most favourably received by the more civilised races of the Malay Archipelago, and has taken but little root among the lower races. Such are the Papuans of New Guinea, and the islands to the north-west of it, viz. Waigyu, Misool, Waigama [403]and Salawatti. These islands, together with the peninsula of Onin, on the north-west of New Guinea, were in the sixteenth century subject to the Sultan of Batjan,140 one of the kings of the Moluccas. Through the influence of the Muhammadan rulers of Batjan, the Papuan chiefs of these islands adopted Islam,141 and though the mass of the people in the interior have remained heathen up to the present day, the inhabitants of the coast are Muhammadans largely no doubt owing to the influence of settlers from the Moluccas.142 In New Guinea itself, very few of the Papuans seem to have become Muhammadans. Islam was introduced into the west coast (probably in the peninsula of Onin) by Muhammadan merchants, who propagated their religion among the inhabitants, as early as 1606.143 But it appears to have made very little progress during the centuries that have elapsed since then,144 and the Papuans have shown as much reluctance to become Muhammadans as to accept the teachings of the Christian missionaries, who have laboured among them without much success since 1855. The Muhammadans of the neighbouring islands have been accused of holding the Papuans in too great contempt to make efforts to spread Islam among them.145 The name of one missionary, [404]however, is found, a certain Imām Dikir (?

D͟hikr), who came from one of the islands on the south-east of Ceram about 1856 and introduced Islam into the little island of Adi, south of the peninsula of Onin; after fulfilling his mission he returned to his own home, resisting the importunities of the inhabitants to settle among them.146 Muhammadan traders from Ceram and Goram are reported to have made a number of converts from among the heathen during the first decade of the twentieth century.147 Similar efforts are being made to convert the Papuans of the neighbouring Kei Islands. In the middle of the nineteenth century there were said to be hardly any Muhammadans on these islands, with the exception of the descendants of immigrants from the Banda Islands; some time before, missionaries from Ceram had succeeded in making some converts, but the precepts of the Qurʼān were very little observed, both forbidden meats and intoxicating liquors being indulged in. The women, however, were said to be stricter in their adherence to their faith than the men, so that when their husbands wished to indulge in swine’s flesh, they had to do so in secret, their wives not allowing it to be brought into the house.148 But in 1887 it was noted that there had been a revival of religious life among the Kei islanders, and the number of Muhammadans was daily increasing.

Arab merchants from Madura, Java, and Bali proved themselves zealous propagandists of Islam and left no means untried to win converts, sometimes enforcing their arguments by threats and violence, and at other times by bribes: as a rule new converts were said to get 200 florins’ worth of presents, while chiefs received as much as a thousand florins.149 At the close of the nineteenth century about 8000 of the Kei islanders were said to be Muhammadan out of a total population of 23,000.150

The above sketch of the spread of Islam from west to east through the Malay Archipelago comprises but a small part [405]of the history of the missionary work of Islam in these islands. Many of the facts of this history are wholly unrecorded, and what can be gleaned from native chronicles and the works of European travellers, officials and missionaries is necessarily fragmentary and incomplete. But there is evidence enough to show the existence of peaceful missionary efforts to spread the faith of Islam during the last six hundred years: sometimes indeed the sword has been drawn in support of the cause of religion, but preaching and persuasion rather than force and violence have been the main characteristics of this missionary movement. The marvellous success that has been achieved has been largely the work of traders, who won their way to the hearts of the natives, by learning their language, adopting their manners and customs, and began quietly and gradually to spread the knowledge of their religion by first converting the native women they married and the persons associated with them in their business relations. Instead of holding themselves apart in proud isolation, they gradually melted into the mass of the population, employing all their superiority of intelligence and civilisation for the work of conversion and making such skilful compromises in the doctrines and practices of their faith as were needed to recommend it to the people they wished to attract.151 In fact, as Buckle said of them, “The Mahometan missionaries are very judicious.”152

Beside the traders, there have been numbers of what may be called professional missionaries—theologians, preachers, jurisconsults and pilgrims. The latter have, in recent years, been especially active in the work of proselytising, in stirring up a more vigorous and consistent religious life among their fellow-countrymen, and in purging away the lingering remains of heathen habits and beliefs. The number of those who make the pilgrimage to Mecca from all parts of the Archipelago is constantly on the increase, and there is in consequence a proportionate growth of Muhammadan influence and Muhammadan thought. Up to the middle of the nineteenth century the Dutch Government tried to put obstacles in the way of the pilgrims and passed an order that [406]no one should be allowed to make the pilgrimage to the holy city without a passport, for which he had to pay 110 florins; and any one who evaded this order was on his return compelled to pay a fine of double that amount.153 Accordingly it is not surprising to find that in 1852 the number of pilgrims was so low as seventy, but in the same year this order was rescinded, and since then, there has been a steady increase.

The average number of pilgrims during the last decade of the nineteenth century was 7000—during the first decade of the twentieth, 7300;154 but the numbers vary considerably from year to year, the largest recorded number from the Dutch Indies being 14,234 in 1910.155

Such an increase is no doubt largely due to the increased facilities of communication between Mecca and the Malay Archipelago, but, as a Christian missionary has observed, this by no means “diminishes the importance of the fact, especially as the Hadjis, whose numbers have grown so rapidly, have by no means lost in quality what they gained in quantity; on the contrary, there are now amongst them many more thoroughly acquainted with the doctrines of Islam, and wholly imbued with Moslem fanaticism and hatred against the unbelievers, than there formerly were.”156 The reports of the Dutch Government and of Christian missionaries bear unanimous testimony to the influence and the proselytising zeal of these pilgrims who return to their homes as at once reformers and missionaries.157 Beside the pilgrims who content themselves with merely visiting the sacred places and performing the due ceremonies, and those who make a longer stay in order to complete their theological studies, there is a large colony of Malays in Mecca at the present time, who have taken up their residence permanently in the sacred city. These are in constant communication with their fellow-countrymen in their native land, and their efforts have been largely effectual in purging Muhammadanism in the Malay Archipelago from the contamination of [407]heathen customs and modes of thought that have survived from an earlier period. A large number of religious books is also printed in Mecca in the various languages spoken by the Malay Muhammadans and carried to all parts of the Archipelago.

As might be anticipated from a consideration of these facts, there has been of recent years a very great awakening of missionary activity in the Malay Archipelago, and the returned pilgrims, whether as merchants or religious teachers, become preachers of Islam wherever they come in contact with a heathen population. The religious orders moreover have extended their organisation to the Malay Archipelago,159 even the youngest of them—the Sanūsiyyah—finding adherents in the most distant islands,160 one of the signs of its influence being the adoption of the name Sanūsī by many Malays, when in Mecca they change their native for Arabic names.161

The Dutch Government has been accused by Christian missionaries of favouring the spread of Islam; however this may have been, it is certain that the work of the Muslim missionaries is facilitated by the fact that Malay, which is spoken by hardly any but Muhammadans, has been adopted as the official language of the Dutch Government, except in Java; and as the Dutch civil servants are everywhere attended by a crowd of Muhammadan subordinate officials, political agents, clerks, interpreters and traders, they carry Islam with them into every place they visit. All persons that have to do business with the Government are obliged to learn the Malay language, and they seldom learn it without at the same time becoming Musalmans. In this way the most influential people embrace Islam, and the rest soon follow their example.162 Thus Islam is at the present time rapidly driving out heathenism from the Malay Archipelago. [408]