APPENDIX II. - CONTROVERSIAL LITERATURE BETWEEN MUSLIMS AND THE FOLLOWERS OF OTHER FAITHS.

APPENDIX II.

CONTROVERSIAL LITERATURE  BETWEEN  MUSLIMS  AND THE  FOLLOWERS OF OTHER  FAITHS.

         

although Islam has had no organised system of propa­ganda, no tract societies or similar agencies of missionary work, there has been no lack of reasoned presentments of the faith to unbelievers, particularly to Christians and Jews Of these it is not proposed to give a detailed account here, but it is of importance to draw attention to their existence if only to remove the wide-spread misconception that mass conversion is the prevailing characteristic of the spread of Islam and that individual conviction has formed no part of the propagandist schemes of the Muslim missionary. The beginnings of Muhammadan controversy against unbelievers are to be found in the Qur'an itself, but from the ninth century of the Christian era begins a long series of syste­matic treatises of Muhammadan Apologetics, which has been actively continued to the present day. The number of such works directed against the Christian faith has been far more numerous than the Christian refutations of Islam, and some of the ablest of Muslim thinkers have employed their pens in their composition, e.g. Abu Yusuf b. Ishaq al-Kindi (a.d. 813-873), al-Mas'udi (ob. a.d. 958), Ibn Hazm (a.d. 994-1064), al-Ghazali (ob, a.d. 1111), etc. It is inter­esting also to note that several renegades have written apologies for their change of faith and in defence of the Muslim creed, e.g. Ibn Jazlah in the eleventh century, Yusuf al-Lubnani and Shaykh Ziyadah b. Yahya in the thirteenth, 'Abd Allah b. 'Abd Allah in the fifteenth, Darwesh 'Ali in the sixteenth, Ahmad b. 'Abd Allah, an Englishman born at Cambridge, in the seventeenth century, etc. These latter were all Christians before their conversion, but Jewish renegades also, though fewer in number, have been among the apologists of Islam. In India, besides many Muhammadan books written against the Christian religion, there is an enormous number of controversial works against Hinduism : as to whether the Muhammadans have been equally active in other heathen countries, I have no information.

          The reader will find a vast store of information on Muslim controversial literature in the following writings : Moritz Steinschneider: Polemische und apologetische Litteratur in arabischer Sprache, zwischen Muslimen, Christen und Juden. (Leipzig, 1877); Ignaz Goldziher : Uber Muhammedanische Polemik gegen Ahl al-kitab (Z.D.M.G., vol. 32, p. 341 ff. 1878); Martin Schreiner: Zur Geschichte der Polemik zwischen Juden und Muhammedanern (Z.D.M.G., vol. 42, p. 591 ff. 1888); W. A. Shedd : Islam and the Oriental Churches, pp. 252-3; Carl Guterbock: Der Islam in Lichte der byzantinischen Polemik. (Berlin, 1912.)

APPENDIX  III.

MUSLIM  MISSIONARY  SOCIETIES.

         

the formation of societies for carrying on a propaganda in an organised and systematic manner is a recent develop­ment in the missionary history of Islam—as indeed it is comparatively recent in the history of Christian missions. Such Muslim missionary societies would appear to have been formed in conscious imitation of similar organisations in the Christian world, and are not in themselves the most characteristic expressions of the missionary spirit in Islam. In the Western world there is very little to note. No attempt seems to have been made to form such a society before the latter half of the nineteenth century, and the earliest efforts were attended with little success. When H. M. Stanley in 1875 urged in the English Press the sending of a Christian mission to King Mutesa of Uganda, the wide-spread attention paid to his appeal led to the formation of a missionary society in Constantinople for the propagation of Islam in that country, but no Muhammadan missionaries were ever sent to Uganda, and the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war in 1878 diverted the attention of the Turks from any such enterprise.( 1)

A similar failure to establish organised missionary effort was manifested when the Anglo-Egyptian Government of the Sudan marked out zones of influence for various Christian missionary societies in districts the natives of which were heathen; some Muslims of Cairo claimed that a part of the territory should be allotted to the followers of Islam; whereupon the Government replied that all they had to do was to send the missionaries and the same facilities would be afforded to them as to the Christian missionaries; but the necessary organisation was lacking and the matter was allowed to drop.(2 )

In 1910 Shaykh Rashid, the editor of al-Manar, founded a missionary society in Cairo, the object of which is to establish a college (entitled Dar al-da'wah wa’l-irshad) for the training of missionaries and apologists for Islam, who are to be sent primarily into heathen and Christian lands, but also into those Muhammadan countries in which attempts are being made to induce the Muhammadans to abandon their faith.( 3)

          But it is in India that there has been the greatest expan­sion of such organisations. One of the best organised of these is probably the Anjuman Himayat-i-Islam of Lahore, but propagandist work forms only a small part of the wide field of its activities and it cannot therefore be described as a missionary society pure and simple. The original purpose for which the Anjuman Hami Islam of Ajmer was founded was to answer the objections urged against Islam by the members of the Arya Samaj, but it included among its objects the preaching of Islam and the providing of food and clothing to new converts. (4 ) The Anjuman Wa'z-i-Islam, as its name denotes, concentrated its efforts on the preaching of Islam, and, while Mawlavi Baqa Husayn Khan (p. 283) was its Secretary, published lists of the converts gained—as did also the Anjuman-i-Islam and the Anjuman Tabligh-i-Islam (which aimed at the conversion of the Hindu untouch­ables) established in Haydarabad (Deccan), but it does not appear that either of these societies continues to exist. ( 5)

Among the societies that have been established in the twentieth century are the Madrasa Ilahiyyat at Cawnpore, for the training of missionaries and the publication of tracts in defence of Islam and in refutation of attacks made upon it; and the Anjuman Isha'at wa Ta'lim-i-Islam at Batalah in the Panjab, with similar objects. But the largest of these organisations is the Anjuman Hidayat al-Islam of Dehli, to which as many as twenty-four other societies, ( 6)

in various parts of India, are affiliated; this Anjuman sends out missionaries to preach the doctrines of Islam and to hold controversies with non-Muslims, and publishes controversial literature, especially in refutation of the attacks made by the members of the Arya Samaj.

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1-       Richter, pp. 164-5.

2-        Artin, p. 35.

3-       The Moslem World, vol. i. p. 441. R. du M. M., vol. xv. p. 374; vot- xviii- PP 216,224.

4-       Rajputana Herald, April 17, 1889.

5-       Mohammedan World of To-day, p. 183.

6-       A list of these is given on p. 19 of the Annual Report for the year 1328 H.