CHAPTER XXII

ISLAM IN WEST AFRICA

The steady and continuous spread of Islam in the western portion of the Dark Continent is a fact which no one acquainted with the subject will attempt to deny. It is, indeed, so well established that to specialise particular instances where it has been observed would be a needless undertaking. It is everywhere palpable, striking, impressive. It can no more be disguised or ignored than the concurrent circumstance of relative failure on the part of Christian missions. While Mohammedanism continues to gain converts far and wide; to absorb whole tribes; to filter down the rivers to the ocean; to pierce the forest belt, with hardly a check—save here and there, as, for example, among the Ibos on the Niger—Christianity makes no headway in the interior; and even in its confinement to the coastwise region, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, some of the Europeanised towns on the coast, its progress is slow, so slow, indeed, that well-informed observers are not wanting who believe that it is losing rather than gaining ground. At any rate, it is not, I venture to think, an exaggeration to say, Christianity is maintaining itself with difficulty among heathen communities in West Africa, and beats in vain against the strong tide of Mohammedanism.[173]

It cannot be without interest to Englishmen whose West African Empire covers so large an area, and numbers between thirty and forty millions, to devote careful attention to a subject which is fraught with such far-reaching importance, and which it is imperially necessary for Great Britain to take into serious consideration as constituting a factor which has to be reckoned with and appreciated at its proper value. On that account it may not be out of place to discuss in a general way the whole subject of Mohammedanism in West Africa. The problem is a great one, and although there is no pretence here to more than touch the fringe of it, even a tentative effort is, perhaps, of interest to the daily increasing section of the public, which begins, although still but dimly, to realise the nature and the extent of the responsibilities Great Britain has undertaken in West Africa.

Rejecting, as, in my opinion, we can do with safety, the legend that attributes the existence of Mohammedanism in Walata (Biru), the seat of the Ghanata Empire as early as the sixtieth year of the Hejira, or about 682 A.D., there is yet good reason to believe that Islam crossed the Sahara, and became powerful in the Western Sudan, earlier than the eleventh century A.D., which is the period assigned to that event by the majority of authorities. We know positively that the fifteenth prince of the first and Za dynasty of the Songhay, Za Kasai, was converted to Islam in the year 1000 A.D.[174] From El Bekri we glean that Mohammedanism had taken such firm root in the Songhay Empire about sixty years after the conversion of Za Kasai (1067 A.D.) that none but a Muslim could be king. In the reign of Yusif Ibn Tashfin, the founder of Morocco, 1062 A.D., many Negroes, according to Leo Africanus, became followers of the Prophet. Barth’s invaluable “Chronological Table of the History of Bornu” shows us that Islam was introduced into Kanem (and Bornu)[175] in the reign of Hume, the first of the Muslim rulers of that extensive Empire (1086-89), and the circumstance that this potentate died in Masr (Misr)—_i.e._ Egypt, infers that he was either on his way to or from Mecca.[176] Now it seems inconceivable that Gao or Gogo, the capital of the Songhay Empire, which was situate on the Niger about 500 miles in the heart of the country of the Negroes, should have yielded to the influence of Islamic preachers who came from the north, before the introduction of that religion in the intervening region comprised between the southern limits of the Sahara and the Western Sudan. That it should have struck the Niger, and followed it as providing the swiftest vehicle of penetration inland before permeating the countries that lay on either side of the river, is natural enough, and we find indirect confirmation that it did so in the circumstance that the other great Negro kingdom contemporary with Songhay, that of Melle or Mali, which had succeeded Ghanata, only embraced Islam in the person of its king, Baramidana, in 1213, or about two centuries after the conversion of Za Kasai. It may therefore, I think, be assumed, without departing from the limits of inherent probability, that if the existence of mosques in Walata were relegated to 900 A.D. instead of 682 A.D., the former date would approximately represent the truth; and that Mohammedan proselytisers must have been busily at work in the Senegal about that time or a little later, pushing southwards and eastwards from thence, until they reached the Niger, and pursuing their course onwards to the most important city on its banks, Gao; reaching it, as already stated, in the opening years of the eleventh century,[177] and having met with success, continuing their triumphal progress to the third great Negro kingdom of West Africa, Kanem.[178]

The introduction of Islam revolutionised Western Africa. His first contact with a revealed religion powerfully affected the naturally intense spiritual nature of the Negro. What was the precise nature of the religious beliefs entertained by the Songhays, Mandingoes, Fulani, Hausas and other tribes inhabiting the Upper Senegal and Upper Niger at the time of the advent of Mohammedanism it is difficult to say. It may have been the animism which, under its modern appellation, Fetishism, is met with to-day in its purest form among the true Negroes of the coastwise swamp and forest regions. Or, as is much more probable, it may have been a form of pantheism allied with animal worship inherited from contact, at a remote period, with Egyptian culture; as witness the _Tarik’s_ description of the original fish-god of the Songhays, believed by some authorities—and not without reason—to have been the manatee;[179] the alleged regard of the Mandingoes for the hippopotamus;[180] and the strong presumptions of an ancient bovine worship among those Fulani who have remained faithful to their original calling of _bororoji_ (herdsmen) as distinguished from their more ambitious countrymen of the towns, whom destiny has fashioned into statesmen, diplomatists and warriors. Whatever those beliefs may severally have been they were flung aside, and Islam struck so deep that the Negro became in time not only as zealous, but upon occasion more zealous than his Semitic teachers. Under the fostering impulse and care of the new religion, these backward regions, says Thomson,[181] commenced an upward progress. A new and powerful bond drew the scattered congeries of tribes together and welded them into powerful communities. Their moral and spiritual well-being increased by leaps and bounds, and their political and social life took an altogether higher level.

“Islamism is in itself stationary, and was framed thus to remain; sterile like its God, lifeless like its first principle in all that constitutes life—for life is love, participation and progress, and of these the Coranic deity has none. It justly repudiates all change, all development, to borrow the forcible words of Lord Houghton, the written book is there the dead man’s hand, stiff and motionless; whatever savours of vitality is by that alone convicted of heresy and defection.”[182]

The underlying thought in the above passage is evidently comparative. The writer is unconsciously drawing a comparison between the two great revealed religions of the world, Christianity and Islam, as such. But as we are here concerned merely to treat of the performances of Islam in West Africa, and of the effect upon the _Negro_, primarily of Islam, indirectly of Christianity, it can without hesitancy be asserted that what may be partly true in the description given of Islam in its relation to mankind as a whole is wholly false as regards its influence in West Africa. To the _Negro_ the God of Islam is not sterile: Islam is not lifeless. It is a living force, giving to its Negro converts, as Mr. Bosworth-Smith says, “an energy, a dignity, and a self-respect which is all too rarely found in their pagan or their Christian fellow-countrymen.” Individually and collectively the Negro has progressed since Islam crossed the desert, and just as to the Negro fetishist of the forest and the swamp religious conceptions permeate every act, preside over every undertaking and insinuate themselves in every incident of his daily existence, so Islam, where it has laid permanent hold upon the Negro, claims from him an allegiance entire and complete.

We need not seek for proof of this. It is writ large over West Africa. Negroes, not by dozens or by scores, but by tens of hundreds, traverse thousands of miles on foot from the innermost parts of the Mohammedanised Continent; from Senegal, from the Niger Bend, from Bornu, from Hausa, from our Coast Colonies of Sierra Leone and Lagos, to perform the Haj, the sacred journey to Mecca, which every true believer should accomplish at least once in his life. A clergyman belonging to the Church Missionary Society, writing from Tripoli,[183] recently spoke of “a ceaseless stream of Hausa pilgrims continually passing through Tripoli on the way to Mecca after a wearisome tramp across the desert,” a significant admission from such a source. This “ceaseless stream” is not confined to Hausa. It flows from all parts of Western Africa. It has flowed thus for many centuries, and the volume, far from diminishing, increases. That is not the sign of sterility. Burton, during his stay in Mecca, was witness of the extraordinary influence wielded by Islam on the Negro mind. The case, as he remarks, was not an exceptional one.

“Late in the evening,” he says, “I saw a negro in the state called Malbus—religious frenzy. To all appearance a Takruri,[184] he was a fine and powerful man, as the numbers required to hold him testified. He threw his arms wildly about him, uttering shrill cries, which sounded like _le le le le_, and, when held, he swayed his body and waved his head from side to side like a chained and furious elephant, straining out the deepest groans. The Africans appear unusually subject to this nervous state, which, seen by the ignorant and the imaginative, would at once suggest ‘demoniacal possession.’ Either their organisation is more impressionable or, more probably, the hardships, privations, and fatigues endured whilst wearily traversing inhospitable wilds and perilous seas have exalted their imaginations to a pitch bordering upon frenzy. Often they are seen prostrate on the pavement, or clinging to the curtain, or rubbing their foreheads upon the stones, weeping bitterly, and pouring forth the wildest ejaculations.”

Dr. Blyden, speaking of the native Moslems of Sierra Leone, has said, “Wherever they go, they take the Koran with them. In a wreck or a fire, if nothing else is saved, that book is generally rescued. They prize and honour it with extreme reverence and devotion.... I have known them to pay as high as five pounds sterling for a Manuscript Koran and think it cheap.” One might fill a volume in giving concrete instances, as well as general statements founded upon the personal observations of travellers in all parts of Western Africa, to prove the inapplicability as concerns West Africa of Palgrave’s passage quoted above, a passage which I have specially chosen because it represents, unfortunately, what may be called “home opinion” on the subject.

It can, no doubt, be said with truth, that the majority of West African Mohammedans cannot read Arabic, and that a large proportion of them only know the ordinances of the Koran by hearsay; but this, far from being an argument against the influence of Islam in West Africa, is but an added proof of the grip which Islamic thought has attained over the African mind, and of its having supplied the Negro—not through specific rules, regulations and ordinances, but in its main conception—with something which he required both in a spiritual and material sense. It is, moreover, advisable to accept with caution the general statements attributing wholesale ignorance of letters to Muslims in West Africa. Blyden gives a long list of works which he observed in a Mallam’s house in the Sierra Leone hinterland. The _Tarik_ tells us that, not long after the introduction of Islam in West Africa, many Negroes rivalled their Semitic or Berber teachers in knowledge and erudition. Barth met in the wildest parts of Adamawa a Fulani from far-off Massina carrying a considerable number of Arabic books as _trade_. Many other instances could be given.

Islam in West Africa is, indeed, a living force and a most powerful agency “everywhere knitting the conquerors and the conquered into an harmonious whole,”[185] and Englishmen must regard it as such. It confronts them more particularly in its political aspect in Northern Nigeria; and in Sierra Leone, the Gambia, the Gold Coast, Lagos, and to a much lesser degree, in Southern Nigeria, in its social aspect. People in England appear strangely unacquainted with these facts. West African Mohammedanism is presented to them in distorted shape by those who have interest in so doing, and to whom the public ear is more readily accessible. But the local authorities in the West African Colonies realise the state of affairs; and what is more, are rapidly coming to the conclusion that the Mohammedan section of the community is not only the most orderly and the most progressive, but necessitates, both as a matter of duty and of policy, recognition on the part of the Government. Within the last few years Mohammedan schools have been established with official sanction and support in all our Colonies; a mosque built by the late Shitta Bey has been opened at Lagos[186] by the (then) Governor in person, and in Sierra Leone a Director of Mohammedan Education has been especially appointed at a fixed salary per annum.

As with Great Britain, so with France, but to a very much greater degree. France’s African Empire is almost wholly an Islamic one, and confining ourselves to that part of it which is properly West African, the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants are Muslims. With the exception of a small section of Bobos, Diakankes and Bambarras, a larger but declining section of the Malinkes and a few wandering Fulani in the more remote districts of Barani, Fuladugu, Bobo-Dialassu, &c., the whole of the Western Sudan is more or less Muslimised. In the north of her colony of Guinea, France has the large Muslim Fulani State of Futa-Jallon; in Senegal, Mohammedanism has spread right down to the ocean; in the Chad region, in Baghirmi and a considerable distance up the Shari, Islam has flourished for at least four centuries, and through Fulani cattle-rearers and Hausa traders, the tenets of the Prophet are being propagated as far south as the Shari, Sangha and Ubanghi. The French have established numerous schools at which the sons of Mohammedan chiefs receive instruction on Western lines. Among such schools may be mentioned those of Kayes and Medina. Special instructors appointed by the French Government teach Arabic side by side with French, and every effort is made by France to secure Muslim co-operation on lines of Western thought in the great work which she has taken in hand. The French African Committee go so far as to print a special bulletin in Arabic, which, together with the Arabic newspaper _al Mobacher_, published in Algeria, is distributed gratuitously to a large number of influential Mohammedans throughout the Western Sudan, especially in such centres as Jenne, Timbuctoo, Nioro and Sokolo. Needless to say these publications are largely composed of laudatory articles calculated to inspire their readers with the justice, generosity, and liberty of French political conceptions. The French seem to be adopting in this, as in many other respects in West Africa, a very enlightened attitude. At the Kayes school, for instance, they have appointed a special teacher from Algeria to superintend instruction in the Arabic tongue.[187] Moreover, in order to make clear to the Muslim population that their sons can attend the Government schools without fear of having to listen to teaching conceived in a spirit of hostility or criticism towards Islam, the French authorities not only permit but encourage the presence during class time of the Muslim schoolmasters themselves, thus removing the natural suspicion of Muslim parents, and at the same time making allies of the “marabouts.” This line of conduct, it may be added, is especially embodied in the instructions given to all District Commissioners.

How comes it that Islam has succeeded with the West African Negro when Christianity has fared so badly? Islam has marched from triumph to triumph among the Negroes, but of the greatest effort ever put forward by the Christian Church in West Africa, that by the Portuguese in the Congo in the sixteenth century, there remains little or no trace, and the results of more widespread but less consistent (because rent by internal differences) efforts of to-day cannot be termed otherwise than profoundly discouraging, when one considers the lives expended in a fruitless task; pitifully sterile, when one is aware of the large sums that have been, and continue to be, spent in the attempt. It would seem as though the failure of the Christian Church in North Africa, and the failure of Roman Catholicism in South West Africa, in the sixteenth century, were to be repeated in these later days by the multifarious sects and denominations the monotony of whose painful struggles to gain a foothold on the western shores of the unfathomable continent is only varied by the jealousies and recriminations which they indulge in towards one another.

The Protestant churchman is wont to ascribe the failure of Christian propaganda in South-Western Africa in the sixteenth century to Roman Catholicism, which to him is the embodiment of an evil little if at all removed from the evil of Islamic doctrine.[188] I have heard English and French Roman Catholics attribute it to the inherent incapacity, or weakness, or corruptibility—according to the particular views of the individual—of the would-be converters, the Portuguese. Persons devoid of special religious prejudices are sometimes inclined to argue that the mere fact of the slave trade being in existence contemporaneously was in itself sufficient to account for it. Upon examination none of these views appear very conclusive. Protestantism has not fared better in West Africa than Roman Catholicism. Indeed, it may be doubted whether it has fared, on the whole, quite as well. No argument worthy of serious attention has been adduced to prove the exceptional unfitness of Portuguese prelates to successfully accomplish the task they had begun, nor does the decline of the political influence of Portugal in West Africa provide a fitting explanation, because the flimsy nature of the first apparent successes of the Roman Catholic Church had become evident before that decline took place. As for the alleged slave-trade deterrent, it was, contradictory as the statement may appear, probably no deterrent at all, but rather the reverse; for the policy of the Portuguese consisted in promoting friendly relations with the more powerful potentates of the littoral, and in supplying them with guns and gunpowder to make war on the inland tribes. The latter, and not the coastwise natives, were, in the main, the chief sufferers by the slave trade; and the coast people, being guaranteed from molestation, would have no occasion to invoke the miseries inflicted upon them by the Portuguese traffickers in human flesh, when approached by the Portuguese inculcators of Christianity. In fact, if the political acts of professing Christian nations in West Africa are to be considered as a factor in the measure of success, or failure of Christian propagandism in West Africa—a debatable proposition upon which I propose to refer later on—it may without hesitation be affirmed that recent developments of European policy have done more to prejudice the natives against the doctrines of Christianity, as propounded by European teachers, than the slave trade with all its savagery and horrors.

[Illustration: A SUSU MALLAM]

We must go deeper than this, and in doing so try and clear our minds of preconceived opinions, no easy matter when certain errors have been so persistently dinned into our ears that they have come to be regarded as cardinal articles of faith; and those who in this respect occasionally venture to disturb the serenity of our convictions are looked upon as outside the pale of respectable society. One of such preconceived opinions is embodied in the quotation from Palgrave’s “Arabia” already commented upon. Another bears on the nature of Islamic proselytism in West Africa. It is an ingrained belief with most people that Mohammedanism in West Africa has ever been propagated by brute force; is ever and always associated with “slave-raiding.” The mere epithet of “slave-raiders” applied in Reuter’s telegrams to a tribe with whom trouble has occurred, is sufficient to justify in the eyes of the public any expeditions of a punitive kind which the authorities in their wisdom think fit to organise, against those who have incurred the displeasure of a District Commissioner or Military Commandant. Far be it from me to assert that occasions do not arise when the adoption of punitive undertakings is not only an unavoidable necessity, but a positive duty owed by the Suzerain Power to its protected subjects. But I would venture respectfully to suggest that the term “slave-raiding” is much abused, not a little distorted, and sometimes most unfairly applied. It is used almost exclusively in connection with Mohammedan tribes. When a difference comes about with pagans, we are told that it is caused by a predilection to human sacrifices. A reference to the frequent collisions which have taken place between Great Britain and the natives of Western Africa during the last six years will show that, either as a primary or an accessory cause of the difficulty, human sacrifices are invariably given in the case of a pagan community and slave-raiding in the case of a Mohammedan community.

There could be no greater error than the prevalent idea that in West Africa, Islam has attained its remarkable successes _manu militari_. Most of Islam’s triumphs in West Africa have been won by the peaceful sect of the Quadriyah, founded by Sidi-Abd-el-Kader-el-Jieari in 1077 A.D., first introduced into West Africa in the fifteenth century; and the work accomplished by this sect has been more enduring and more widespread than that of the other great order in West Africa, the Tijaniyah, which believes primarily in the sword as a means of conversion.

“In the beginning[189] of the present century[190] the great revival which was so profoundly influencing the Mohammedan world stirred up the Quadriyah of the Sahara and Western Sudan to renewed life and energy, and before long learned theologians or small colonies of persons affiliated to the order were to be found, scattered throughout the Sudan, on the mountain chain that runs along the coast of Guinea, and even to the west of it, in the Free State of Liberia. These initiates formed centres of Islamic influence in the midst of the pagan population, among whom they received a welcome as public scribes, legists, writers of amulets, and schoolmasters; gradually they would acquire influence over their new surroundings, and isolated cases of conversion would soon grow into a little band of converts, the most promising of whom would often be sent to complete their studies at the chief centre of the order; here they might remain for several years, until they had perfected their theological studies, and would then return to their native place, fully equipped for the work of spreading the faith among their fellow-countrymen. In this way a leaven has been introduced into the midst of fetish worshippers and idolaters which has gradually spread the faith of Islam surely and steadily, though by almost imperceptible degrees. Up to the middle of the present century[191] in the Sudan, schools were founded and conducted by teachers trained under the auspices of the Quadriyah, and their organisation provided for a regular and continued system of propaganda among the heathen tribes. The missionary work of this order has been entirely of a peaceful character, and has relied wholly upon personal example and precept, on the influence of a teacher over his pupils, and the spread of education.”

The Quadriyah order, moreover, is not animated by hostility towards Christians, in which it differs materially from that of the Tijaniyah. The French find it advisable to co-operate politically with the former sect. “It is,” writes Captain Morrison in the interesting report already alluded to, “our business to see that the Negroes, Moors, Tuaregs and other inhabitants of the Western Sudan should become more affiliated to the Quadriyah (Kadria). It is, thanks to the spirit with which the Imam of Lanfiera inspires his adepts, that friendship and protection have been granted to all our explorers in that region.” M. le Commandant Binger thus describes the work of Quadriyah Muslims in the important city and country of Kong, in the hinterland of the Ivory Coast, which he was the first to discover and bring to the notice of Europe:

“A hundred years ago, the influence of the Muslim community of Kong did not extend beyond a few miles of the city. Surrounded on all sides by pagan tribes who existed by rapine and brigandage, the people of Kong could not carry on trade and dispose of their cotton goods without great loss, consequent upon the exorbitant taxes imposed by the pagan kinglets, non-payment of which involved the pillage of caravans. What did the Muslims do? They established Mohammedan families from Kong in all the villages situated between Kong and Bobo-Dialassu first, and between Kong and Jenne afterwards. It took them fifty years to settle one or two families in each village. Each of these immigrants organised a school, asked some of the inhabitants to send their children there, then little by little, through their relations with Kong and other commercial centres, they were able to render service to the pagan king of the country, to gain his confidence, and gradually to take part in his affairs. If a difficulty arises it is always a Muslim who is appealed to. Even if he be quite alone in the country, the king will empower him to negotiate, because he is usually able to read and write and has the reputation of being a good and holy man. If the Muslim ambassador fails in his mission, he proposes to the pagan king that the mediation of the people of Kong shall be invoked. Thus the country becomes placed under the protection of the Mohammedan States of Kong. Gradually Islam makes progress. More Muslim families settle among the pagans, who do not fail to become converts. The latter quickly recognise that the one means of finding aid and protection wherever their travels may lead them lies in the adoption of Islam.[192] Moreover, have not the pagans a significant example before them? Do not the Muslims live in comparative ease and comfort? The pagan, while acknowledging that it is commerce and industry that render Mohammedans prosperous, attributes much of that prosperity to the Supreme Being, and the Muslim takes care to point the moral, ‘God wills it thus.’ It is clearly apparent from the above that the Islamic propaganda of Kong is carried on by persuasion. Force is but rarely employed, and only against pagan peoples composed of thieves and brigands, and when the Kong Mussulmans are driven to make use of it.”[193]

The practices of the Kong people in this respect are not at all peculiar to themselves. We find the same procedure mentioned by Thomson, Barth, and numerous other explorers; and the influence of Islam among the Hausas could never have been maintained if to the early conquests of Othman Fodio had not succeeded the peaceful efforts of the Muslim teacher, schoolmaster and priest. Dr. Blyden once described to the writer the incidents relating to the conversion of one of the largest pagan towns in the Sierra Leone hinterland, the knowledge of which he gleaned from the inhabitants themselves in the course of his travels in the Protectorate. On a certain day the inhabitants of the town observed a man, black like themselves, but clad in a white garment, advancing down the main street. Suddenly the stranger prostrated himself and prayed to Allah. The natives stoned him and he departed. In a little while he returned, and prostrated himself as before. This time he was not stoned, but the people gathered about him with mockery and reviling. The men spat upon him and the women hurled insults and abuse. His prayer ended, the stranger went away in silence, grave and austere, seemingly oblivious to his unsympathetic surroundings. For a space he did not renew his visit, and in the interval the people began to regret their rudeness. The demeanour of the stranger under trying circumstances had gained their respect. A third time he came, and with him two boys also clothed in white garments. Together they knelt and offered prayer. The natives watched, and forbore to jeer. At the conclusion of the prayer a woman came timidly forward and pushed her young son towards the holy man, then as rapidly retreated. The Muslim rose, took the boy by the hand and, followed by his acolytes, left the village in silence as before. When he came again he was accompanied by three boys, two of them those who had been with him before, and the third the woman’s son, clad like the rest. All four fell upon their knees, the holy man reciting the prayer in a voice that spoke of triumph and success. He never left the town again, for the people crowded round him beseeching him to teach their children. In a short time the entire population of that town, which for three centuries had beaten back the assaults of would-be Muslim converters by the sword, had voluntarily embraced Islam!

It is in incidents such as these, which are by no means rare in West Africa, that the moral force of Islam lies, and which is largely accountable for its astonishing successes. The fanatical zeal of an Ahmadu, a Samory and an El-Haji-Omar are but drops in the ocean compared with the systematic moral suasion exercised by Islamic teachers, who, carrying no staff or scrip, relying solely upon the inward strength derived from contact with a higher creed, brave the perils and discomforts incidental to their calling with a sublime indifference only met with in Biblical narrative. There is a passage in Arnold’s “The Preaching of Islam” which accurately interprets the misconceptions which exist on the subject of Islamic propaganda in West Africa:

“Unfortunately,” says that author, “for a true estimate of the missionary work of Islam in Western Africa, the fame of the _jihads_, or religious wars, has thrown into the shade the successes of the peaceful propagandist, though the labours of the latter have been more effectual to the spread of Islam than the creation of petty short-lived dynasties. The records of campaigns, especially when they have interfered with the commercial projects or schemes of conquest of the white man, have naturally attracted the attention of Europeans more than the unobtrusive labours of the Mohammedan preacher and schoolmaster.... These _jihads_, rightly looked upon, are but incidents in the modern Islamic revival, and are by no means characteristic of the forces and activities that have been really operative in the promulgation of Islam in West Africa; indeed, unless followed up by distinctly missionary efforts, they would have proved almost wholly ineffectual in the creation of a true Muslim community.”