The Moslem Menace in South Africa
By Will H. Spicer
Great Proselyting Activity on the Part of Mohammedanism The Missionary Review of the World for October, 1914, contains an article by the Rev. Samuel Zwemer, in which he quotes from a letter of the Rev. S. Garabedian, of Cape Town, and from other sources, upon the situation suggested by the title. The facts challenge the attention, and appeal for the action of the forces of Christian faith. A few quotations from the letter and the article will outline what confronts Christian effort in that country: “There are whole streets [in Cape Town] that once were Christians, but are now Mohammedans, and in some streets every other house has had one or more of its family become Mohammedans. Mixed marriages are very common indeed. Families and relations are half Christians and half Mohammedans; not because they were once Mohammedans, but the reverse.” “The total Moslem population in South Africa, according to the colonial office list, London, 1913, is . . . 53,904, . . . not large in proportion to the whole population of more than 8,000,000.” But the propaganda is carried on actively; and in view of the great progress that the Moslem faith is making in heathen central Africa, this attack on the southern base is most significant. The objects of the propagandists are two. “One is their desire of winning merit and Paradise by their conversion of Christians to Islam. The other is, by mixed marriages, to make their race whiter.” The Malays are the chief workers, but Arabs, Turks, and Indians also have a part. The means of propagation are not exclusively those that may lawfully be employed by persons of any faith whatever in spreading their doctrines. They play upon the fears of the ignorant by the threats and promises of witchcraft, and by immorality. It is a common practice, with such workers, to marry a Christian wife under the Malay rites, which are not recognized by law. The unfortunate then has no redress in case of desertion, or in case the man chooses to add others to his family, as frequently happens. FORTY MOSQUES IN CAPE COLONY
“There are no less than forty mosques in the Cape Town district alone.” “Moslem schools are being established everywhere in South Africa, and many of the children still bear baptismal names. The children are taught the Koran daily, and some of the schools receive government grants.” “Among the children, we are told, there are some who are pure Dutch and English, so that the better classes are being drawn in, and it is no wonder that some of these marry and become Mohammedans.” Most of the converts are among the “colored”—mixed—population, some of whom are in a lamentable state of ignorance, and as a whole are in the socially embarrassing position of being unadmitted to white society, while at the same time feeling themselves above the raw, or for that matter, the educated, native. Many of these people, as well as of the natives, are but nominally Christians, and are bound in ignorance. “Many of the Christians are so ignorant that they speak of the mollah as a priest, and the mosque as the church, and the Koran as the Bible.” “It is painful beyond description to see everywhere white and colored, who were once Christian or Jewish children, now adults bearing Mohammedan names, wearing the Malay head-dress, often, alas, decorated with charms; and it is marvelous to see what a difference this has brought about—moral deterioration, aloofness, hatred, antagonism to their former coreligionist and nationality.” The one good effect which it is suggested that this condition of affairs can have, is in the direction, possibly, of inspiring the live Christian forces, and leading to a revival of religion, and the reconversion of the back-slidden, whether joined to Islam or still nominally Christian. It has had this influence to some extent. Another step that at this distance would appear to be needed, is the establishment of government schools that shall teach such facts as are undisputable, without fear or favor, and the abolishment of public grants to schools where the students are not made intelligent in these matters. Christianity has nothing to fear from instruction in the simple historical facts; but it is difficult to see how the traditional Islamism, or the modern, either, for that matter, could survive exposure to the light. “Yet the leading men of the Cape Town Mohammedans are educated. They have a number of high schools and colleges in close touch with the Panislamic movement of Cairo and Constantinople.” In view of these facts, it is obvious that mere education is not the means by which men can be won. The blindness of fanaticism and devotion will lead men to believe what they please, to a very large degree; and the strength of the Christian religion must be found in the representation of the gospel of Christ in its true attractiveness. This will win men to a love for it, and will enable them to see clearly not only the strong historic evidence which can be presented, but also the experimental. Where there is light, darkness is impossible.