Identifier: islamchallengeto00zwem (find matches)
Title: Islam, a challenge to faith; studies on the Mohammedan religion and the needs and opportunities of the Mohammedan world from the standpoint of Christian missions
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Zwemer, Samuel Marinus, 1867-1952
Subjects: Islam Islam -- Muslims Islam Zending Missie Christendom
Publisher: New York, Student volunteer movement for foreign missions
Contributing Library: Princeton Theological Seminary Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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e a dependency,like Syria and Chaldea. In 647 the armies moved west-ward, and within thirty years the victorious Moslems hadreached the Atlantic Ocean and were preparing to crossover into Spain. It is impossible to give here, even insummary, the story of these campaigns. The political vic-tory was often an easy one, because the Christians weredivided. In Egypt one party, the Copts, welcomed theMohammedan invaders as a means of deliverance fromthe orthodox Christian Miikawkas. However, they soonhad abundant reason to regret it,^ and the religious vic-tory of Islam was only partial, for there are still to-dayin Egypt 600,000 Copts. Abdullah invaded Tripoli in 647 A. D.; Akba pene-trated to Mauritania in 6yy A. D.; yet their bloody vic-tories were largely valueless to Islam, because Christiancivilization fought for its very life. It was not until ^G. Bonet-Maury, LIslamisme et Le Christianisme en Afrique (Paris,1906), 67, 68; 226-249.^Dr. A. Watson, in The Mohammedan World of To-day, 23.
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w o , tn Ap Z 5 o i> .. i h - ^ ^ •■ o r; C -J &1 THE SPREAD OF ISLAM 6^ 754 A. D. that, by the conversion of the Christian in-fidels, tribute was abohshed.^ Ibn Khaldun, the Mos-lem historian, states that those formerly Christians apos-tatized from Islam fourteen times.^ The Arabs, in their later efforts at conversion,whether for trade, conquest or slave-raids, entered Africafrom three different sides. These three streams of Mos-lem immigration and conquest were as follows: FromEgypt they went westward as far as Lake Chad; fromthe northwest of Africa they came down to Lake Chadand the Niger region; and from Zanzibar the slave-dealers opened the way for Islam as far as the GreatLakes. As early as the year 740 A. D. an Arab immigrationbrought Islam to Abyssinia, but the Swaheli tribes werenot converted until 1700 by the Oman traders of Zanzi-bar. The period of the greatest Arab immigration wasthat following the Crusades and, therefore, the mission-ary expansion of Islam in N

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