[153] “Extracts from the Koran form the earliest reading lessons of children, and the commentaries and other works founded upon it furnish the principal subjects of the advanced studies. Schools of different grades have existed for centuries in various interior negro countries, and under the provision of law, in which even the poor are educated at the public expense, and in which the deserving are carried on many years through long courses of regular instruction. Nor is the system always confined to the Arabic language, or to the works of Arabic writers. A number of native languages have been reduced to writing, books have been translated from the Arabic and original works have been written in them. Schools also have been kept in which native languages are taught.” Condition and Character of Negroes in Africa. By Theodore Dwight. (Methodist Quarterly Review, January 1869.)
Dr. Blyden (pp. 206–7) mentions the following books as read by Muslims in Western Africa: Maqāmāt of Ḥarīrī, portions of Aristotle and Plato translated into Arabic, an Arabic version of Hippocrates, and the Arabic New Testament and Psalms issued by the American Bible Society. For the literature of the Muslims in East Africa, see Becker: Islam in Deutsch Ostafrika, p. 18 sqq. [↑]
[154] Mohammedanism in Africa, by R. Bosworth Smith. (The Nineteenth Century, December 1887, pp. 798–800.) [↑]
[155] Le Chatelier, (3), p. 348. [↑]
[156] Forget, p. 95. Merensky, p. 156. (“Den Vertretern des Islam aber stand ihr Vorteil, der Gewinn, den die Unterdrückung der Eingeborenen bringt, höher als die Ausbreitung ihres Glaubens. Hätte man die Völker Afrikas durch die Macht geistiger Waffen unter gütigem Entgegenkommen zu Mohammedanern gemacht, so wären sie Glaubensgenossen, gleichberechtigte Brüder, die man nicht mehr berauben, zu Sklaven machen, oder als Sklaven nur Arbeit ausnutzen könnte.”) [↑]
[157] Westermann, p. 643. L. de Contenson, p. 244. Kumm, p. 122. [↑]
[158] Thus Merensky, discussing the failure of Islam to dominate the whole of Africa after centuries of occupation says:—“Wir sehen die Ursache für diese merkwürdige Erscheinung in den Beziehungen, in denen bei den Mohammedanern die äussere Gewalt zum Islam und zur Ausbreitung des Islam steht. Beides steht und fällt miteinander, dringt miteinander vor und geht miteinander auch wieder zurück.” (p. 156.) [↑]