The average number of pilgrims during the last decade of the nineteenth century was 7000—during the first decade of the twentieth, 7300;[154] but the numbers vary considerably from year to year, the largest recorded number from the Dutch Indies being 14,234 in 1910.[155]
Such an increase is no doubt largely due to the increased facilities of communication between Mecca and the Malay Archipelago, but, as a Christian missionary has observed, this by no means “diminishes the importance of the fact, especially as the Hadjis, whose numbers have grown so rapidly, have by no means lost in quality what they gained in quantity; on the contrary, there are now amongst them many more thoroughly acquainted with the doctrines of Islam, and wholly imbued with Moslem fanaticism and hatred against the unbelievers, than there formerly were.”[156] The reports of the Dutch Government and of Christian missionaries bear unanimous testimony to the influence and the proselytising zeal of these pilgrims who return to their homes as at once reformers and missionaries.[157] Beside the pilgrims who content themselves with merely visiting the sacred places and performing the due ceremonies, and those who make a longer stay in order to complete their theological studies, there is a large colony of Malays in Mecca at the present time, who have taken up their residence permanently in the sacred city. These are in constant communication with their fellow-countrymen in their native land, and their efforts have been largely effectual in purging Muhammadanism in the Malay Archipelago from the contamination of [[407]]heathen customs and modes of thought that have survived from an earlier period. A large number of religious books is also printed in Mecca in the various languages spoken by the Malay Muhammadans and carried to all parts of the Archipelago. Indeed Mecca has been well said to have more influence on the religious life of these islands than on Turkey, India or Buk͟hārā.[158]
As might be anticipated from a consideration of these facts, there has been of recent years a very great awakening of missionary activity in the Malay Archipelago, and the returned pilgrims, whether as merchants or religious teachers, become preachers of Islam wherever they come in contact with a heathen population. The religious orders moreover have extended their organisation to the Malay Archipelago,[159] even the youngest of them—the Sanūsiyyah—finding adherents in the most distant islands,[160] one of the signs of its influence being the adoption of the name Sanūsī by many Malays, when in Mecca they change their native for Arabic names.[161]
The Dutch Government has been accused by Christian missionaries of favouring the spread of Islam; however this may have been, it is certain that the work of the Muslim missionaries is facilitated by the fact that Malay, which is spoken by hardly any but Muhammadans, has been adopted as the official language of the Dutch Government, except in Java; and as the Dutch civil servants are everywhere attended by a crowd of Muhammadan subordinate officials, political agents, clerks, interpreters and traders, they carry Islam with them into every place they visit. All persons that have to do business with the Government are obliged to learn the Malay language, and they seldom learn it without at the same time becoming Musalmans. In this way the most influential people embrace Islam, and the rest soon follow their example.[162] Thus Islam is at the present time rapidly driving out heathenism from the Malay Archipelago. [[408]]
[2] Reinaud: Géographie d’Aboulféda, tome i. p. cccxxxix. [↑]
[3] Groeneveldt, pp. 14, 15. [↑]
[4] Ibn Baṭūṭah, tome iv. pp. 66, 80. [↑]
[5] Veth (3), vol. i. p. 231. Ibn Baṭūṭah, tome iv. p. 89. [↑]