IS ISLAMISM REVIVING?

Golden Bay Argus, Volume VII, Issue 68, 19 September 1901, Page 2

IS ISLAMISM REVIVING?

It comes rather like a revelation to find that the Turkish Government, or perhaps it might be more correct to say the Sultan, has been engaged in collecting statistics showing the Mussulman population in various parts of the world. The result has just been published, and' in view of the possible object of the undertaking, it is of considerable interest. In the dominions under the personal rule of the Sultan the Mussulmans are stated at 18,000,000, while in the contiguous States and territories in Asia, including Persia, Afghanistan, Relooo his tan, IlM.U'i- Ttnssinn and China, their numbers are mentioned at 99,000,000. Africa, where the Mohamif.edan religion has made great strides in the last half of the century, is credited with 36,500,000 followers of the Prophet, and 23,000,000 are described as inhabiting other countries and the islands of the Eastern seas. It does not appear that the total of these figures, 170,500,000, is exaggerated, as recent estimates have placed the Mussulman population of the world at close upon 200,000,000. The Islamic world, however, is divided religiously into two sections, the vast majority being Sunnis, and the minority, principally in Persia, being Shiahs, who hold more or less aloof from the Sunnis, of whom the Sultan of Turkey is the nominal head as Caliph of Islam. Connecting the two important facts of the comparative energy with which the Sultan is pushing on the construction of the railway through Palestine to Mecca and his recent census-taking of the Mussulman world, it is quite evident that he is watching events and getting ready, in his way, for eventualities. The aggressiveness of the Christian Governments and missionary organisations in all non-Christian countries is no doubt one of the animating causes of the Sultan's action. He desires to concentrate in his own hands, as far as it is possible, the power of resistance contained in the mass represented by 17(i,500,000 of Mussulmans, and by means of the railway to Mecca he purposes to retain the permanent control of the holy places of Islam, on which his authority as Caliph is based.