Early in its history, Islam had had contacts with Africa. When the Islamic religion made its great sweep in the course of the seventh century, it moved across North Africa, sweeping everything before it from the Nile Delta to Gibraltar. It even crossed Gibraltar into Spain and across the Pyrenees into France. That year, 732 A.D., when the spearheads of Islam were blunted by Charles Martel at Tours, was one of the great hours of Europe and Christendom.
This sweep of Islam across North Africa, at the time the North African church collapsed like a house of cards, still puzzles us in many ways. Even today it makes strange reading. Why should groups of Christians in North Africa have welcomed the armies of Islam to their cities? Could they not realize what it would mean? What did they hope to gain through the Islamic conquests? Why exactly did this great North African Church of St. Cyprian and St. Augustine meet disaster and ignominy in this way? Why was it almost completely swept from the face of the earth with the exception of a few isolated Christian groups like the present day Copts of Egypt or the Abyssinians?
Some Reasons For Catastrophe
No single reason explains this vast catastrophe in one of the most promising areas of early Christendom. From a political standpoint, we can ascribe some of Islam’s early success to the fact that it moved into the vast power vacuum left after the enervating struggles between the Roman and Persian empires. This set the stage for the armies of Islam to sweep onward without any real opposition. It was like the opening of great flood gates over a vast flat land. Islamic armies were actually able to move for thousands of miles before they were blunted at Tours in France. But this factor in itself does not explain the favorable reaction which the North African church had toward the invasion.
Why did sections of the North African church literally welcome the armies of Islam as if they had come as liberators? Why did they not realize that for them this was the beginning of the end? The church of Origen, Cyprian and Augustine was to tumble into ruin.
It is sometimes said that the church failed to prevent calamity because it did not do missionary work. Up to a point this may be true, but it does not seem to be the basic reason. More probably the church in North Africa failed because it did not become indigenous. It failed to become a part of the very life of the people. It was too much of a Roman and Roman-controlled church for North Africans. And because the native peoples of North Africa hated Rome, the Roman-controlled church failed to win their deepest loyalties.
These people had had many grievances against Rome. We need only think of the vast system of absentee land ownership through which Romans owned large tracts of North African land. The local populations detested this system and everything that went with it. And when Islam moved in, some groups—even Christian ones—welcomed it as a liberator against Romanism.
What made this invasion worse was the fact that as soon as Islam moved in, the Roman Christians in North Africa moved out and went back to Sicily and Italy. The North African church was thus left in a sad plight and could in no way face up to the victorious onrush of Islam.
A Moslem Stronghold
Soon the vast stretches of North Africa, from Egypt to Gibraltar, were part of the new Moslem world. Today, after 12 centuries, Africa is still spiritually part and parcel of the world of Islam, although most of these regions have become independent states again or colonies of European powers like France or Spain. This vast area where the church of Augustine once flourished is now an almost solid and unbroken Moslem stronghold. Christian missions, which are few and far between, have made little impression.
The North African church was not so much destroyed by the sword of Islam as it was bled white through isolation from the main streams of Christianity. As a matter of fact, the church acquired some freedom under Islam, but a very restricted freedom; it was not allowed to expand under Islamic rule and lost contact with the rest of Christendom. For this reason, it slowly became exhausted. Today the remaining Christian groups in these areas represent almost petrified forms of Christianity. The victory of Islam was, to all practical purposes, complete.
From bases in Europe, the Christian church tried in succeeding centuries to reconquer Islamic North Africa. We need only mention the name of that great man and indefatigable fighter for the Cross, Raymond Lull, the Spaniard from Majorca, who made three journeys to North Africa and ultimately was stoned to death not far from the coasts of the Mediterranean. A great man of letters and a hero for the Cross, he confronted the Moslems with the challenge of Christianity and tried through argument to convince them.
Today it is often said that Lull’s method was not the most fruitful. On the other hand our failure through current methods to convert Moslems should make us less dogmatic in judging Lull and his methods. This lone man made a magnificent effort to take the message of the Cross back to Africa.
Islam In Africa Today
What are the relative positions of Christianity and Islam in Africa today? There is no doubt that Islam is still ascendant. But Christianity is also progressing at a very hopeful tempo.
As things stand today, one out of every three Africans is a Moslem. Because almost all the inhabitants of vast tracts of Africa are Moslems, it is relatively easy to make a fair estimate of their number in Africa. By general agreement Islam has from 65 to 70 million African adherents. More than 90 per cent of the African Moslems live north of the equator, but at many points the southward movement of Islam has crossed the equator. In most parts of southern Africa, however, Islam is limited to small groups of settlers especially from India. And in other areas we find Moslem communities like the Malays in Cape Town.
Events in North Africa, Egypt, the Nile Delta and the Middle East, however, all point to new life in Islam. The Moslem world is once more self-conscious and on the move. Missionaries and Western agencies find it increasingly difficult to continue work. The resurgence of Islam coupled with anti-Western sentiments are creating ever more formidable barriers in the path of Christian missions.
For generations we Western Christians have become accustomed to the fact that the nominally Christian nations of Europe or the West were the masters of the world, the great powers who controlled the masses of Asia, the Near East or Africa. Ours was the religion of the conquering West, of Western man, the rulers of the world. Up to a point this world situation favored Christian missions. We had open doors with at least a minimum of protection. Through hospitals, schools and other Christian agencies, we were in a position to help and influence and befriend these peoples.
The West Is Losing Face
But how rapidly this world picture changes! The West is losing face. Asia, as well as Africa, is on the move. Varied forms of nationalism and Communism are rapidly changing the spiritual climate of these countries.
When our descendants look back someday on this second half of the twentieth century, they may call it one of the great liberating and creative periods in history. Many age old shackles will be broken. What the ultimate result of all these movements may be, we do not know; we cannot even make a useful guess. But one thing at least is certain. While vast changes and liberating movements on the economic and political fronts are being consummated, the Christian church in all these areas will be confronted by stormy weather. It may have to face trying times; great disappointments may be in store for Christian missions. All the political and economic changes in the Islamic and Communist world may have far-reaching repercussions among the indigenous peoples of Africa, and may temporarily, at least, create obstacles in the way of Christian missions.
Christianity In Africa
How strong is Christianity in Africa today? If we take all types and groups of Christians into consideration and include also the 10 million Copts and Monophysites, the maximum number of Christians cannot be more than 30 million. For every Christian in Africa there are more than two Moslems. But every Christian church in Africa with which I am in touch is experiencing an upsurge of missionary fervor, and men are entering new fields of opportunity every day.
At the present time, all the material factors seem to favour Islam as the religion of Africa. But the day may yet come that Africa will be overshadowed by the cross of Christ. Christianity is making great strides. Its greatest problem, however, is as yet unsolved: How to create real deep community among different racial groups. If Christianity ultimately fails in this, it must fail to win the heart of Africa. For whether Christianity or Islam will be victorious in Africa may well depend on the solution of this problem.
The Lantern
I walked in darkness through a twisted maze,
But He who made the garden knows each path
As every bird sings hymns of sounding praise
I walk in confidence … my lantern, faith.
MAUDE RUBIN
Ben J. Marais is Professor of the History of Christianity in the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa. Some of his graduate study was pursued at Princeton and Yale. Of his writings, some have been translated into English. Among these is Colour—Unsolved Problem of the West.
