Notes: The Conquering Crescent
The Light (Pakistan), 1st April 1922 Issue (Vol. 1, No. 8, p. 1)
The following passage, in which an Indian priest of the Church of England has dealt with the spiritual conquest of Islam in India in comparison with Christianity, will be read with great interest:
“But there is another and a much more serious kind of disunion within the visible body of the Church, and this constitutes the great hindrance to its missionary work. In the case of India, two great missionary religions have been brought to it from outside: Christianity and Islam.
By the time that Aurang Zeb [Aurangzeb], the last of the great Mogul [Mughal] Emperors, died (in 1707), almost one-third of India had become Moslem [Muslim], as a result of five hundred years of the Moslem [Muslim] connection.
Christian missions to North India started about two hundred years ago, whereas in the south of India, Christianity dates from very early times; yet, so far, the number of Indian Christians hardly exceeds one percent of the total population. Moreover, a vast proportion of the Christian community and almost all recent additions to it have come from what are known as the Depressed, or the Untouchable, classes of India.
The present influx into the Church is almost entirely a social rather than a spiritual movement, and conversions from among the better and educated classes practically ceased some time ago.”