Samuel Zwemer on Islam: A Challenge to Faith

Samuel Marinus Zwemer [1867-1952], known as the Apostle to Islam, was “one of the most celebrated Protestant missionaries of the twentieth century”. [Biographical Dictionary of Christian Mission, p.763]

His book on Islam, reproduced here, remains as relevant today as when it was written. This title is in the public domain.

Samuel M. Zwemer [1867-1952], Islam. A Challenge to Faith. Studies on the Mohammedan Religion and the Needs and Opportunities of the Mohammedan World from the Standpoint of Christian Missions. New York: Student Volunteer Movement For Foreign Missions, 1907. Hbk. pp.295. [Click to visit the main download page]

Contents

• Preface

1. The Origin and Sources of Islam
2. Mohammad, The Prophet is Islam
3. The Spread of Islam
4. The Faith of Islam
5. The Practice of Islam
6. The Ethics of Islam
7. Division, Disintegration, and Reform
8. The Present Condition of the Moslem World
9. Missions to Moslems
10. Methods and Results
11. The Problem and the Peril
12. A Challenge to Faith

• Appendices
• Index

Preface

The churches of Christendom are at last awaking to the fact that one of the great unsolved missionary problems of the Twentieth Century is the evangelization of the Mohammedan world. The Cairo Conference reports, the Haystack Centennial volume, the organization of new missionary societies for work among Moslems, and the recent statements concerning the Moslem peril in West Africa and the Soudan, all carry this message to the churches and the student-world of Christendom. The Cairo Conference appeal, voicing the opinion of many leading missionaries from every Moslem land, was primarily a call for trained men from the universities and professional schools. And this appeal, in the words of Mr. John R. Mott, “has laid upon students as never before the responsibility of reaching the Mohammedan world.”

But if we are to reach that world with the gospel of Christ we must first know of it and know it…