The Conversion of the Mongols: The Power of Da’wah

By ‘Allamah Abu ‘l-Hasan ‘Ali al-Nadwi

Islam was about to be submerged in the whirlpool of the Mongol ardor of slaughter and destruction, as several Muslim writers had then expressed the fear, wiping it out of existence, but Islam suddenly began to capture the hearts of the savage Tartars. The preachers of Islam thus accomplished a task which the swordarm of the faith had failed to perform, by carrying the message of Islam to the barbaric hordes of heathen Mongols.

Conversion of the Mongols to Islam was indeed one of the few unpredictable events of history. The Tartaric wave of conquest which had swept away the entire Islamic east within a short period of one year was, in truth, not so astounding as the Mongol’s acceptance of Islam during the zenith of their glory; for the Muslims had, by the beginning of the seventh century of Muslim era, imbibed all those vices which are a natural outcome of opulence, luxury, and fast living. The Mongols were, on the other hand, a wild and ferocious, yet vigorous and sturdy, race who could have hardly been expected to submit to the spiritual and cultural superiority of a people who were so completely subdued by them, a people whom they despised and looked down upon.
T. W. Arnold expressed his amazement over the achievement of this unbelievable feat in his The Preaching of Islam:

“But Islam was to rise again from the ashes of its former grandeur and through its preachers win over these savage conquerors to the acceptance of the faith. This was a task for the missionary energies of Islam that was rendered more difficult from the fact that there were two powerful competitors in the field. The spectacle of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam emulously striving to win the allegiance of.......
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