THE INFLUENCE OF ANIMISM ON ISLAM

Ghosts and nature spirits, with a few angels and prophets thrown in, as the occasion may seem to require.”

The very wide extent of animism is often not realized. This belief is the living, working creed of over half the human race. All South, Central, and West African tribes are animists, except where animism has been displaced by Christianity. The Islam of Africa is largely mingled with it. It is the faith of Madagascar. North and South American Indians knew no other creed when Columbus landed, and the uncivilized remnants still profess it. The islanders of the Pacific and the aborigines of Australia are animists. In Borneo and the Malay Archipelago, it is strong, although a good deal affected by Hinduism. Even in China and Japan, its adherents are numbered by millions. In Burma, it has been stated that the nominal Buddhism of the country is in reality only a thin veneer over the real religion, which is animism. In India, while the census reports record only eight and a half million as animists, there are probably more than ten times that number whose Hinduism displays little else, and even the Muslims in many places are affected by it.

There is no agreement among scholars regarding the origin of animism. According to a writer in the Encyclopædia Britannica, “Animism may have arisen out of or simultaneously with animatism Animatism: The belief that natural objects or phenomena are alive/endowed with impersonal power, as opposed to possessing a specific individual soul (animism). as a primitive explanation of many different phenomena; if animatism was originally applied to non-human or inanimate objects, animism may from the outset have been in vogue as a theory of the nature of men. Lists of phenomena from the contemplation of which the savage was led to believe in animism have been given by Dr. Tylor, Herbert Spencer, Mr. Andrew Lang, and others; an animated controversy arose between these writers as to the priority of their respective lists. Among these phenomena are: trance and unconsciousness, sickness, death, clairvoyance,