Though Samuel Zwemer saw only a few dozen Muslims come to Christ through his ministry, he was the greatest missionary the United States has ever sent to the Islamic world. His zeal and perseverance launched a modern missionary movement to the Arabs. Of him, the great historian, Latourette, said no one is more deserving of the title, “Apostle to Islam.”
Zwemer’s ministry can be viewed in 3 phases: First, the evangelization of Arabia began in 1890 with the Arabian Mission; second, work with the United Presbyterian Church in Cairo began in 1912; third, a professorship at Princeton Theological Seminary began in 1928. He was an evangelist, a prolific author, a compelling public speaker, and a talented professor. He went everywhere, teaching and preaching — to Arabs, the need of a Savior; to Christians, the need to reach Muslims for Christ.
His French Huguenot ancestors fled the Netherlands in the 17th century to escape persecution. Samuel was born on April 12, 1867, in Vriesland, Michigan, the 13th child in a family of 15. His parents read the Bible at every meal and in this way went through the Scriptures each year. His father was a pastor of the Reformed Church in America, and his mother prayed while he was still in the cradle that he would become a missionary. By the age of five, he could read English and Dutch, and later learned German in school.
Zwemer was full of energy; perhaps in part because his mother had urged him as a little boy to not just sit still–but to “do something.” Driven by an intense and somewhat nervous personality, he maintained a flurry of activity all his life: witnessing to Muslims, speaking engagements, writing in the cause of mission to Islam, recruiting workers, and raising money. In the end, he would travel to the bastions of Islam—India, the Middle East, China, and the Balkans. Temple Gairdner, his esteemed colleague in Cairo, once referred to him as a “steam engine in breeches.”
Theologically, he was a conservative Calvinist and spoke against higher criticism of the Bible. When partaking of the Lord’s Supper, he would repeat over and over, “Just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me.” Linguistically, he was brilliant and mastered Arabic, but acknowledged it was a challenge, especially the pronunciation. He said the guttural sound belongs to the desert and was undoubtedly borrowed from the camel, groaning under the weight of its load.
His “call” came as a senior at Hope College, when Robert Wilder, a pioneer of the Student Volunteer Movement, spoke in the chapel service. Wilder had a map of India with a metronome, demonstrating with each tick that someone in the subcontinent had died without hearing the gospel. This so affected Zwemer that at the end of the message, he rushed forward and signed up to become a foreign missionary.
Later, while in the Reformed Church of America Seminary in New Brunswick, New Jersey, he and fellow student, James Cantine, along with their Old Testament professor, John Lansing, founded the Arabian Mission. During those days, Zwemer also helped a medical doctor in New York City, a skill that helped to open doors in Arabia. However, his habit of pasting scripture verses on each prescription bottle caused one patient considerable anxiety: The verse said, “Prepare to meet thy God.”
He and his colleagues chose Abraham’s prayer, “Oh that Ishmael might live before thee (Genesis 17:18) as their motto. They felt Islam was the greatest rival of the Christian faith, and Arabia was the most difficult field. Yet years later, Zwemer said: “Never have I regretted choosing such an impossible task.”
Zwemer left the United States on June 28, 1890, sailing on a Dutch liner. He stopped in Scotland to meet the family of Keith Falconer, who had been martyred in Yemen in 1887. In London, he purchased a copy of Travels in Arabia Deserts and later sold it to Lawrence of Arabia. In 1895, he met an Australian nurse, Amy Wilkes, with the Church Mission Society. They were married at the British Consulate in Baghdad in 1896, but were not happy over losing a member; the society required Amy to reimburse travel costs to the field. In paying this debt, Zwemer said he had purchased his wife in true Arab custom.
During his long missionary career, Zwemer faced many challenges, but his sense of humor was an asset. He visited Sana’a in Yemen, a place where no lone westerner had ever gone. Also in Yemen, he was once kept awake by nocturnal “friends,” so wrote a 12-stanza poem addressed to the bedbugs–with apologies to Keating’s Insect Powder! His life was spared at one point by the quick thinking of a Bedouin guide who swore on oath that Zwemer was neither an Englishman nor a government agent. In another incident, a group of Arabs debated whether or not they should hold him for ransom. In 1933, he and a companion traveled for hundreds of miles over rough mountain regions in China, only to discover on arrival that they had been sitting on cases of munitions and dynamite for the Chinese army. When two small daughters died from dysentery in July 1904 in Bahrain, the Zwemers wrote on the tombstone: “Worthy is the Lamb to receive riches.”
In 1912, Zwemer and his family moved to Cairo, Egypt, to direct the Nile Mission Press, which printed and distributed Christian literature in Arabic. He felt Al-Azhar University was the intellectual and theological stronghold of Islam, and nothing deterred him from spreading the good news, usually through distributing Bibles and other Christian literature—some of which he himself had written in Arabic. Yet Zwemer did not work alone. His correspondence contains numerous references to Arab Christian colporteurs who laid down their lives to spread Christian literature. He lived out the words of Charles Watson: “No agency can penetrate Islam so deeply, abide so persistently, witness so daringly, and influence as irresistibly as the printed page.”
It was his annual habit in Cairo to take trainees to Al-Azhar University to meet the president. Once, while in the president’s office, he asked the president to look out the window: “Do you see the stars?” The president replied that it was a bright day in Cairo. With his arm around him, Zwemer said: “My friend, once the Son appears, all lesser lights disappear.” Although direct and even blunt at times, his friendliness enabled him to talk to Muslims without antagonizing them.
His desire to engage Muslims through the world of ideas enabled him to confront the intellectual strongholds of Islam. With that in mind, he wrote over 50 books in English to stir up and motivate Christians. In 1911, he founded the “Moslem World Journal” and continued to edit it for the next 36 years. The Quarterly was designed to provide information on matters of Islamic lore at an academic level, as well as to serve as a forum for missionary strategy among Muslims.
This demonstrates that Zwemer did not just study Islam. He grappled with practical issues and referred to Muslim evangelism as the “glory of the impossible.” At a North American conference, he chose the text: “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless, at thy word, I will down the nets.” He went on to say that the time would come when so many Muslims would come to Christ that the boats (churches) would not be able to hold them. Moved, his audience asked what they could do, and Zwemer said, “Pray.” Thus, FFM (Fellowship of Faith for Muslims) was launched in Toronto.
For Zwemer, Islam was a “spiritual problem,” and though he loved Muslims and appreciated the insights of great Muslim thinkers, like Al-Ghazali, Islam was a system that denied the core elements of Christianity. The prevalence of amulets all over the Muslim world was a strong indication of Satan’s involvement. He spoke of Muslim work in this way: “The Alpine climber who is trying to reach the summit can scarcely see his goal except at certain fortunate moments …what he does see is the stony path which must be trodden, the rocks and precipices to be avoided, the unending slope that gets ever steeper. The evangelization of the Muslim world is not a phrase to be bandied about easily; it is a deep life-purpose, a work of faith, a labor of love, and a patience of hope.”
Above all, he determined never to play down the basic truths of Christianity–the mystery of the incarnation, the necessity of the atonement, and the glory of the cross. Yet, unlike Karl Pfander, he was not a polemicist, and he did not debate Muslims publicly. He felt that Muslims should be contacted on a personal, friendly basis, rather than through confrontation. He held that points of contact do exist and that every Muslim heart has been prepared by the Holy Spirit. The Qur’an, he said, left room for dialogue.
Like his hero, Raymond Lull, stoned to death by an angry Muslim mob in the 14th century, Zwemer wanted Christ alone to be exalted. He felt that a loving but bold presentation of the surpassing grandeur and beauty of Jesus would never alienate the Muslim heart. He said evangelists should always press home the question: “What think ye of Christ?” When he died on April 2, 1952, a grieving colleague spoke for millions: “A missionary prince has fallen in our midst.” He had persevered for the Glory of the Impossible but his vision remains unfulfilled.
For more, see Samuel Zwemer’s Approach to Muslim Ministry.
A Brief History of the Zwemer Center by Dr. Warren Larson
PDF Books written by Samuel Zwemer