The Captain of our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ, gave a command to take the Gospel to all the world—to every creature. Now, 2000 years later, we, His disciples, have failed to be obedient to this command. There is a very large segment, approximately one-fifth of the world’s population—the Muslim world—that is still largely unreached. 

Raymond Lull is referred to as the first and greatest missionary to the Muslim world. He was stoned to death in North Africa in 1315 at the age of 80.

Coming forward 600 years, we find a renewed interest in Muslim evangelization. Samuel Zwemer was one whom the Lord used to awaken the Christian world to the need of taking the Gospel to those bound by Islam. Zwemer was born into a very pious God-fearing home in a community near Holland, Michigan. His father was a Dutch Reformed Church pastor; and Samuel grew up in this home, the 13th of 15 children. While a senior at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, he sat under the ministry of Robert Wilder, a man under the auspices of the Student Volunteer Movement who was greatly used to challenge young people for foreign missions.

Zwemer felt called at that time and was burdened for the Muslim world. He and a fellow seminarian, James Cantine, offered themselves to the Reformed Church for missionary service; but the mission was lacking funds at that time and would not obligate itself to start another branch of the mission. Therefore, these two young men formed their own mission and named it the American Arabian Mission. They raised funds for themselves, and first Cantine and then Zwemer went to the Middle East. Here they served faithfully for five years. Toward the end of that time, the Reformed Church mission agency invited the American Arabian Mission to be incorporated into its mission, and they accepted.

Zwemer married an English girl, Amy Wiles, who was serving in the Middle East under the sponsorship of the Church Missionary Society. The mission agency was loathe to let this nurse leave their organization and required her to pay back the cost of transportation to the field and other expenses. Zwemer paid this and, in true Oriental fashion, purchased his wife.

Following his first furlough, he and his wife returned to the island of Bahrain. Their ministry was largely one of literature—distributing Christian tracts and Scripture portions and, through this, always engaging individuals in conversation with a witness to the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. In July of 1904 the Zwemers’ two little daughters, ages four and seven, died within eight days of each other. The Zwemers returned to the U.S. in 1905. Samuel was asked to become a secretary of the Student Volunteer Movement. At the same time, he also served as field secretary for the Reformed Board of Foreign Missions.

In 1912 he received a call from the United Presbyterian Mission in Egypt to relocate in Cairo and coordinate the missionary work to the entire Islamic world. This he did and for seventeen years was based in Cairo. Here he encountered a more open society where a number of young, educated adults were eager to listen to this impressive missionary intellectual from the West. He spent hours each week on university campuses, including El Azhar University, sharing the Gospel.  

An interesting thing happened at this famous Muslim university. One of the professors, infuriated with Zwemer’s distributing Christian literature, took one of the tracts and in a rage tore it to bits. A student in the class, curious as to why a small leaflet should create such an outrage, later picked up the fragments, pieced them together, and read the salvation message. Subsequently, he accepted Christ as Savior.

During his early days in Cairo, Zwemer was joined by William Borden, a very brilliant and yet humble student volunteer from Yale who had come to Cairo to study under Zwemer, learn the Arabic language, and be prepared for missionary service among Muslim tribes in China. After only four months in Cairo, he died of meningitis. Borden’s history is most challenging, and I strongly encourage the reading of his life as presented in Borden of Yale by Mrs. Howard Taylor.

Zwemer ministered in Cairo for many years. In 1929 he accepted an invitation to join the faculty at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he had a profound influence on the student body as well as opportunities for extensive travel. In addition, he was a very prolific writer. He retired from this position in 1937 but continued teaching in New York at Biblical Seminary and Nyack Missionary Training Institute.

Zwemer traveled all over the Muslim world (particularly spending a great deal of time in India, China, Southeast Asia, Africa and other areas where Islam was prevalent) to encourage missionaries in their work of reaching out arms of love and compassion to those shackled by this false religion.

Zwemer wrote 37 books and co-authored an additional 12. He also wrote many journal articles regarding Muslim evangelization. One of his books that is a “must” on the reading list is The Glory of the Cross. Through his ministry and writing he exalted the Lord Jesus Christ and pled with men to come in repentance, accepting Christ as Savior and Lord.

During his years of ministry, he faced tragedy and hardship. In addition to losing his two little girls early on in his ministry, he later also lost two wives—his first in 1937 and the second in 1950.

Benefit and blessing are to be gained by reading Zwemer’s writings. He is often referred to as the “Apostle to Islam,” and that is the title of the definitive biography written by J. Christy Wilson, a long-time missionary in Persia (Iran).

JAD 5/19/06