The Theology of Missions

29, 1911, Pope Pius X gave his blessings for the formation of the Catholic Foreign
Mission Society of America, now better known as the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.
Islamic Missions
Dawah means to "invite" (in Arabic, literally "calling") to Islam, which is the second
largest religion with 1.6 billion members. From the 7th century, it spread rapidly from the
Arabian Peninsula to the rest of the world through the initial Muslim conquests and
subsequently with traders and explorers after the death of Muhammad.
Initially, the spread of Islam came through the Dawah efforts of Muhammad and his
followers. After his death in 632 C.E., much of the expansion of the empire came
through conquest such as that of North Africa and later Spain (Al-Andalus). The Islamic
conquest of Persia put an end to the Sassanid Empire and spread the reach of Islam to
as far east as Khorasan, which would later become the cradle of Islamic civilization
during the Islamic Golden Age (622-1258 C.E.) and a stepping-stone towards the
introduction of Islam to the Turkic tribes living in and bordering the area.
The missionary movement peaked during the Islamic Golden Age, with the expansion of
foreign trade routes, primarily into the Indo-Pacific and as far south as the isle of
Zanzibar as well as the South-Eastern shores of Africa.
With the coming of the Sufism tradition, Islamic missionary activities increased. Later,
the Seljuk Turks' conquest of Anatolia made it easier for missionaries to go lands that
formerly belonged to the Byzantine Empire. In the earlier stages of the Ottoman Empire,
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