ABSTRACT
THE KORAN and the Bible symbolize the proselytizing forces in Subsaharan Africa. The Koran was first carried by a movement that, beginning about the tenth century, brought Islam to the northern boundaries of the forested belt in the west, and in the northeast to the Great Lakes and the littoral of the Indian Ocean, where the limits of its influence were more or less stabilized. The Bible arrived some five centuries later, as the Portuguese established their stations along the African coasts while pressing for a sea route to India. However, it was not until the period of European expansion into Africa, about four centuries after this, that Christianity penetrated into the interior, and the activities of the two wings of the Christian missionary movement, Catholic and Protestant, began to exert a widening influence.
