"Islamic militancy was the most important of the new fundamentalist forces because of the vast numbers involved and the huge geographical spread, curving in a long crescent from West Africa, through the southern Mediterranean, the Balkans, Asia Minor and the Middle East, across the interior of Southwest Asia, the Indian subcontinent and down into Malaysia and the Philippines. Its political, military and indeed cultural impact was felt over three continents. It was advancing in black Africa, often with the aid of Arab money, arms and indeed force. In the 1960s the ruling northern élite in the Sudan sought to impose Islam on the Christian south. In the 1970s and 1980s Gadafy tried to convert all of Chad by fire and sword, or rather by napalm and helicopter, just as Amin tried to Islamize Uganda by mass-murder. But Islam enjoyed natural growth as well and a new dynamism fuelled by its own internal revival. One reason for this was the increase of Muslim self-confidence, indeed stridency, as a result of the new wealth from oil. By filtering down to the masses it also made possible an unprecedented expan- sion in the number of Mecca pilgrims, flown by chartered jet to kiss the Kaaba and returning full of zeal for Islam, which is a far more political and this-worldly faith than Christianity."