A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE WORLD
Marco Polo (1254-1324) knew where the end of the world was. He never went there but he heard about it. It was a "great red island" in the vast unknown sea far to the south of India, and it had a strange name: Madagascar.
Although near Africa, folks here - known as Malagasy - are not from Africa. They came from Indonesia 2,000 years ago. For a thousand years they lived in isolation from the world. Then strangers started appearing on their northern coast calling themselves "Moslems."
The Malagasy wanted no part of them or their strange and offensive religion. Persians ("Shirazis" from Shiraz) and Arabs were sailing in their dhows down the east coast of Africa enslaving and Islamizing as they went. But when they crossed the Mozambique Channel to Madagascar, they discovered people very different from Africans.
Arabs had found the islands of Indonesia (Sumatra, Java, Borneo, etc.) easy Islamic pickings for converts. Somehow, the converts' distant relatives weren't. This is an important mystery.
Ever since they invented Islam, Arabs have forced their religion upon peoples throughout the world, most of the time with little or no resistance. The exceptions are among people who have a competing religion like Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. It's very hard to think of any place without a strong competing religion already in place that resisted Islam.
Madagascar is that place. That's one reason it is a light at the end of the world.