"The eclectic religious cosmology of traditional Africa and the consequent 'inclusive religiosity' of Africans, meant that most African Muslims could go for Christian religious arts and services and vice versa or continue to dabble in traditional African religious elements. This eclectic perception of religion was bound to pose a serious challenge to Islam and Christianity with their abrupt and exclusive doctrinal claims. Over the years African Christian and Muslim 'puritans' have expressed concern and open hostility to this phenomenon, describing the 'inclusive religiosity' as 'nominalism,' lack of faith or incomplete conversion, descriptions that reveal a lack of appreciation of African religiosity.
"Indeed, as far as the nominal Muslims and Christians are concerned, trying and experimenting with other traditions is an expression of deep religiosity. To use the words of A.A. Berinyuu, 'it is not a question of lack of faith, or unconversion; it is a question of who can do what when.'...
"However, the point to be noted here is that one of the main reasons advanced to justify military jihad as a religious duty in black Africa by its advocates was the same notion of 'contaminating' Islam with traditional African religious and customary elements, as will be elaborated in chapter 3. In other words, the eighteenth and nineteenth century jihad movements of West Africa were a direct response or reaction to the African tradition of 'inclusive religiosity' which jihadists regarded as a threat to 'orthodox' and 'pure' Islam."
P.51-52, THE LEGACY OF ARAB-ISLAM IN AFRICA, by John Alembillah Azumah (Oxford: 2001, 2011)
Thursday, May 22, 2014
THE LEGACY OF ARAB-ISLAM IN AFRICA, EXCERPT
"The eclectic religious cosmology of traditional Africa and the consequent 'inclusive religiosity' of Africans, meant that most African Muslims could go for Christian religious arts and services and vice versa or continue to dabble in traditional African religious elements. This eclectic perception of religion was bound to pose a serious challenge to Islam and Christianity with their abrupt and exclusive doctrinal claims. Over the years African Christian and Muslim 'puritans' have expressed concern and open hostility to this phenomenon, describing the 'inclusive religiosity' as 'nominalism,' lack of faith or incomplete conversion, descriptions that reveal a lack of appreciation of African religiosity.
"Indeed, as far as the nominal Muslims and Christians are concerned, trying and experimenting with other traditions is an expression of deep religiosity. To use the words of A.A. Berinyuu, 'it is not a question of lack of faith, or unconversion; it is a question of who can do what when.'...
"However, the point to be noted here is that one of the main reasons advanced to justify military jihad as a religious duty in black Africa by its advocates was the same notion of 'contaminating' Islam with traditional African religious and customary elements, as will be elaborated in chapter 3. In other words, the eighteenth and nineteenth century jihad movements of West Africa were a direct response or reaction to the African tradition of 'inclusive religiosity' which jihadists regarded as a threat to 'orthodox' and 'pure' Islam."
P.51-52, THE LEGACY OF ARAB-ISLAM IN AFRICA, by John Alembillah Azumah (Oxford: 2001, 2011)