"'African languages have no equivalent for the western word 'religion' or 'ritual' so in order to consider the religions of Christianity and Islam, they have to start using an alien and imported word. Similarly the practitioners of African traditional religion do not look upon their religious beliefs and practices as a distinct set of activities separated from economic or other ones, nor are they defined as the religions of Yoruba, Zulu, or Kamba peoples as if they were national churches. An old traditionalist on being asked his religion would reply 'I am a Zulu or whatever.'
"Consequently, even though Africans are pervasively religious one cannot talk of 'religion' per se in traditional African terms. In other words one can talk of 'religiosity' but not 'religion' if the former is seen as the awareness and quest for metaphysical phenomena while the latter is seen in terms of a codified and institutionalized set of doctrines and ritual practices. The African way of life in every respect is immersed in 'religion', so much so that asking him/her what is 'religion' is like asking who are you? As a Chinese proverb has it, 'If you want a definition of water, do not ask a fish.' The only definition of 'religion' to the African, therefore, is that it is undefinable; because 'the religion of African does not live in the pages of books on 'world religions' rather it lives in the hearts and lives of people.
"As far as the traditional African is concerned, kinship rather than 'religion' is what distinguishes one community from another. Muslim groups were seen as any other lineage or clan, with their own culture of which Islam was just a part of the whole. Islam as a way of life and a system of beliefs and practices was therefore conceived by the wider non-Muslim community in relation to particular ethnic groups. It was hardly seen as an institutionalized universe of beliefs and practices meant for everyone to belong. In traditional African thought, therefore, one can speak of religious figures like priestesses rather than 'religious communities.'"
P. 48-49, THE LEGACY OF ARAB-ISLAM IN AFRICA, by John Alembillah Azumah (Oxford: 2011)
"'African languages have no equivalent for the western word 'religion' or 'ritual' so in order to consider the religions of Christianity and Islam, they have to start using an alien and imported word. Similarly the practitioners of African traditional religion do not look upon their religious beliefs and practices as a distinct set of activities separated from economic or other ones, nor are they defined as the religions of Yoruba, Zulu, or Kamba peoples as if they were national churches. An old traditionalist on being asked his religion would reply 'I am a Zulu or whatever.'
"Consequently, even though Africans are pervasively religious one cannot talk of 'religion' per se in traditional African terms. In other words one can talk of 'religiosity' but not 'religion' if the former is seen as the awareness and quest for metaphysical phenomena while the latter is seen in terms of a codified and institutionalized set of doctrines and ritual practices. The African way of life in every respect is immersed in 'religion', so much so that asking him/her what is 'religion' is like asking who are you? As a Chinese proverb has it, 'If you want a definition of water, do not ask a fish.' The only definition of 'religion' to the African, therefore, is that it is undefinable; because 'the religion of African does not live in the pages of books on 'world religions' rather it lives in the hearts and lives of people.
"As far as the traditional African is concerned, kinship rather than 'religion' is what distinguishes one community from another. Muslim groups were seen as any other lineage or clan, with their own culture of which Islam was just a part of the whole. Islam as a way of life and a system of beliefs and practices was therefore conceived by the wider non-Muslim community in relation to particular ethnic groups. It was hardly seen as an institutionalized universe of beliefs and practices meant for everyone to belong. In traditional African thought, therefore, one can speak of religious figures like priestesses rather than 'religious communities.'"
P. 48-49, THE LEGACY OF ARAB-ISLAM IN AFRICA, by John Alembillah Azumah (Oxford: 2011)