Piety and Power: Muslims and Christians in West Africa - Softcover

Sanneh, Lamin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1498220452 ISBN 13: 9781498220453

Publisher: Wipf and Stock, 2015

Synopsis

In Piety and Power an African scholar provides a unique perspective on historical patterns of religious interaction in West Africa and their meaning for world Christianity and Islam today. Sanneh's topics range from Muhammad's significance for Christians, to an examination of a nineteenth-century "ecumenical" opening between the two faiths in Freetown, to an overview of the relation between religion and politics that directly challenges many Western assumptions about Africa and Islam. Other treatments of Christian-Muslim encounter in Africa are often framed in terms of European colonial and missionary history. In contrast Piety and Power places the inter-faith issues firmly in an African social setting. Sanneh explores the impact of Islam, Christianity, and European mission and colonialism in terms of African adaptations and expressions. An autobiographical essay on Sanneh's own education in an African Qu'ran school gives readers a rare and revealing look at the power and influence of Islamic institutions in their African adaptations.

About this title

About the Author

Lamin Sanneh was educated in his native Gambia as well as Britain and the United States. He taught at Harvard University before taking up his present position as the D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity at Yale University. He is also Chair of Yale's Council on African Studies. Sanneh's books include West African Christianity; Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture; and Encountering the West: Christianity and the Global Cultural Process.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1498220452
• ISBN 13: 9781498220453
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224