Muslim anti‐secularist discourse in the context of Muslim‐Christian relations

This article observes and critically evaluates some of the main components of Muslim anti‐secularist discourse: the assumption that there is ‘no separation between religion and politics’, that the Shari^c a represents the antithesis of secularism, that secularism is a specifically Western or Christian phenomenon, and that secularism is causally related to a crisis of values in contemporary Western civilization. After observing some recent attempts to justify secularism on Islamic grounds, the article draws conclusions not just with respect to the discourse but also with regard to the underlying issues. The relevance of this topic to Muslim‐Christian relations emerges in two ways. Firstly, attention is paid to the way in which Christianity, or the West (the two are sometimes conflated), provides a significant Other for the purposes of self‐definition; and secondly, a comparative perspective on certain issues reflects shared concerns between Muslims and Christians on the role of religion in the modem nation‐state.     

Christian–Muslim Relations in Contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa

Socio-economic developments in Africa in an era of globalization, the rise of charismatic and evangelical Christianity, and the call for Islamization and application of the Shari^ca in parts of Africa are in danger of creating tension and destroying the apparently peaceful co-existence between the two faith communities. The article offers a conceptual basis for the relationship between Christians and Muslims from the Islamic perspective, addressing the need for Christians and Muslims to work in concert and the inherent problems that must be faced, and makes recommendations to foster a better relationship. Since any discussion of the contemporary is rooted in the past, reference is made to historical situations in order that Muslims and Christians may learn from history. Examples from Nigeria and the Sudan, where there has been polarization of Muslims and Christians, and where the problem is endemic, seek to illustrate the point, together with personal experiences and observations from Ghana.     

Christian‐Muslim relations in the African context

Abstract

The course of Islam and Christianity in Africa as well as statistical figures suggest a wide variety within, as well as considerable divergence between, both religions in the many African contexts. Though the majority of African Muslims still stick to a ‘traditional African Islam’, we observe a resurgence of Islam reflecting a growing religious awareness, on the one hand, and tendencies towards an ideological re‐interpretation (Islamism), on the other. Trends in resurgent Islam are highlighted by the examples of Islamic internationalism and da'wa, the modernisation of Islamic education, and the proliferation of Islamic political groups all over the continent. Various dimensions of Christian—Muslim relations in Africa today show areas of conflict as well as of cooperation and exchange. Against the background of the economic and social disintegration of many African societies, there is no alternative to inter‐religious dialogue which must be based on an authentic African theological foundation, being rooted in the African heritage shared by Muslim and Christian communities alike.     

Muslim‐Christian polemics in Indonesian Islamic literature

As Indonesian Muslim depictions of Christianity have varied over time and according to the receptivity of particular regions, this study provides a brief survey of the Muslim attitudes towards Christianity from the seventeenth to the twentieth century in Indonesia. In this article, Nuruddin al‐Raniri and Hasbullah Bakry are taken as the prototype of Indonesian Muslims’ depictions of Christianity in the early and modem eras. In Bakry's works, as the main concern of this study, we find greater familiarity with the Bible which is quoted in an almost literal fashion. The biblical verses are quoted for the purpose of convincing a Muslim audience that Islam is the last religion and that Muhammad is the last messenger; they are used to defend Islam from the misrepresentations of Christians who had wielded the Bible as one of their chief weapons in the effort of Christianize Indonesia.     

Peacebuilding in Indonesia: Christian–Muslim Alliances in Ambon Island

This article aims to examine two major issues: (1) religious roots of reconciliation and forgiveness, which are often unfortunately forgotten in the academic discussion of peacebuilding and peace policy-related issues, and (2) Christians' and Muslims' attempts to quell interreligious violence and prevent renewed outbreaks in the conflict zone of Ambon of the Moluccas (Maluku) in eastern Indonesia. More specifically, it discusses the role of Ambonese Christian and Muslim leaders in the process of interreligious peacemaking and reconciliation. A comparative study of conciliation within Islam and Christianity, the piece investigates factors underlying Christian–Muslim collaboration for establishing peaceful settlement in the region. Unlike most previous analyses and studies, which have tended to undermine the contribution of religion in the conflict settings of Ambon, the article shows that religious identities, discourses, and actors have contributed to and also enhanced the chances for peace and reconciliation. Why and how Ambonese Christian and Muslim leaders were willing to unite to fight against religious extremism and eagerly pursue pacification becomes the central question of this article.     

Negotiating faith and identity in Muslim–Christian marriages in Britain

Marriage between Muslim men and Christian or Jewish women has been a recognized though controversial phenomenon through Islamic history. Qur'anic permission is given (Q 5:5) but the normative condition in Shari^ca is that Islam should predominate over another faith, particularly in the identification of children.

In Britain and other Western countries the prevailing cultural and legal context of autonomy in relationship formation and choice of marriage partner means that Muslim–Christian marriages may happen without conformity to religious rules or familial preference, for example in the case of Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men. Nevertheless, amongst those surveyed, Muslim identification remained strong even where marriages were deemed transgressive.

Amongst Christian partners, faith identification (of parents and children) was more likely to be treated as autonomous and personally negotiable in the context of marriage.

The experience of hybridity and liminality in these marriages may influence attitudes to faith itself and there was evidence of both ‘universalizing’ and ‘particularist’ faith responses amongst couples.     

What Determines Voting Behaviors of Muslim Minorities in Europe: Muslim Identity or Left-Right Ideology?

Voting is key to political integration of immigrant-background minorities, but what determines their voting preferences remains unclear. Moreover, dual-citizen minorities can vote differently in their country of residence and origin. Using a representative survey of Turkish-Muslim minorities in two cities in Belgium (N = 447, M_age = 36.3), we asked whether left-right ideology or religious identity predicted their voting in their country of residence and origin, besides typical predictors of right-wing voting (i.e., efficacy, deprivation, and authoritarianism). Authoritarianism, low political efficacy, and high deprivation predicted voting for right-wing parties in Turkey, whereas the latter two, surprisingly, predicted voting for the left in Belgium. Latent class analyses of their religious practices distinguished “moderate” versus “strict” Muslims. While “strict” Muslims voted for right-wing parties in Turkey, ideology did not predict their voting. Conversely, in Belgium, while Muslim identity did not predict their voting, ideology did. Analyzing their combined effects, “moderate” Muslims voted based on their ideology—right-leaning voting for the right, whereas “strict” Muslims voted according to their interests as a disadvantaged minority in Belgium—thus voting for the left—or as a devout Muslim in Turkey—thus voting for the right. Our results elucidate processes underlying the voting behaviors of European-Muslim minorities.     

The Significance of Identity in Muslim–Christian Encounter

Encounters between Muslims and Christians are influenced by many factors. In this article a contextual study of a religiously diverse neighbourhood in Leeds, a northern English city, is used to illustrate some of the patchwork of related and overlapping identities which Muslims and Christians negotiate in their everyday encounters. Ethnicity, socio-economic status, and encounter with people of other religions are all found to influence how Muslims and Christians relate to each other and to the secular environment.     

The Bible in early Muslim anti‐Christian polemic

During the early centuries of Islam, the Bible did not usually receive specific attention from Muslim polemicists. Among those who did refer to it, some rejected the text on the grounds that it was corrupt, and developed accounts of how the original injil had been lost and replaced by the canonical Gospels. The majority, however, have left no expressed view, but do not appear to have experienced difficulty in employing suitable verses in their arguments as illustrations and proofs. A few scholars were in a position to use the Biblical texts to good effect in their arguments. The Christian convert ^cAli b. Rabban al‐Tabari employed a distinctively Muslim method of exegesis, and demonstrated how predictions of the coming of Muhammad and Islam are scattered throughout the biblical books. The Zaydi theologian al‐Qasim ibn Ibrahim al‐Rassi followed a more radical method in translating parts of Matthew's Gospel into Arabic, and altering words and phrases and omitting sections in order to make the original conform to Islamic beliefs. This Islamicization of the Gospel is symptomatic of the confident early third/ninth‐century belief that Islam provided the criteria for true teachings.     

Traditionalism and reformism polemic in Malay–Muslim religious literature

At the end of the twentieth century, the Muslim academic world has been faced with a polemic between traditionalism and reformism, to the extent that it has come to preoccupy most present-day scholars. Most modern studies on contemporary Islamic law have mainly concentrated on Muslim countries in the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent, but this study will look at Malaysia, which is a relatively new field of Islamic legal inquiry. The article will concentrate on historical events in Malaysia from 1900 until the 1940s and, on the basis of what these events revealed, will highlight the legal polemic initiated by Malayan Islamic reformism and traditionalism. The discussion will focus on three issues: first, the capacity of human reason to understanding Islamic teaching; second, the concepts of ijtihād and taqlīd; and third, attitudes towards classical Muslim fiqh.     

A Muslim lobby at Whitehall? examining the role of the Muslim minority in British foreign policy making

While much has been written on the role of ethnic and religious pressure groups in US foreign policy making, little has been noted of the participation of these groups in the British context. This paper examines the role of the British Muslim community in the making of British foreign policy. In particular, it examines the lobbying activity of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which, though only established in 1997, has achieved prominence in political and media circles. This study reveals a disparity between the MCB’s regular access to government ministers and officials under the New Labour tenure and its only limited influence in foreign policy making. More generally, it seeks to show the complexity of the relationship between domestic and foreign policy as well as between culture and politics.     

Christian‐Muslim influence in Pondicherry,South India∗

Christian‐Muslim influence on modern Hindu and Hindu‐inspired movements and religious institutions has always been a neglected area of study. In this paper, we try to fill this gap to some extent, by concentrating our interest and study on the Hindu‐inspired Sri Aurobindo Movement of Pondicherry in the Tamil country. In the course of the paper, we show how values of Islamic and Christian‐West origins have made crucial in‐roads into modern Hindu religious thought and practice. We have brought out especially the striking resemblances between the Sri Aurobindo Movement and Islam. Values like egalitarianism, brotherhood and universalism, so alien to Hindu traditions and genius and so familiar to Islam and Christianity seem to have been successfully incorporated as core values by modem variants and interpretations of Hinduism. Though our study concentrates only on Christian‐Muslim influence on the Sri Aurobindo Movement, anybody can see that it has great relevance to many modern Hindu and Hindu‐inspired movements in India.     

The socio‐political factor in the Christian‐Muslim conflict in Nigeria

This study identifies ethno‐political factors as the major contributor to the Christian‐Muslim conflict in Nigeria, while indicating the secondary role of socio‐economic considerations and religious fundamentalism, as exemplified in the Zangon Katafriot of 1992 and the Tafawa Balewa and Bauchi disturbances of 1991 and 1995 respectively. The study reveals that the tension that erupted from these episodes merely ignited the bomb of ethno‐political rivalry between the minority and majority ethnic groups. The eruption of violence on each occasion was the manifestation of the collective anger of minorities that had been incubating over a long period against the domination of the Hausa/Fulani hegemony. Religious and socio‐economic considerations were only incidental factors. It is stressed that, even though the disturbances started as ethnic conflicts, they spread rapidly to other towns in the wake of rumours of their religious connotations. The Christian‐Muslim conflict, which is traced back to the 1979 Shari'a controversy, is believed to have done serious damage to the unity of Nigerian society. The article sees the practical solution to this problem as lying more in the use of the school system in inculcating the spirit of mutual acceptance and harmonious co‐existence, than in the creation of chiefdoms which tend to cause separation and division.     

islam@britain.net: ‘British Muslim’ identities in Cyberspace

The Internet represents a significant communication tool for the expression of Islamic concepts and notions of identity, on web pages ranging from the constructs of organizations through to the pronouncements of individuals. Cyber Islamic Environments provide indicators of what it means to be a ‘Muslim’ in Britain that augment other sources of knowledge. This paper presents an overview of prominent sites, and introduces issues connected with studying Islam and Muslims through this electronic medium.     

Christian–Muslim Relations in Sub-Saharan Africa: Problems and Prospects

Christian–Muslim relations, even at the best of times, have always been disturbingly marred by suspicion, accusations and counter-accusations over interpretations of history and experiences. This has been further confounded by the very complex nature of the colonial histories on the African continent, where the destruction of existing civilizations, empires and emperors provided the foundation stones for the establishment of the colonial states that later emerged. The article provides insights into some of the major issues that serve as constraints in Christian–Muslim relations in some of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It reviews issues of Christian–Muslim relations against the backdrop of the return of democracy in most of sub-Saharan Africa in the last ten or fifteen years and points out some policy issues that African states will need to address to lay a foundation for dialogue.     

Secular Tolerance? Anti‐Muslim Sentiment in Western Europe

The literature about secularization proposes two distinct explanations of anti‐Muslim sentiment in secularized societies. The first theory understands it in terms of religious competition between Muslims and the remaining minority of orthodox Protestants; the second understands it as resulting from value conflicts between Muslims and the nonreligious majority. The two theories are tested by means of a multilevel analysis of the European Values Study 2008. Our findings indicate that, although more secularized countries are on average more tolerant towards Muslims and Islam, strongest anti‐Muslim attitudes are nonetheless found among the nonreligious in these countries.     

Rejecting Sectarianism: Palestinian Christians' Role in Muslim–Christian Relations

The study of Muslim–Christian relations often focuses on Islamic theology and Muslim behavior while overlooking the role that Christians play in shaping interreligious encounters. This article examines a series of historical examples from various periods of Palestinian history that highlight Arab Christians' insistence that they were Palestinian Arabs first and were fully engaged in the nationalist movement. Palestinian Christians' approach to local politics, even in the face of interreligious conflict, allowed them to maintain far better relations with Muslims than Arab Christians in some neighboring Arab countries. By way of comparison, the article highlights the Druze's acceptance of a unique communal relationship to the Zionist leadership and later, to the state of Israel. The article concludes that, while modern Islamism presents a challenge to minority Christian groups, historical examples suggest that Christians' actions have a profound impact on the nature of Christian–Muslim relations.     

Christian–Muslim Relations in China and Japan in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries

ABSTRACT

Building on entries written for Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographic History, this article explores Christian–Muslim relations in China and Japan in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The first half of the article considers Christian–Muslim relations amongst the Japanese in and outside Japan. Direct, indirect and potential interactions and contemporaneous commentaries are explored in order to build a picture of the sort of Christian–Muslim interactions that took place. However, due to the sparsity of sources, this section seeks more to develop and open potential avenues of enquiry than to provide definitive answers. The second section focuses on Christian–Muslim interactions in the work of Matteo Ricci and suggests that Christian–Muslim interactions in East Asia generally, and in China more specifically, were significant not only to the Jesuit mission itself, but also to the shaping of European knowledge of the East.