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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Islam and Christianity in Azania: The Black African Dimension |
Author: | Walker, Dennis |
Year: | 1990 |
Periodical: | Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs |
Volume: | 11 |
Issue: | 1 |
Period: | January |
Pages: | 15-29 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | Christianity Islam Religion and Witchcraft Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.1080/02666959008716146 |
Abstract: | The Muslims of South Africa (the African nationalists use the term Azania) are only a small proportion of the population (1.34 percent), while at least 56 percent of the total population of South Africa are Christians. The author first examines some views of Christian white South African comparative religionists on the coming of Islam to South Africa and on Muslim missionary activities. They argue that Islam has been articulated in Azania by ethnically Indian Muslim missionaries with attention to facets that offer dignity and autonomy to blacks as they face racist oppressors. The 1976 Soweto bloodshed was a turning point in the hitherto atomized black Azanian people's social and political consciousness. The new ideology of Islam in Soweto vented and solidified black youth's resistance to racial oppression. The Durban-based Islamic Propagation Centre International (IPC) has wooed Azanians, although without the politicized Islamic liberation theology that fires the Muslim Youth Movement's conjunction with the blacks. Next, the author discusses the Arab world's perception of the relationship between Christianity, African blacks and Islam, focusing on views provided by Arabic journalism. Then, attention is paid to Azanian black images of Middle Easterners. Azanian blacks convert from nominal Christianity to Islam in the context of political sympathy for various Arab and Muslim groups, such as the Islamic republican regime in Iran and the PLO. In conclusion, future patterns of Azanian black Islam are examined. Notes, ref. |