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Book chapter Book chapter Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Northern Sudanese perceptions of the Nubian Christian legacy
Author:Shahi, Ahmed al-ISNI
Book title:Vernacular Christianity: essays in the social anthropology of religion presented to Godfrey Lienhardt
Year:1988
Pages:31-39
Language:English
Geographic term:Sudan
Subjects:Christianity
Church history
Nubia polity
history
traditional polities
Abstract:At the time of the Arab conquest of Egypt in AD 639 there were three Christian kingdoms in northern Sudan. With the conquest and conversion of Egypt to Islam in the 7th century Christianity lost its dominance in Egypt. As with the spread of Christianity, Egypt was the main route for the introduction of Islam into the Sudan. The gradual and effective spread of Islam, Arab culture and the Arabic language has caused the demise of Christianity in Nubia. For the northern Sudanese, the meaningful religious and cultural identity is one in which the Islamic ideological framework plays a dominant role. What went on before the arrival of Islam and the Arabs does not figure in the recollections, narratives, myths or popular history of the northern Sudanese. In reality very little has survived of the values, customs and beliefs of the pre-Christian and Christian eras as a legacy from the past. There is a cultural and religious discontinuity, which most northern Sudanese consider desirable. To them, history and cultural continuity began with the primacy of Islam and Arabism, which take precedence over previous ideologies. Notes, ref.
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