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pISSN : 1976-8117 / eISSN : 2671-678X

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2022, Vol.15, No.2

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  • 1.

    Engaging with Muslims through dialogue

    Makram Ghatas Ishak | 2022, 15(2) | pp.7~41 | number of Cited : 0
    Abstract PDF
    Religions are supposed to be a force for peace and reconciliation; however, history tells religious violence and war stories. Although crusading was not exclusively responsible for the deterioration of relations between Christianity and Islam, it could be seen at least by Muslims, as a series of military campaigns fought mainly between Christian Europe and Muslims. The Muslim’s religiously motivated attacks on the West that are condemned by the majority might be interpreted by some writers as a ‘clash between civilizations.’ Ignorance may lead to intolerance, and conflicts that may promote fundamentalism and radical beliefs. Muslims are no longer the people who live somewhere; they are almost everywhere in the world and are there to stay. This significant change has led to increasingly pluralistic, multi-faith societies that ought to live together. Could dialogue make a first noteworthy step to assessing stable relations? Could developing different modes of interfaith dialogue enhance developing greater mutual understanding that leads to a better engagement with Muslims? Could radicals be engaged as well? Furthermore, Islam in particular includes teachings in its texts about Biblical Prophets and Biblical Theology that could enhance the necessity of interfaith dialogue. In addition, Islam and Christianity are mission-minded. Dialogue may reduce suspicion on both sides. This paper aims to answer these questions concerning engaging with Muslims through dialogue. It intends to set some amerce to avoid two extremes. Firstly, the claim that one faith (Christianity or Islam) holds the truth and the other needs to listen. Secondly, the passive position held by some is that both faiths are similar and use different ways to reach the same ultimate goal.
  • 2.

    CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM RELATIONS IN GHANA: UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCES FOR BETTER ENGAGEMENT

    KOMLA, NUEKPE DIEUDONNE | 2022, 15(2) | pp.43~85 | number of Cited : 0
    Abstract PDF
    Properly understanding and engaging Muslims with the gospel is a challenge for Christians in Ghana, where evangelism can lead to serious conflict. Thus, many Ghanaian Christians choose to sweep Christianity and Islam’s differences under the carpet as a pretext to ensure peaceful coexistence. Unfortunately, forgetting these differences does not often result in peace and harmony. Instead, a better understanding of the essential convergences and divergences of the faiths is necessary for sharing the gospel with Muslims. This paper raises awareness of these similarities and differences within the context of Ghanian folk Islam and considers existing bridges, theological mediums, and the existential needs of folk Muslims that enable bridges to be built for Christian-Muslim engagement.
  • 3.

    Lived Experiences of Borana Muslims: A Phenomenological Study of Ayyaana Spirit Possession Cult

    Judy Wanjiru Wang’ombe | 2022, 15(2) | pp.87~134 | number of Cited : 0
    Abstract PDF
    Contemporary Islamic studies tend to incline towards the ideologies that originate from the official texts, the Qur’an, and Hadith. These have essentially overlooked the lived experiences of the ordinary Muslims as they go on with their daily lives. A pertinent question arises thus: Are these lived experiences compliant with the official precepts? This paper seeks to answer this question by examining the lived experiences of Borana Muslims in Marsabit County, Kenya as they participate in possession séances. These are examined in light of the official tents concerning the spirit world as understood and taught by the Muslim teachers in the County. This paper uses a multidisciplinary approach that employs a cognitive anthropological theoretical framework. It further adapts the Synthetic Triangular Approach initiated by Caleb Kim (2014) to study Muslims within their lived experiences employing ethnographic tools to collect field data. The findings of this study reveal that the ayyaana possession cult is a creative amalgamation of elements from three spheres: Sufism, Islam, and Borana traditions. This implies that the Borana Muslims’ lived experiences do not comply with the official tenets as stipulated in Qur’an and Hadith.
  • 4.

    A Study on the Change of Muslim Identity of Arab-Canadian Immigrants

    Dongmun Kim | 2022, 15(2) | pp.136~154 | number of Cited : 0
    Abstract PDF
    This study analyzed data related to the religious nature of immigrants from Arab Islamic regions contained in Canada's census results. It was evaluated that the "Muslim" identity was different from the religious "Muslim" meaning as an expression of identity as a member of the community. The phenomenon of Arab Muslim immigrants in immigrant societies becoming "Muslims" as an individual religious expression in "Muslims," an expression of "identity as a member of the community," was confirmed. The proportion of the religious population in the country of origin does not appear in the Immigrant country. It was also confirmed that the longer the immigration period, the weaker the "Muslim" identity. The proportion of Muslims in the Arab Islamic countries is more than 90 percent, but it has fallen below 30 percent in the immigrant community. Also, "no religion" population is growing rapidly among Arab Muslim immigrants. It has been confirmed that it is unreasonable to react or interpret the influx of migrants from Arab Islamic countries into Europe in a way that Muslims flock.
  • 5.

    A Study on Political Islam in a Secular State, Turkey followed by the AKP’s 20-Year Ruling; focusing on policies changed by the AKP

    Han, Ha-Eun | 2022, 15(2) | pp.155~198 | number of Cited : 0
    Abstract PDF
    The AKP has been in power for the last 20 years, and Turkey is currently experiencing spread of anti-government sentiment against the AKP along with economic crisis. Through elections, Turkish people gave great expectations and support to ‘the Conservative Democracy’ advocated by the AKP. However, the original AKP’s political color – the coalition of Islamism and Liberalism, has disappeared after their second term with the implementation of policies centered on Islamic values. Triggered by the anti-government protests in 2013 and the coup in 2016, moderate Islamists including the Gülen activists, turned their backs on the current government, claiming that they oppose Political Islam referred for the sake of Erdoğan himself. For the 20 years when the AKP has been in power, the phrase, ‘a coalition of Islamism and Liberalism’ has excessively spread over the country as if it were taken for granted. Today in Turkey, however, neither Islamist nor secularist can survive, but only the media, corporate organizations, and individuals who are loyal to the AKP regime can, which infers that it has become a totalitarian, authoritarian, and corrupt society. Even within the AKP, uprisings are openly being heard by politicians who oppose Erdoğan. In fact, the Islamists feel that Turkish society has a long way to realize their wishes for Islamic laws to be pursued in the public sphere as well, and the secularists also feel the same extent of frustration, while their wishes are to remove all Islamic factors from the public sphere but Turkey has been already too Islamized. It is now estimated that Turkey will no longer be trapped in the two frames of Islamism and secularism, and will prioritize liberalism over ideology.
  • 6.

    Islamic Reformation(Tajdīd) and the Ahmadiyya Jama’at

    Hanna Hyun | 2022, 15(2) | pp.199~239 | number of Cited : 0
    Abstract PDF
    In this journal, the author aims to introduce the movements that occurred in the process of Islam's modernization. The minority Islamic scholars, mostly from India-Pakistan backgrounds in the rationalist academic disciplines, caused Islamic regeneration movements against taqlid in the 19th and 20th centuries after the Mughal Empire. The Mahdī movement, the Messianic movement in Islam, was reevaluated since the Ahmadiyya sect was condemned as outsiders or heretics owing to the political situation of the separation of India and Pakistan. The author firstly introduced the Ahmadiyaa by comparing the discursive debates of several scholars on the modern influence and the Islamic theological stance, and then pointed out theological diversity in Islam and the global growth of this sect through "Pen-Jihad." Amid India's independence from British colonization, the Pakistani government's rejection of murtad(apostates) was harshly done against the Ahmadiyya, also known as the Punjab disturbances, in 1953. Islamic scholars who attempted to introduce western ideas in the process of Islamic modernization, brought a dynamic interpretation of Sunnah through new movements of Islam under the western influence upon West-Asia. In this process, the author elaborates on representative scholars' ideas who contributed to the renewal movement of Islam and also explains the historical circumstances of Ahmadiyyat's global growth, referring to the writings of Wilfred Cantwell Smith on the time of the India-Pakistan split and Islamic revival in the 20th century. The author also points out the comparison between Islamism and the rationalistic philosophy of Islam according to the Canadian scholar Andrew Rippin and the Swiss theologian Hans KÜng. In developing this article, the author identifies the Ahmadiyaat movement in connection with Islamic rationalism, the reform movement, and the flow of modernism. The historian Nile Green's ideas in Terrains of Exchange: Religious Economies of Global Islam provide a framework to account for the birth of the Ahmadiyyat in this article.