2022, Vol.15, No.2

Muslim-Christian Encounter 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.39

pISSN : 1976-8117 / eISSN : 2671-678X
https://journal.kci.go.kr/mce

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.

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.

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.