Islam and Christianity in Africa   Term Paper ID:41429 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Argues that Islam had a less disruptive influence on Africa than did Christianity.... More...

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Paper Introduction: Islam Christianity and Africa The BBC broadcast a program in in which it was stronglysuggested that Christianity and Islam had two very different impacts onAfrica The BBC stated that Islam which tolerated native Africancultural and social traditions made conversion easier and was ultimatelyless upsetting and more beneficial to Africa than Christianity Thisposition appears to be valid when one considers the interaction between thecultures of West Africa and Islam and Christianity and the Congo Albert Hourani reported that in Africa Islam spread alongtrade Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. It hadearlier penetrated parts of Western Africa as Muslim conquerors acquirednew territorial holdings. A History of the Arab Peoples. Islam, Christianity, and Africa The BBC broadcast a program in 2 1 in which it was stronglysuggested that Christianity and Islam had two very different impacts onAfrica. Armstrong (2 ) stated that underIslam, African Muslims became tribal chiefs, rulers of kingdoms, andleaders in their own right. New York: The Modern Library.BBC. Accessed online, May 5, 2 8.Hourani, A.K. This was not the case withrespect to Islam which shared many synergies with African culture. Africans appearto have moved more comfortably into affiliation with Islam than they didwith Christianity. Whereas Islam encouraged economic and cultural development in Africa,focusing on maximizing the capabilities of the indigenous peoples,Europeans and Christianity in areas such as the Congo, viewed Africans asjust another resource to be exploited. Whereas Islam became part of African culture, Christianityremained separate from it as did the colonial administrators that theEuropean powers placed in Africa. Christianity, in contrast, appears to havetaken the position in much of its missionary activity that the indigenouspeoples of Africa were in some critical ways inferior to Europeans (BBC,2 1). Christianity in fact retreated from much of Africa in the seventhcentury under the advance of Islam although it remained the chosen religionof the Ethiopian Empire and persisted in selected areas in North Africa(BBC, 2 1). The end result is that Islam was less disruptive toAfrica than was Christianity. The colonial system did not encourage this andactively worked to subordinate Africans to European power and control.This would certainly have had a destabilizing impact on the continent. The BBC (2 1) stated that Islam, which tolerated native Africancultural and social traditions, made conversion easier and was ultimatelyless upsetting and more beneficial to Africa than Christianity. In those areas where people hadalready converted to Islam, Christian missionaries found few converts. Where Islam interacted with Africa, KarenArmstrong (2 ) says that the influence was generally positive in thatIslam permitted polygamy which was well established in Africa and Africanswere accepted into the Muslim world as equals. It is also wroth noting that Islam already contained a broad spectrumof different racial and ethic groups and did not discriminate againstgroups on the basis of race. (2 ). It is true that the Christian missions brought education and hopeto some Africans, but they also paved the way for commercial speculators(BBC, 2 1). Certainly, both the early Europeantraders who captured slaves in Africa and the Muslims who also acceptedslavery, took advantage of Africa to provide slaves to the rest of theworld (Armstrong, 2 ). In the fifteenth century, Christianity entered Africa again at a timewhen Islam was already established. Available at www.bbc .co.uk/worldservice/Africa/feature. TheBBC (2 1) points out that Christianity accompanied European Great Powercolonial expeditions and sought to make the new colonies more compliantwith European traditions, norms, and mores. Islam: A Short History. ReferencesArmstrong, K. According to the BBC(2 1), whereas Christianity rejected polygamy and many other traditionalAfrican beliefs, Islam tolerated them. The Story of Africa. These effects are still being felt today. These are the critical differences to be observed when Islamand Christianity and their impact on Africa are compared. Albert Hourani (1991) reported that in Africa, Islam spread alongtrade routes during the tenth through the thirteenth centuries. Thisposition appears to be valid when one considers the interaction between thecultures of West Africa and Islam and Christianity and the Congo. West Africa became largely Muslim while the Congo did not acceptChristianity despite a strong missionary presence in the region (BBC,2 1). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Because Christianity attempted to impose non-indigenous values andbehaviors on Africans, it may have had a very real destabilizing effect.Since the Christian missions clearly supported the European colonialsystem, one of their goals was to educate Africans to work within thosesystems. (2 1). This was a disruptive influence on the part ofboth religions. (1991). 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