Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia: Islam, Christianity, and Politics Entwined
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What is the significance of Islam's growing strength in Ethiopia? And what is the impetus for the Saudi financing of hundreds of new mosques and schools in the country, the establishment of welfare organizations, and the spread of the Arabic language? Haggai Erlich explores the interplay of religion and international politics as it has shaped the development of modern Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. Tracing Saudi-Ethiopian relations from the 1930s to the present, Erlich highlights the nexus of concrete politics and the conceptual messages of religion
The Cross and the River: Ethiopia, Egypt, and the Nile
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The ongoing Egyptian-Ethiopian dispute over the Nile waters is potentially one of the most difficult issues on the current international agenda, central to the very life of the two countries. Analyzing the context of the dispute across a span of more than a thousand years, The Cross and the River delves into the heart of both countries' identities and cultures. Erlich deftly weaves together three themes: the political relationship between successive Ethiopian and Egyptian regimes; the complex connection between the Christian churches in the two countries; and the influence of the Nile river system on Ethiopian and Egyptian definitions of national identity and mutual perceptions of "the Other." Drawing on a vast range of sources, his study is key to an understanding of a bond built on both interdependence and conflict
Islam and Christianity in the Horn of Africa: Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan
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Can Christianity and Islam coexist? Or are Muslims and Christians destined to delegitimize and even demonize each other? Tracing the modern history of the region where the two religions first met, and where they are engaged now in active confrontation, Haggai Erlich finds legacies of tolerance, as well as militancy. Erlich's analysis of political, military, and diplomatic developments in the Horn of Africa from the late nineteenth century to the present is combined with an exploration of the ways in which religious formulations of the nearby 'other' both influenced policymaking and were reshaped by it. His work also demonstrates in a compelling way how initial Islamic and Christian concepts remain directly relevant in the region today, perhaps more so than ever before.
The African Christian and Islam
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During the summer of 2010 Ghana played host to the first ever conference held within Africa to focus solely on the relationship of the African Christian and Islam. The event was led by John Azumah in partnership with the Center of Early African Theology. The conference, chaired by Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja welcomed over 50 participants from across 27 African countries and several denominations. This book is a collection of the papers presented by 22 of the delegates forming a historical survey and thematic assessment of the African Christian and Islam. In addition, key information on the introduction, spread and engagement of Islam and Christianity within 9 African countries is presented. The book closes with Biblical reflections that opened each day of the conference, providing useful examples of Christians reading the Bible in reference to Islam.
Ethiopia: History, Culture and Challenges
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Ethiopia is a compendium on Ethiopia and Northeast Africa for travellers, students, businessmen, people interested in Africa, policymakers and organisations. In this book 85 specialists from 15 countries write about the land of our fossil ancestor 'Lucy', about its rock-hewn churches and national parks, about the coexistence of Christians and Muslims, and about strange cultures, but also about contemporary developments and major challenges to the region. Across ten chapters they describe the land and people, its history, cultures, religions, society and politics, as well as recent issues and unique destinations, documented with tables, maps, further reading suggestions and photos
The Stranger at the Feast
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The Stranger at the Feast is the first full-length ethnographic study of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity. Based on two years of field study on the Zege peninsula on Lake Tana between 2008 and 2014, the book follows the material relationships by which Ethiopian Orthodox Christians relate to God, each other, and the material environment. It shows how religious life in Zege is based around a ritual ecology of prohibition and mediation in which fasting and avoidance practices are necessary in order to make the material world fit for religious life. The book traces how religious feeding and fasting practices have been the idiom through which Christians in Zege have understood the turbulent political changes of recent decades
The Curse of Ham
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How old is prejudice against black people? Were the racist attitudes that fueled the Atlantic slave trade firmly in place 700 years before the European discovery of sub-Saharan Africa? In this groundbreaking book, David Goldenberg seeks to discover how dark-skinned peoples, especially black Africans, were portrayed in the Bible and by those who interpreted the Bible--Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Unprecedented in rigor and breadth, his investigation covers a 1,500-year period, from ancient Israel (around 800 B.C.E.) to the eighth century C.E., after the birth of Islam.
The Church in Africa, 1450-1950
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This major history of the Christian Church in Africa spans five centuries and the whole compass of different Christian movements from the old Ethiopian Church to Catholic and Protestant missionaries and the ìndependent' churches of today."Christianity provided the constitutive identity of historic Ethiopia. From the sixteenth century, and increasingly from the nineteenth, it entered decisively into the life and culture of an increasing number of other African peoples. In the course of the twentieth century, African Christians have become a major part of the world Church, and arguably modern African history as a whole is not intelligible without its powerful Christian element. Yet despite the great advance in African historiography over the last forty years, this is the first major volume to consider the historical development and character of the Christian Church in Africa as a whole, linking together Ethiopian Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and the numerous 'Independent' churches of modern times. The book focuses throughout on the role of conversion, the shaping of Church life and its relationship to traditional values, and the impact of political power. Professor Hastings also compares the relation of Christian history to the comparable development of Islam in Africa
