koinonia

causes. The majority of contemporary
Africans and people living in traditional
societies still tend to be more concerned
with the uniqueness of things and to
think in terms of personal causes. When
Britons, during World War II, thought
that they would be hit by a bomb only
if it “had my name on it,” they were
adopting very much the same attitude.
“It won’t happen to me. I’m different” is
a fairly common way of expressing the
converse of this attitude.
Photo 4.7 As the healing ritual progresses, notice the involvement
of the sick woman’s companion. African healing is
In the early 1960s Fred Welbourn both a personal and a communal affair.
observed a young Muganda (a member
of the Buganda people of southern Uganda) who was awarded a university scholarship to
study in Britain. On his way to the airport at the start of his journey, he suddenly went
blind and his head began to ache terribly. He was taken home and consulted a diviner. He
was told that he had been chosen by a spirit to be its medium and that unless he accepted the
choice he might go mad. Many Africans — though not always so highly educated — have
had similar experiences; and in Buganda their initiation takes some such form as follows.
On the appointed night, the young man and his relatives went to the shrine of a
diviner, where a fire was kept burning throughout the rite. They were washed with water
from Lake Victoria, and the juice of leaves was smeared on their heads. They were given
branches and spears to hold. The diviner’s assistants started to beat drums in a peculiar
rhythm, shake rattles, and sing special spirit songs. After this had been going on for some
time, the initiate started to shake.
The drumming and singing grew
wilder. The shaking affected him
more and more violently until he
rose and started to dance wildly.
The drumming and singing 438 The AbrAmic TrAdiTion
became more and more excited.
He danced in the fire, apparently
London
Photo 4.8 A healing dance in the
ATLANTIC
surgery of Estelle Nxele. Her consulting
room was in her home, but for
OCEAN
Black Sea
Aral
Vienna
rituals and dance she often used her
Constantinople
Rome
Sea
garage, pictured right, as a surgery.
Mediterranean Sea
Delhi
Ottoman Empire at its height
Mughal Empire at its height
Arabian
0310259442_understanding_int_CS4 brown 1-248.indd 73
2/1/11 11:37 AM
Safavid Empire
Sea
Bay of
GOA
Bengal
0 1000 km.
0 1000 miles
INDIAN OCEAN
Map 24.3 Islamic empires of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At this time the British Empire was
just emerging as a network of trading companies, and there were no other European or “Chris tian” empires to
challenge Islam. Further, in the Far East the Chinese Empire was weak. Islam was at its height in terms of world
dominance, and was therefore feared in Europe and other non-Muslim areas.
the will of God. Thus it is a Pax Islamica, which
276 The AbrAmic TrAdiTion
imposes peace by dominating all opponents by force
or arms. At the same time, areas remaining free from
control by Muslim rulers are viewed as the “realm
of war,” awaiting subjection to Islamic rule and the
administration of Sharia law.
This is why Muslims throughout history have
regarded “the Conquests” of the first century of the
From the early Middle Ages, Jews migrated through Germany and areas of the Byzantine
Muslim era as the second great miracle of Islam, after
Empire into Russia and Poland. In 1264, Prince Boleslav V (1226 – 1279), Duke of Krakow,
granted the Jews a charter guaranteeing their legal rights and protection. A century
the reception of the Qur’an. Islam proclaims submislater,
during the rule of King Casimir III (1310 – 1370), a series of decrees extended rights
to Jews throughout Poland. Then, in 1388, the Grand Duke of Lithuania welcomed the Photo 24.14 The Wilmersdorfer Mosque, in Berlin, Germany,
reminds viewers that, while in the past Islam was of-
Jews to his lands. These developments, though good for Jewish immigrants, providing
ten spread as a result of military victories, thus justifying a
them with considerable protection under the law, had a dark side which appears to have
military understanding of jihad, today Islam is rapidly spreading
throughout Europe and other parts of the world through
affected the fate of the Jews in modern times. As earlier in Spain, the Jews, an educated
people, provided reliable and able recruits for government ser vice. As a result many became immigration and conversion without coercion. As a result, it
tax collectors, estate managers, and agents of the government, and they were feared by now presents a far greater intellectual challenge to Chris tianity
and other religions than when it was possible to explain
the common people, who saw them as oppressors. To make matters worse, as in Spain,
they were required to wear their own distinctive
clothing. Therefore, no one could
away its success in terms of conquest.
fail to know that the hated tax collector or
government bailiff was a Jew. Undoubtedly
these developments laid a foundation
for later anti-Semitism. By the early fifteenth
century there were around 15,000
0310259442_understanding_int_CS4 Jews in Poland. brown A 249-512.indd century 438later that
number had grown to around 150,000 as
Poland became a center of Jewish life and
scholarship.
Jewish prosperity in Polish areas came
to a dramatic end in the seventeenth century,
when Ukrainian Cossacks revolted
against their Polish masters and massacred
Jews and Polish landowners alike. In what
became a major peasant revolt, Polish gentry
and their Jewish administrators were
Photo 16.5 This woodcut shows Sabbatai Zevi (1626 – 1676) slaughtered in gruesome ways.
in a Turkish prison. He declared himself the Messiah in 1648 Eventually the rule of the Cossacks
and was eventually imprisoned in Constantinople, where, in
led to the separation of Poland and the
the castle of Abydos, he converted to Islam on 16 September
1666. Later he vacillated between Judaism and Islam. Ukraine as well as intervention by the
His followers, known as Sabbateans, drew inspiration from Russian and Swedish armies. The involvement
of foreign troops gave birth to a Pol-
Jewish mysticism, especially the kabbalah, and are believed
to have influenced the development of the Hassidic movement
in Poland and elsewhere.
ish partisan movement that resisted both
the Russians and the Swedes. In the pro-
10. Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Judaism: History, Belief and Practice (London: Routledge, 2003), 210 – 19.
0310259442_understanding_int_CS4 brown 249-512.indd 276
WitcHcraft and sorcery 73
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R.
2/1/11 11:51 AM
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Understanding World Religions
An Interdisciplinary Approach
Irving hexham
Globalization and high-speed communication put twenty-first century people in contact with
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often limited at best. Religious stereotypes abound, hampering a serious exploration of unfamiliar
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Understanding World Religions presents religion as a complex and intriguing matrix of history,
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out. Of particular importance is Hexham’s decision to explore African religions, which have frequently
been absent from major religion texts. He surveys these in addition to varieties of Hinduism,
Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
24
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irving hexham is professor of religious studies at the University of Calgary and adjunct professor
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Contents
THE Challenge of the cults
and new religions
Ron Rhodes
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Introduction
Part One: Studying Religion
1. Introductory Issues in the Study of Religion
2. A Biased Canon
Part Two: African Traditions
3. African Religious Traditions
4. Witchcraft and Sorcery
5. God in Zulu Religion
6. The Case of Isaiah Shembe
Part Three: The Yogic Tradition
7. The Origins of Yogic Religions
8. The Richness of the Hindu Tradition
9. Rethinking the Hindu Tradition
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10. Gandhi the Great Contrarian
11. Buddhism
12. The Development of Buddhist Belief and Practice
13. The Moral Quest of Edward Conze
14. Other Yogic-Type Traditions
Part Four: The Abrahamic Tradition
15. Early Judaism
16. Rabbinic and Other Judaisms
17. Jewish Faith and Practice
18. Martin Buber’s Zionist Spirituality
19. Christianity
20. Christian History
21. Christian Faith and Practice
22. Christian Politics according to Abraham Kuyper
23. The Challenge of Islam
24. Muslim Beliefs and Practices
25. Muslim Piety
26. Sayyid Qutb and the Rebirth of Contemporary Islam
Conclusion: Whither Religious Studies?
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index
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