An historical-anthropological approach to Islam in Ethiopia: issues of identity and politics:
A 1998 article by Jon Abbink
Abstract:
Islam and lslamic populations in Ethiopia have been
relatively understudied since the great survey of J.S. Trimingham published in
1952. Ethiopian Islam is interesting both because of its antiquity (since the
inception of Islam itself) and because of the particular patterns of
interaction and symbiosis with an, until recently, predominantly Christian
culture. A socio-cultural and historical exportation of patterns of tolerance of
Islam and Christianity since the 16th Century deserves to be developed. In
addition, the relationships between religious and ethnic identification among
Ethiopia's diverse populations are not well known and need further scrutiny. In the last decade, new issues of religious
identity and communal political identity of Muslims in Ethiopia emerge in the
wake of the political and socioeconomic reforms in federal Ethiopia and the
impact of 'globalization 'processes in the cultural sense. While Ethiopians
Muslims have in recent years gone through a phase of revivalism and
self-assertion, they have remained rather impervious to 'fundamentalist'
ideological movements in both a social and political sense. This article gives a
brief historical overview of Islam in Ethiopia, its position m the pre-1974
empire and its relationship with Christianity, and the changes under the
Communist Mengistu regime up to 1991. Finally some of the major changes since
1991 are discussed, presenting challenges for debate and further socio-historical
research on the place and role of Muslims in Ethiopia and on the relationship
of Islam (and Christianity) With 'modernity', ethnicity and group identity m
Ethiopia.
The article
can be downloaded at this link:
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