Empire and Muslim conversion: historical reflections on Christian missions in Egypt
This article considers Christian evangelization among Muslims in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and traces its relationship to the global and local dynamics of Western imperialism. Focusing on Egypt, where Anglo-American Protestant missionaries were active, the article examines why miss...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic/Print Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
Published: |
2005
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In: |
Islam and Christian-Muslim relations
Year: 2005, Volume: 16, Issue: 1, Pages: 43-60 |
Further subjects: | B
Protestant Church
B Great Britain / England B USA / United States of America B Colonialism B Egypt B Imperialism B mission / world mission B Mission (international law / Weltmission B USA / United States of America / Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika |
Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) |
Summary: | This article considers Christian evangelization among Muslims in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and traces its relationship to the global and local dynamics of Western imperialism. Focusing on Egypt, where Anglo-American Protestant missionaries were active, the article examines why missionaries encountered fierce resistance from Muslim audiences despite the small number of Muslim conversions and how they inadvertently galvanized Egyptian anti-colonial nationalist and Islamist movements. Reflecting on this history of cultural encounter from a postcolonial perspective, the article then discusses the challenge of assessing missionary motives, social influences, and long-term legacies given the sharp differences of interpretation that have often prevailed among Christian and Muslim scholars and polemicists. It draws special attention to an Arabic postcolonial genre of anti-missionary treatises that portray Christian missionaries as neo-Crusaders whose legacies have posed a continuing threat to the integrity of Muslim societies. |
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ISSN: | 0959-6410 |
Contains: | In: Islam and Christian-Muslim relations
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0959641052000313237 |