Insa Nolte
Why study Muslim-Christian relations in Africa?
Unlike many other societies that include both Muslims and Christians, the Yoruba of southwest Nigeria have experienced little religious conflict over the past two centuries. Marriage and gender were central to this trajectory. Nineteenth-century Yoruba men and women often followed diverse traditional religious practices, and they embraced Islam and Christianity differently. With men more likely to be Muslims and women to be Christians, interfaith marriages became frequent in the twentieth century.
Focusing on gender to provide analytical coherence to disparate fields of scholarship on Islam, Christianity, and religious coexistence, my project pioneers a new and innovative approach that highlights gender as a fulcrum of interfaith relations. Drawing on the Yoruba as a unique African case study, I contextualise and expand concepts that have emerged from predominantly European-centred academic debates to develop a global understanding of the trajectories and possibilities of Muslim-Christian relations.