Overview

Scriptural Politics examines how the Koran and Bible are interpreted and acted upon by political movements in the Middle East and Africa. It is commonly held that the Koran has more specific rules for the organisation of society than does the Bible: thus while Islamic activists see the Koran as a model from which they can derive concrete and all-encompassing instructions, Christians view the Bible as source of political visions, images, symbols and metaphors. The contributors to Scriptural Politics argue that this assumptions should be reassessed, given the way the Bible is being interpreted in contemporary African Christianity. They go on to explain how the different political traditions of Africa and the Middle East shape reactions to the Koran and the Bible. Scriptural Politics also offers a comparison of Islamic and Christian radicalism in the 1990s. Islamist and radical Christian groups of a charismatic-pentecostal orientation have been on the rise in Africa and the Middle-East in the 1990s, and they show remarkable similarities, not only in their principles of scriptural interpretation and opposition to secularism, but also in their explicit demand for unmediated access for lay people to the true meaning of the holy scriptures, thereby providing them with a crucial role and hence undermining the monopoly of religious specialists - the ulama and pastors.

Full Product Details

Author:   Niels Kastfelt
Publisher:   C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
Imprint:   C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
ISBN:  

9781850654445

ISBN 10:   1850654441
Pages:   236
Publication Date:   15 July 2004
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable  
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Table of Contents

The Quran and the Bible as political models in Africa and the Middle East - introduction, Niels Kastfelt; the Quran as a political model, Ahmad S. Moussalli; Sharia and Sunna in the Quran and in the writing of Sayyid Qutb, Jorgen Back Simonsen; the Bible as a political model, Holder Bernt Hansen; the Bible as a political document in Africa, Paul Gifford; the Bible, the Quran and the conflict in South Sudan, M.A. Mohamed Salih; the Quran as an economic model - the notion of an Islamic economy, Endre Stiansen; the Quran and the Bible as models for politics - the contrasting experience of Zambia and Egypt, Monte Palmer; the politics of the Buganda Bible, Michael Twaddle; the politics of Nigerian Pentecostalism, Ruth Marshall-Fratani; Pentecostalism and the politics of prophetic power - ambivalences of modernity in Ghana, Rijk van Dijk; from domination to participation - the politics of religion, ethnicity and socio-cultural models in northern Cameroon, Quentin Gausset; seek ye first the Christian political kingdom - the Bible as a political model in the Nigerian middle belt, Niels Kastfelt.

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