African indigenous “pagans” and Conversion:
“African languages have no equivalent for the Western word “religion” or indeed “ritual” so to consider the religions of Christianity and Islam, they have to start using an alien and imported word. Similarly, the practitioners of African traditional religions do not look upon their religious beliefs and practices as a distinct set of activities separated from economic or other ones, nor are they defined as the religions of Yoruba, Zulu or Kamba. People as if they were national churches. An old traditionalist on being asked his religion would reply, “I am a Zulu.”
Consequently, even though Africans are pervasively religious one cannot talk of “religion” per se in traditional African terms. In other words, one can talk of “religiosity but not “religion” if the formed is seen as the awareness and quest for metaphysical phenomena while the latter is seen in terms of a codified and institutionalized set of doctrines and ritual practices. The African way of life in every aspect is immersed in “religion”, so much so that to ask him/her what is religion is like asking: who are you? As a Chinese proverb has it, “If you want a definition of water, do not ask a fish.” The only definition of “Religion” to the African, there is that it is indefinable; because “the religion of Africa does not live in the pages of books on “world religions”, rather it lives in the hearts and lives of people. (The Legacy of Arab-Islam In Africa, John Alembillah Azumah, One world.
The implications of the traditional African understanding of religion are twofold. First, it raised a serious barrier for indigenous conversion to Islam. For in a sense, since there are no “religious” boundaries in traditional thought, there was in effect, nothing to cross over or convert from. “religion” is therefore non-missionary. Also, since Islam was seen by the traditional indigenous person in relation to non-kin ethnic groups,. The implications were that to become Muslim amounted to changing one’s ethnicity. As J.S. Mbiti puts it, a person cannot be converted from one tribal religion to another; he has to be born in the particular society to participate in the entire religious life of the people” (Mbiti, African religion and philosophy).
Reference
Azumah, J. A. (2018). The Legacy of Arab Islam in Africa. Oneworld, London.
Mbiti, J. S. (1991), Introduction to African Religion. Heinemann
