Abstract

“Muslim monasteries? Some aspects of religious culture in northern Ethiopia”

Jon Abbink
(African Studies Centre, Leiden, and VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)  

In this paper I address some features of Muslim religious culture in northern Ethiopia, notably the Wollo region, where Muslim and Christian culture traditionally are closely interwoven, the product of more than eight centuries of interaction. Mutual influences have been remarkable in religious practices (folk beliefs), social life (inter-marriage, dispute resolution) and local power-sharing. The two religious communities maintained no strict group boundary, and mutual conversion was frequent. This situation reflects an overarching regional-cultural (‘Wolloye’) identity. While the ‘symbiotic’ balance between Muslims and Christians is changing under the impact of the globalization of religious discourse (the impact of ‘revivalist’, scriptural Islam and Pentecostal movements), a mental model of tolerance and respect for piety whatever people’s religious conviction is still present.

This paper presents some reflections on Muslim shrines or retreats (zawiyyas) in the Wollo region, places where local Muslim ‘saints’ lead the faithful and act as religious mediators and advisors. These saints have a prestigious, hereditary position, and are incumbents of Sufi orders, mostly the Qadiriyya (founded in 12th century) and long established in the area. The remarkable thing about these zawiyyas in Wollo is their similarity with forms of local Christian monastic life. In the paper, I explore the extent and nature of this similarity as a feature of the particular religious culture of northern Ethiopia, and call for a fresh approach to the study of religion in Africa in the context of contemporary debates about religious identity and the hardening of external as well as internal communal boundaries.