The Ahmadis of Islam: A Mormon Encounter and Perspective

Abstract

As THE CHURCH MOVES INTO SOCIETIES AND CULTURES never a significant part of its historical past, it will encounter new configurations of religion that it must understand to achieve its prophetic promise. Countries that have little or no tradition of Christianity are particularly challenging since missionaries and prospective investigators seldom have a large fund of shared experience upon which to draw in constructive dialogue. In the case of Islam, the new Mormon encounters have generated particu-larly confusing perplexities. Muslim communities have long histories of resis-tance to Christian intrusions. Unlike other great world religions such as Hin-duism and Buddhism, Islam was a bearer of civilization to far-flung regions of the world and its zealots almost brought Europe within its fold. Today's Mus-lims have not forgotten this glorious epoch (Cox 1981, 73-80). Currently, fervent re-Islamization is sweeping the Islamic world. Nearly 800 million fol-lowers — one out of six people — of this great faith are to be found in more than seventy nations, including the Soviet Union and China. Islam is the sec-ond largest religion in Europe with 1.5 million adherents in the British Isles alone. Its present rate of growth exceeds that of Christianity. In the last two decades, for example, the number of African Muslims has doubled; over half of Africa, at this rate of growth, will soon be Muslim (Jansen 1979, 16-19). This emerging situation presents serious consequences for Christian prose-lyters in Muslim countries. There is often no separation of church and state