Christians and Muslims on the continent of Africa are engaged in "statistical warfare," according to Reuters, as anecdotal evidence suggests a growth in the proportion of sub-Saharan Africans embracing Islam, as well as "born again" forms of Protestant Christianity. "There is a kind of statistical warfare with Islam said to be growing by leaps and bounds on one side, and growing Christianity, especially Pentecostalists and charismatics, on the other," said Ephraim Isaac, director of the Institute for Semitic Studies at Princeton University. "Statistics have influence. People like to be on the winning side."
Isaac, an Ethiopian, told Reuters there are estimates regarding religious affiliation but none are authoritative. Hassan Mwakimako, who teaches religious studies at Nairobi University, said census surveys either do not track religious affiliation, or if they do, tend not to publish it. But still some Muslims have no doubt more Africans are converting to Islam. "In Uganda, Islam is growing so fast. Every single minute we are getting people converting," said Sheik Harun Sengooba of the Union of Muslim Councils for East, Central and Southern Africa. According to Mohammed Salim, a Sudanese political scientist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, Islamic non-governmental groups in Africa—many backed by Gulf oil cash—grew from 138 in 1980 to 891 in 2000, more than twice the rate of increase in the total number of Africa's NGOs in the period. In South Africa, there are reports that Islam is growing among blacks in a country where 80 percent of the 45 million people are Christian. The semi-autonomous Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) estimates 74,700 Africans in South Africa are Muslim—a drastic change from the fewer than 12,000 in 1991 when apartheid outlawed racial interaction. Meanwhile, in Rwanda, where Muslims comprised between 1 percent and 2 percent of the overwhelmingly Catholic population in Rwanda before 1994, census returns show that figures have risen to 5 percent. In addition, Muslim leaders say the number of mosques has risen to 570 from 220. |