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JAN PLATVOET, JAMES COX and JACOB OLUPONA (eds), The Study of Religions in Africa: past, present and prospects. Cambridge: Roots & Branches, 1996, 393 pp., SEK 282, ISBN 0 9525772 2 4.
This book consists of the proceedings of a conference of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) which took place in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1992, the first to be held on the African continent. It is also the first volume in a new series of publications sponsored by the African Association for the Study of Religions co-edited by Jacob Olupona and David Westerlund. The book is a self-conscious attempt to mark these events as reflecting a transition in the academic study of religion in Africa, and many of the seventeen contributions were written with the intention of taking stock of the present state of this academic discipline on the African continent and of opening up debate about certain conceptual and methodological issues.
There is a refreshingly 'ecumenical' tone to this collection of articles, best exemplified perhaps by Jan G. Platvoet's introductory overview `The religions of Africa in their historical order', in which he presents a broad survey of religious expression and practice on the continent in all its variegated diversity. Brief descriptions of the varieties of Islam, Christianity and indigenous religion are complemented with sections on Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Parseeism, Jainism, Buddhism and even Afro-American religions in Africa. Separate chapters are included on Hinduism (Anil Sooklal), Judaism (Jocelyn Hellig) and Islam (Abdulkader I. Tayob) in South Africa. More than half the contributions are assessments of the `state of the art' of the study of religions in Africa. These include two general introductory chapters by...