Muslim Ethiopia — The Christian Legacy, Identity Politics and Islamic Reformism

Muslim Ethiopia: The Christian Legacy, Identity Politics and Islamic Reformism is a pioneering collection of studies on Islam in contemporary Ethiopia. This volume challenges the popular notion of a 'Christian Ethiopia' imagined as the centuries-old, never-colonized Abyssinia, isolated in the highlands and dominated by Orthodox Christianity. In addition to marginalizing Muslim cultures and societies within Ethiopia, this notion has also excluded Muslims from public discourse and led to the neglect of Islam in Ethiopian studies. This is strikingly at odds with the country's cultural and historical reality, as Muslims constitute a significant part of the population and have contributed significantly to its development. Muslim Ethiopia develops this overlooked nexus of Ethiopian and Islamic Studies, while broadening our understandings of Muslims in Africa as a whole.

Patrick Desplat is Lecturer in the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology and Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Cologne, Germany.

Terje Ostebo is Assistant Professor at the Center for African Studies and Department of Religion, University of Florida, USA.