Politics of conversion and inter-faith marriages among Christians and Muslims in Nigeria: An analysis in religious contest and conflict

Abstract

Nigeria is a country where Christianity and Islam compete for dominance in the political realm. This competition which often degenerates into physical confrontation is rooted in the 1804 jihad tradition of the Fulani-driven Sokoto Caliphate which is founded on the immutable request for the conversion of their non-Muslim neighbours. Unfortunately, this quest found itself frontally confronted by the fledging advance of Christianity and westernization from the south, with both eventually meeting at the Middle Belt region, which is home to non-Hausa-Fulani minority ethnic groups. Although Islam in Yoruba land no doubt predated the Fulani Jihad of 1804, the later advent of Christianity in the 19th century with its superior sophistication, soon overwhelmed Islam there. Thus Islam subsequently found itself in retreat. With this retreat came resistance against the domineering influence of Western civilization which is often associated with Christianity. It consequently elicited a state of conversion and counter-conversion between these two competing religions which often extends to inter-personal relations, one of which is inter-marriage. The present work looks at the subject of this confrontation from the barometer of conversion through inter-marriages between members of both faiths. Focusing on the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria—the mainly Muslim Hausa-Fulani of the North, the mixed Christian-Muslim Yoruba of the West, and the mainly Christian Igbo of the East, it explores their respective trajectories of response to Christian-Muslim marriages within the context of their religious traditions and by extension assesses their respective levels of inter-religious tolerance and accommodation.