It’s 4:30 a.m. — night still lingers in Guwahati, capital of India’s northeastern Assam province. A sleepy cow stands at the Fancy Bazaar intersection. Drizzle falls. A loudspeaker at the nearby mosque breaks the drowsy silence, calling Muslims to the day’s first prayer. The sleepy cadence stops. Another loudspeaker crackles nearby. This time it’s the Sikh temple with its own melodic chant, accompanied by a single drum. The cow remains in the Fancy Bazaar intersection, nonplussed by the various invocations.<\/p>\n
A few hours later, Tashin and her mother, Iraki, take local tea and cakes baked for Bihu, the Assamese (ah-suh-MEEZ) New Year celebration. The women live in a Muslim neighborhood behind a white mosque. The area looks like any other in Guwahati except that topis — Muslim prayer hats — crown elderly men, and pedestrians lack Hindu forehead markings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis may be a Hindu holy festival, but we celebrate anyway,\u201d Tashin says of Bihu. \u201cWe [Muslims and Hindus] live together well. You could say there is no difference; you could say we are all the same here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tashin and her family also celebrate Christmas — calling it \u201cBig Day\u201d — as well as Muslim holidays like Ramadan.<\/p>\n
Multiple faiths, languages and ethnicities color India’s Assam region – – Islam is just one of the hues.<\/p>\n
LAISSEZ-FAIRE RELIGION<\/p>\n
Six men pray the afternoon \u201cnamaz\u201d at the well-kept Burha mosque in dusty Jalah village. Facing Mecca, they kneel and fulfill their five- times-daily duty.<\/p>\n
Outside the mosque, however, many more Muslim men disregard the prayer. Teenage boys wrestle. A man slices a mango. A group of men chat with foreign visitors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don’t go to namaz because we are either lazy or unwilling. Besides, life is good right now,\u201d one truant explains.<\/p>\n
Some urban Muslims and clerics study their faith and hold a tight theological line. Rank-and-file Muslims, however, are Muslim in name only.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven’t spoken to a single Muslim in 10 villages who has ever read the Koran in their own language,\u201d says a Baptist worker in the region.<\/p>\n
The worker tells of visiting a village and telling the stories of creation and the fall — both of which are in the Koran.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the story, the eldest son of the village leader said, ‘Thank you for coming so many miles to bring us this story we have never heard. We should know these stories but our imam has never taught us.’\u201c<\/p>\n
Sociologists call the phenomenon \u201chigh identity\u201d — identifying culturally with a belief but not knowing well its theology or practicing faithfully its disciplines.<\/p>\n
Islam first visited Assam with Mogul invaders in the 13th century and lingered after the army’s defeat. Islamic practice revitalized under visionary reformers in the 1600s then leveled until the 20th century when waves of Muslim immigrants from neighboring territories swelled the ranks.<\/p>\n
This immigration, coupled with high birth rates, has steadily expanded Islam in Assam. Today, Assam contains India’s second-densest Muslim population. Islam entered Assam, however, as an outsider faith and seemingly remembers its symbiotic role in India’s layered social order.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Assam, most Muslim villages are surrounded by Hindus,\u201d explains Elam, an Assamese Christian evangelist from a Muslim background. \u201cWe can say that Assamese Muslim culture is ‘Hinduized.\u2019 Therefore, Assamese Muslims are not that strict in observing religion.\u201d<\/p>\n
SOFT BUT UNSERIOUS<\/p>\n
Among Assamese Muslims, lukewarm religion breeds a benign receptivity. The few Christians engaging Muslims find they readily listen to the Gospel but hesitate to wrestle with its meaning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Assamese are a soft people. Hinduism here is not hardline Hindu. And the Muslims here are adaptable, open to making new friendships, listening to new ideas,\u201d says an Assamese Christian leader.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re almost Hindu, with a very universalistic mindset — you have your way and we have ours,\u201d explains a Baptist worker. \u201cIt creates no desire to know the truth. If all you need to do is be a good man, then what’s the point?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ironically, some evangelists think Islamic revival could trigger Christian growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Koran says that a good Muslim should know the Pentateuch and the Gospels,\u201d explains the Baptist worker. \u201cTeach them what their own book says — because they don’t know — then transition. Use their book as a bridge.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that if the Muslims knew more about Islam, more would come to Christ because Christ is right there in their scriptures,\u201d explains Elam.<\/p>\n
Faint signs of Islamic revival appear in Assam. Some Muslim villages are building madrasas — schools for teaching Arabic and the Koran. Immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh often import more fundamental strains of Islam. And some local Christians claim that Islamic countries have started sponsoring schools, students and teachers.<\/p>\n
Yet the Assamese church does not respond.<\/p>\n
\u201cChristian churches have celebrated more than 100 years here, yet I don’t see one single church involved directly with Muslims,\u201d observes an Assamese Christian leader. \u201cThis office now supports four evangelists [among Muslims] — this is remarkable! My predecessors would have said, ‘Why bother?’\u201c<\/p>\n
Only a handful of Assamese and foreign Christians have started works among Muslims — and only in the past few years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Christian message is here but there’s no one to take it [to the Muslims],\u201d observes an international Christian worker. \u201cThere are thousands of Muslim villages in Assam that have never been presented with the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Assam, a state of 26 million people, holds only a few dozen known Christians from Muslim backgrounds.<\/p>\n
If the Assamese church decides to engage its Muslim neighbors, it will find an unreached people ready for dialogue.<\/p>\n
\u201cMilk is better than water; diamond is better than rock. If you see the one of high quality, you will choose it, will you not?\u201d asks Annul Hoque, a Muslim lawyer in Guwahati. \u201cNot all religion is true or real. We should discuss to understand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should investigate to see which is real and then follow it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s 4:30 a.m. — night still lingers in Guwahati, capital of India’s northeastern Assam province. A sleepy cow stands at the Fancy Bazaar intersection. Drizzle falls. A loudspeaker at the nearby mosque breaks the drowsy silence, calling Muslims to the day’s first prayer. The sleepy cadence stops. Another loudspeaker crackles nearby. This time it’s the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[896,220,759,1252,757,2061],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}