History

Lamin Sanneh

D. Willis James Professor of Missions & World Christianity

Office:    493 College - Room 104, SDQ - Room 321

Phone:  (203) 436-1313, 432-5336

Email:    lamin.sanneh@yale.edu

 

Lamin Sanneh, a naturalized U.S. citizen, is descended from the nyanchos, an ancient African royal house, and was educated on four continents. He went to school with chiefs' sons in the Gambia, West Africa. He subsequently came to the United States on a U.S. government scholarship to read history. After graduating he spent several years studying classical Arabic and Islam, including a stint in the Middle East, and working with the churches in Africa and with international organizations concerned with inter-religious issues. He received his Ph.D. in Islamic history at the University of London.

He was a professor at Harvard University for eight years before moving to Yale University in 1989 as the D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity, with a concurrent courtesy appointment as Professor of History at Yale College. He has been actively involved in Yale's Council on African Studies. He is an editor-at-large of the ecumenical weekly, The Christian Century, and serves on the editorial board of several academic journals. He is an Honorary Research Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies In the University of London, and is a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. He serves on the board of Ethics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, Alabama. He is the author of over a hundred articles on religious and historical subjects, and of several books. For his academic work he was made Commandeur de l'Ordre National du Lion, Senegal's highest national honor.

 

Research Writings and Publications

Books

• Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1989
• The Jakhanke Muslim Clerics: A Religious & Historical Study of Islam in Senegambia (c.1250-1905), Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, January 1990.
• West African Christianity: The Religious Impact,1983: co-published by Christopher Hurst, George Allen and Unwin (London) & Orbis Books (North America) 304pp.
• Encountering the West: Christianity & the Global Cultural Process: The African Dimension, London: HarperCollins Publishers; Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1993.
• The Crown and the Turban: Muslims and West African Pluralism (295pp). Westview Press. Imprint of HarperCollins. October, 1997.
• Religion and the Variety of Culture: A Study in Origin and Practice, Valley Forge, PA.: Trinity Press International, 1996.
• Het Evangelie is Niet Los Verkrijgbaar, Uitgeverij Kok - Kampen, Netherlands, 1996.
• Piety and Power: Muslims and Christians in West Africa, Orbis Books. October, 1996.
• Faith and Power: Christianity and Islam in 'Secular' Britain (with Lesslie Newbigin & Jenny Taylor), London: SPCK, 1998.
• Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
• Whose Religion is Christianity?: The Gospel Beyond the West, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003. (Winner: Theologos Award for "Best General Interest Book 2004")
• The Changing Face of Christianity: Africa, the West, and the World (co-edited with Joel A. Carpenter) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
  

Select Articles and Chapters in Books

• "Prayer and Worship: Muslim and Christian," in Islam and the Modern Age Society, vol. ii, no. 4, November, 1972 (New Delhi).
  
• "A Hungry Season: Gambia, 1951" in The New Internationalist Magazine, no. 8, Oct. 1973.
  
• "Amulets and Muslim Orthodoxy," International Review of Mission, vol. lxiii, Oct. 1974.
  
• "Senegambia at a Slow Pace," Africa Monthly Magazine, no. 30, February 1974.
  
• "The Education of a Muslim Child," Chapter in Hiskett and Brown, eds." Conflict and Harmony in Education in Tropical Africa, Allen and Unwin, London, 1975.
  
• "The Origins of Clericalism in West African Islam," Journal of African History, vol. xvii, no. 1, 1976.
  
• "Slavery, Islam and the Jakhanke People of West Africa," Africa, Jnl. of the International African Institute, vol. xlvi, no. 1, 1976.
  
• "Christian Experience of Islamic Da¯wah..," International Review of Mission, vol. lxv, no. 260, October 1976.
  
• "Christian-Muslim Encounter in Freetown in the 19th century.." Bulletin of the Secretariat for Non-Christian Religions, Rome, vol. xii,1977.
  
• "Historical Source Materials on Islam in Sierra Leone," Journal of the Historical Society of Sierra Leone, vol. i, no. 2, July, 1977.
  
• "Islam and Peace in the African Context," Journ°e Romaines (Pontifical Institute for Arab Studies), Rome, 1977.
  
• "Modern Education among Freetown Muslims," Chapter in Richard Gray, E. Fashole-Luke et al., Christianity in Independent Africa, London and Bloomington, 1978.
  
• "The Modern Face of Islam in Ghana," NOW Magazine, Methodist Church Overseas Division, London: February, 1979.
  
• "Muslims in Non-Muslim Societies of Africa," chapter in Christian and Muslim Contributions Towards Establishing States in Africa South of the Sahara, Stuttgart: Council on Foreign Relations, Federal Republic of Germany, 1979.
  

• "Islamic Studies in the Wider Context of African Studies," Bulletin of the African Studies Group of the University of Aberdeen no.15, September, 1979.
  
• "The Domestication of Islam and Christianity in African Societies: A Methodological Exploration," Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. xi, no. 1, 1980.
  
• "Futa Jallon and the Jakhanke Clerican Tradition: Historical Setting," Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. xii, no. 1, 1981.
  
• "Karamokho Ba of Touba in Guinea," Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. xii, no. 2, 1981.
  
• "The Vertical and Horizontal in Mission," International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Ventnor, N.J., Vol. 7, No. 4, October, 1983.
  

• "Source and Influence: A Comparative Approach to Religion and culture," Bulletin of the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University, Spring, 1983; also in The Cultural Transition, ed. M.I. White and S. Pollak, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986.
  
• "Tcherno Aliou, the wali of Goumba: Imperialism and Mahdist Resistance in Rural French Guinea: 1867-1912," Paper presented at Workshop on 'Rural and Urban Islam in West Africa,' 19-30 June, 1983, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Published in Nehemia Levtzion and Humphrey J. Fisher, eds, Rural and Urban Islam in West Africa, Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1987.
  

• "Healing and Conversion in New Religious Movements in Africa: Change and Continuity," chapter in B.M. du Toit & I.H. Abdalla, eds., African Healing Strategies, Trado-Medic Books, Buffalo, 1985.
  
• "Prelude to Independency: The Afro-American Factor in African Christianity," Harvard Theological Review, vol. 77, no. 1, 1984, 1-32.
  
• "Text and Context: Religious Transformation in Africa," unpublished manuscript.
  

• "Christian Reflection on Religion and Politics," Bulletin of African Theology, vol.4, no.8, July-December, 1982.
  
• "Thanksgiving in the Qur'an: The Outlines of a Theme," chapter in John B. Carman and Frederick J. Streng, eds.: Spoken and Unspoken Thanks, Cambridge, Mass.: Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University, 1989.
  
• "The Contextual Logic of Scriptural Translation: Christian Mission, Imperialism and African Culture," paper presented at the Symposium of Shin Buddhism and Christianity: Textual and Contextual Translation, Harvard University, April 29 - May 1, 1984.
  

• "The cUlam‡ in the Political Reckoning of Futa Jallon: 1867-1912," paper presented at the international conference on Islam in Africa: The Changing Role of the ¯Ulamá, 28-31 March, 1984, Northwestern University.
  
• "Christian Mission in the Pluralist Milieu: The African Experience," Missiology: An International Review, vol. XII, No. 4, October, 1984.
  
• "Muhammad, Prophet of Islam, and Jesus Christ, Image of God:Þ A Personal Testimony," International Bulletin of Missionary Research, vol. 8, no. 4, October, 1984.
  

• "Critical Reflections on the Life of Malcolm X," Journal, Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, vol.7, no.2, July, 1986.
  
• "Source and Influence: Towards a Comparative Study of Religion and Culture in Africa," chapter in Merry I. White and Susan Pollak, eds., The Cultural Transition, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986.
  
• "The Future of Missions in Africa," New World Outlook, magazine of the United Methodist Church Board of Global Ministries, March, 1987.
  

• "Christian Mission and the Western Guilt Complex: A Proposal," Christian Century, April 8, 1987.
  
• "Saints and Virtue in African Islam: An Historical Approach," chapter in John S. Hawley, ed.: Saints and Virtues, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987.
  
• "Mission, Pluralism and Christian Commitment: Conflict or Convergence?" Theology Today, April, 1988.
  

• "Gospel and Culture: The Ramifying Effects of Scriptural Translation." Chapter in Philip Stine, ed.: 1990, Bible Translation and the Spread of the Church in the Last 200 Years, Leiden: E.J. Brill.
  
• "The Yogi and the Commissar: Christian Missions and the African Response", International Bulletin of Missionary Research, January, 1991, reprinted in Wade Clark Roof, ed.: Religion and World Order, Statte University of New York Press, Buffalo, 1991.
  
• "American Ideals and Muslim Faith in the Gulf Conflict," The Christian Century, January 2-9, 1991.
  

• "Winning the War and Struggling with Peace," The Christian Century, April 10, 1991.
  
• "Islam, Faith and Politics," The Dallas Morning News Sunday Reader, January 20, 1991.
  
• "Rushdie's Moral Hegira", The Christian Century, June 21-28, 1989.

A series of articles in The Christian Century, 1989:

• "A New Moon Sensitivity," Sept. 13-20;
• "Human Folly on a Grand Scale," Sept. 27;
• "Naming and the Act of Faith," Oct. 4;
• "Tales of Miraculous Healing," Oct. 11;
• "The Spirit in Sound Doctrine," Oct. 18;
• "The Owl in the Daylight," Nov. 29;
• "A Child Shall Lead Us," Dec. 6;
• "Waiting on God," Dec. 13;
• "Dreams and Letting God be God," Dec.20-27.
  

 

• "Pluralism and the Plausibility of Faith," The Christian Century, January 31, 1990.
  
• "New and Old in Africa's Religious Heritage: Islam, Christianity & the African Encounter," in Exploring New Religious Movements: Essays in Honour of Harold W. Turner, A.F. Walls & Wilbert R. Shenk, eds., Elkhart, Ind.: Mission Focus Publications, 1990.
  
• "Mission and the Modern Imperative: Retrsopect & Prospect: Charting a Course," in Joel A. Earthen Vessels: Evangelicals & Foreign Missions, 1880-1980, Carpenter & Wilbert R. Shenk, eds.: Grand Rapids, MI.: William B. Eerdmans, 1990.
  
• "Religion & Politics in Africa: A Thematic Approach," in Douglas Rimmer, ed." Africa 30 Years On, London:Þ James Currey for The Royal African Society; Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1991.
  

• "Religion and Politics: Third World Perspectives on a Comparative Religious Theme," Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Summer, 1991.
  
• "Religion and the State," Africa Forum Quarterly, London, vol. 1, no.4, 1992.
  
• "Reclaiming and Expounding the Islamic Heritage," The Christian Century, August 21-28, 1991.
  
• "Between East and West: Confrontation and Encounter," Christian Century, November 13, 1991.
  

• "Religious Experience: Autonomy & Mutuality," in Jerald D. Gort, Hendrik M. Vroom, Rein Fernhout & Anton Wessels, eds.: On Sharing Religious Experience: Posibilities of Interfaith Mutuality, Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi; Grand Rapids, MI.: William B. Eerdmans, 1991.
  
• "Christliche Mission und westliche Schuldkomplexe," Zeitschift fur Mission, vol.XVII, no.3, 1991.
  
• "They Stooped to Conquer: Vernacular Translation & the Socio-Cultural Factor," Research in African Literatures, Spring, 1992, vol.23. no.1.
  

• "Lent and Ramadan," Interview, The New York Times, Saturday, March 7, 1992, p.9
  
• "Can a House Divided Stand? Reflections on Christian-Muslim Relations in the West," International Bulletin of Missionary Research, October, 1993.
  
• "World Christianity from an African Perspective: An Interview," America, April 9, 1994.
  
• "Religious Agnostics and Cultural Believers: Comparative Soundings on the Lost Trails of Christendom," Insights, Journal of the Faculty of Austin Seminary, Fall, 1993.
  

• "Translatability in Islam and in Christianity in Africa: A Thematic Approach,", chap. in Religion in Africa, edited by Thomas D. Blakely, Walter E.A. van Beek & Dennis L. Thomson, London: James Currey, Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1994.
  
• "The Gospel, Language and Culture: The Theological Method in Cultural Analysis," International Review of Mission, vol. 84, nos. 332/333, January/April, 1995.
  
• "Global Christianity and the re-education of the West," Christian Century, July 19-26, 1995.
  
• "Theology of Mission," in David F. Ford, editor, The Modern Theologians, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997.
  

• "'A Plantation of Religion' and the Enterprise Culture in Africa: History, Ex-Slaves and Religious Inevitability," in Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 27, no.1 February, 1997.
  
• "Christianity - Missionary Enterprise in Africa," Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, Macmillan Library Reference, 1997.
  
• "Faith, Power, and the Separation of Church and State: African Examples," Muslim Politics Report, New York: Council on Foreign Relations, November/December, 1997.
  
• "Mission to the West: Lesslie Newbigin, 1909-1998," The Christian Century, March 18-25, 1998.
  

• "Time, Space and Prescriptive Marginality in Muslim Africa: Symbolic Action and Structural Change," in Philip Pomper, Richard H. Elphick & Richard T. Vann, editors, World History: Ideologies, Structures, and Identities, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998.
  
• "Separation of church and state: a principle advancing the struggle for human rights," article in The Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion, Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quaterly Books, 1998.
  
• "Ibn Khaldún," article in The Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion, Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quaterly Books, 1998.
  

• "Popular Catholicism in the Emerging Global Church: Convergence and Synthesis," in Thomas Bamat and Jean-Paul Wiest, editors, Popuilar Catholicism in a World Church: Seven Case Studies in Incultration, Maryknoll, Ny: Orbis Books, 1999.
  
• "Church and State Relations: Western Norms, Muslim Practice, and the African Experience: An Account of Origin and Practice," in Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, editor, Proselytization and Communal Self-Determination in Africa, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999.
  
• "Christianity Appropriated: Conversion and the Intercultural Process," review essay (with Grant Wacker), Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, vol. 68, no. 4, December, 1999.
  

• "The CMS and the African Transformation: Samuel Ajayi Crowther and the Opening of Nigeria," chapter in Kevin Ward and Brian Stanley, editors, The Church Mission Society and World Christianity, 1799-1999, Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, and Richmond, Surrey, U.K.: Curzon Press Ltd., 2000.
  
• "Religion, Politics and the Islamic Response in Africa," Newsletter of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, Leiden, The Netherlands, Inaugural Issue, October, 1998.
  
• "The African Transformation of Christianity: Comparative Reflections on Ethnicity and Religious Mobilization in Africa," Nineteenth Annual University Lecture in Religion, Arizona State University, February 5, 1998.
  
• "Christianity Appropriated: Conversion and the Intercultural Process," review essay (with Grant Wacker), Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, vol. 68, no. 4, December, 1999.
  

• "Should Christianity Be Missionary? An Appraisal and an Agenda," A Journal of Theology, vol. 40, no. 2, Summer 2001.
  
• "A Resurgent Church In a Troubled Continent," Review Essay of Bengt Sundkler's History of the Church In Africa, in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, vol. 25, no. 3, July 2001.
  
• "The African Transformation of Christianity: Comparative Reflections on Ethnicity and Religious/ Mobilization In Africa," In eds. Dwight N. Hopkins, Lois Ann Lorentzen, Eduardo Mendieta, and David Batstone, Religions/Globalizations: Theories and Cases, Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.
  
• "Faith and the Secular State," New York Times Op-Ed essay, 23 September 2001.
  
• "Comparative Millennialism in Africa: Continuities and Variations on the Canon," in Abbas Amanat and Magnus Bernhardsson, editors, Imagining the End: Visions of Apocalypse from the Ancient Middle East to Modern America, London: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2001

Review Articles

• "African Religions in the United States," review article, West Africa Weekly Magazine, October 29, 1979.
  
• "Churches Rooted in Africa," review article, West Africa, November5, 1979.
  
• "Researching Mission History," review article, International Review of Mission, vol. 74, no. 294, April, 1985, 282-287.
  
• Review of Rudolph Peters, Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History, in the Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. xii, no. 1, 1981.
  
• Review of Nehemia Levtzion, ed., Conversion to Islam, New York, 1979, in the Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. xii, no. 1, 1981.
  
• Review of R.S. O'Fahey, State and Society in Dar Fur, London: Christopher Hurst Publishers, 1980 in Africa, Journal of the International African Institute, vol.53, no.1, 1983.
  
• Review of Lucie Gallistel Colvin, ed., Historical Dictionary of Senegal, Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1981 in Africa, vol.54, no.2, 1984.
  
• Review of Nehemia Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins, eds., Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1981 in Journal of Religion in Africa, vol.xv, no.1, 1985.
  
• Review of John Hunwick, ed., Shar¬ca in Songhay: The Replies of al-Maghili to the Questions of Askia al-Hajj Muhammad, London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1985 in Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. xv, no. 2, 1985.
  

• Review of Elias N. Saad, Social History of Timbuktu, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1983 in Africa, vol.56, no.3, 1986.
  
• Review of Dean S. Gilliland, African Religion Meets Islam: Religious Change in Northern Nigeria, Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1986 in International Bulletin of Missionary Research, vol.12, no.2, April, 1988.
  
• Review of Louis Brenner, West African Sufi, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985 in The Journal of Religion in Africa, vol.18, no.3, October 1988.
  
• Review of David Robinson, The Holy War of al-Hájj ¯Umar Tall, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987 in The Journal of Religion in Africa, vol.18, no.3, October, 1988.
  
• Review of Jeff Haynes, Religion and Third World Politics, Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994, in Journal of Church and State, vol.36, no.4, 1994.
  

• Review of David A. Shank, Prophet Harris, the 'Black Elijah' of West Africa (abridged by Jocelyn Murray), Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994 in The International Bulletin of Missionary Research, vol.19, no.3, July, 1995.
  
• Review of Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa: 1450-1950, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994 in The International Bulletin of Missionary Research, vol.20, no.4, October, 1996.
  
• Review of Martin A. Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule In French West Africa (African Studies, number 94), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, In American Historical Review, June, 2001.