USM History’s Professor’s New Book Explores Legacy of Christian-Muslim Encounters in North Africa
Wed, 03/29/2023 - 10:43am | By: David Tisdale
In his new book Sacred Rivals: Catholic Missions and the Making of Islam in Nineteenth-Century France
and Algeria (Oxford University Press), University of Southern Mississippi (USM) Assistant Professor of History Dr. Joseph
Peterson examines the history of Christian-Muslim encounters, in particular those
in the former French colony.
Sacred Rivals explores the ways Catholics talked about Islam in 19th-century France and colonial Algeria; about the complex position of Catholic missionaries in French Algeria, who were complicit with the empire's racism and violence, but who also sometimes had close and respectful relationships with Algerians; and about Algerian perspectives, how they themselves—the missionaries' students and converts—engaged with the French imperialists and missionaries, including resistance to imposition of French culture, politics and religious values.
“The 19th century was a time of really tense debates about the place of religion in
the public square, after the French Revolution had weakened the power of the Catholic
Church and granted civil rights to other religions,” Dr. Peterson said. “It was also
a time of massive European colonial and missionary expansion, bringing France into
contact and conflict with actual Muslims in places like North Africa and Ottoman Syria.
So, people in France talked a lot about 'Islam,' usually in stereotyped ways, as they
debated religion, politics, and colonial policies.”
“Historians have done lots of great research on the relationship between missionaries and imperialists. On one hand, missionaries often provided justification for imperial violence and worked to "civilize" and erase indigenous cultures. But on the other hand, missionaries sometimes learned to respect local cultures and tried to defend their converts from colonial abuses.
The troubled relationship between missionaries and imperialists was perhaps even more complicated in the Muslim context of French Algeria, Dr. Peterson further explains: “I uncover and tell some fascinating stories of missionaries who tried to convert Algerian Muslims to Christianity, and the sometimes-bitter results of those attempts; and I try to understand the experiences of Muslim Algerians who worked with the missionaries and accepted their Christian influence, and why some came to resent the missionaries and see them as prejudiced.”
It’s Dr. Peterson’s hope that the takeaway for readers of Sacred Rivals is an understanding that of the negative stereotypes people hold of Islam and of Arabs today, many were religious and colonial propaganda and should be treated with suspicion.
“But there have also been people who tried to build bridges of understanding between Christianity and Islam, and so I also hope readers will be interested and touched by the human stories I tell—for example, stories of Algerian children who had to navigate between loyalty to their families' culture and religion, the demands of their missionary teachers, and the oppression of the colonial state,” he said.
Sacred Rivals is open access (free online) as part of a program funded by the Mellon Foundation.
*Click here for Open Access.
*Click here to purchase a print copy.
Dr. Peterson joined the USM College of Arts and Sciences’ School of Humanities faculty in 2019. Learn more about his work at USM by visiting the website and faculty directory.