Abstract
This news article and tribute reports on the life and death of Lamin Sanneh, who was known worldwide as the leading expert on Christianity and Islam in Africa. In the words of his friend and colleague Andrew F. Walls, Professor Sanneh was a “visionary, man of faith, scholar, teacher, writer, architect, motivator, networker, dear friend.”
Professor and author Lamin Sanneh, 76, died on January 6, 2019, Epiphany Sunday. Sanneh was the D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity at Yale Divinity School and a professor of history and of international and area studies at Yale University. 1 A longtime OMSC board member and an IBMR contributing editor, he was known worldwide as the leading expert on Christianity and Islam in Africa. He was a deep thinker, as well as a humble convert to Christianity who described himself as being “summoned from the margins” of West Africa to the world stage, 2 where, “transformed by his Christian faith [he] embarked upon a distinguished career in the academy leaving behind an extraordinary scholarly legacy,” in the words of John Azumah, director of the multifaith and multidisciplinary Sanneh Institute at the University of Ghana in Accra. 3
In Sanneh’s magnum opus, Beyond Jihad: The Pacifist Tradition in West African Islam (Oxford Univ. Press, 2016), he examines the origin and evolution of the African Muslim pacifist tradition, focuses on the ways in which Islam spread and took hold apart from jihad, and argues that Islam was successful in Africa not because of military might but because Africans themselves adopted and adapted it.
Lamin Sanneh at an OMSC reception.
Sanneh told his story of conversion from Islam to Christianity in Summoned from the Margin, an overview of a life that started on MacCarthy Island in The Gambia, West Africa, born as a descendent of an ancient African royal family. As a book reviewer put it, Sanneh “made the transition from Islam to Christianity, from Methodist to Catholic, over the space of half a century. His book is the exploration of a conversion from unlikely places to unimagined ones: summoned by a Savior to a religion about which he had little knowledge, and a marginal one in a society where the everyday came into tangible contact with, and was largely dictated by, Islamic thought. Along the way, Dr. Sanneh explores how Christianity dialogues with Islam, and why the two religions often clash in dialogue, coming as they do from two paradigms that often speak past each other.” 4
Sanneh’s best-known text is Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Orbis Books, 1989). He was the author, editor, or coeditor of twenty books and monograph-length essays and well over two hundred articles and book chapters.
Sanneh developed an abiding curiosity and a lifelong interest in matters of the intellect at an early age. “I grew up reading the classics of Islam, with religious and historical accounts steeped in the vindication of the things of God. As a child I remember stumbling on Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life, which had a profound influence on me. It made me resolved to pursue the world of learning and scholarship. I became a voracious reader,” he told Christianity Today in a 2003 interview conducted by Jonathan J. Bonk. “Later on at school I read the works of the Western masters, such as Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, Keats, Longfellow, Flaubert, Goethe, and so on. All that unlocked the teeming world of the imagination to me, just as Helen Keller intimated.” 5
Sanneh taught at the University of Ghana (1975–78), the University of Aberdeen (1978–81), Harvard University (1981–89), and Yale University (1989–2019). 6 He had a lifetime appointment at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge (1996–2019), and was an honorary professional research fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (1997–2019).
A Roman Catholic, Sanneh was appointed by Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Commission of the Historical Sciences and by Pope Benedict XVI to the Pontifical Commission on Religious Relations with Muslims. He was awarded the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South (US Library of Congress, 2004–5) and was named Commandeur de l’Ordre National du Lion, Senegal’s highest national honor. He cofounded the Yale-Edinburgh Group on the History of the Missionary Movement and World Christianity and was the founding editor of the book series Oxford Studies in World Christianity.
In addition to the personal reflections of Thomas John Hastings, OMSC executive director and IBMR editor (pp. 120–21), tributes to Lamin Sanneh have come in from around the world. Gerald H. Anderson, OMSC director emeritus and former IBMR editor, regarded Sanneh as “a longtime friend and collaborator, in many projects. I was always impressed by his eloquence, wisdom, and humility. It was a joy to be associated with him, and he will be greatly missed, leaving behind a great cloud of friends and family.” 7
Jonathan J. Bonk, OMSC executive director emeritus and former IBMR editor, commented, “As comfortable with some of Islam’s most gifted intellectuals as he was with Christians in the upper echelons of ecclesiology and academia, his deeply informed understanding of and appreciation for both faiths combined with his modesty and his eloquence to make him a unique and much sought after voice in an era more characterized by reductionist polarizations than by deep understanding.”
Brian Stanley, professor of world Christianity and director of the Centre for the Study of World Christianity, University of Edinburgh, remembers Sanneh as “a scholar of the very first rank, respected by all, whether Christian, Muslim, or of other faith. He was a Christian by conversion, conviction, and quality of life. To many of us he was a friend, mentor, and inspiration in our own research and writing. He was also a man of great dignity, large in stature and large in spirit. We thank God for a long life lived with such profit to many.” 8
Dana L. Robert, professor of world Christianity and history of mission, and director of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission at Boston University School of Theology, describes Sanneh as “a giant in the field of world Christianity. His loss sends a tidal wave across multiple fields, institutions, and continents. He will be sorely missed by those of us who worked with him and called him friend, as well as by people who knew him only from his powerful writings.” 9
Andrew Walls and Lamin Sanneh at OMSC in 2013.
Andrew F. Walls, founder of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World at the University of Edinburgh, wrote, “With the sorrow there is mingled thanksgiving for a scholarly life of immense value and significance, likely to be ongoing in its influence. . . . As scholar he has added to the sum of our knowledge, transformed understanding with illuminating comparisons, and widened debate by insights from different disciplines. And he has done what few of us achieve: he has changed the way people think on important matters. . . . He has advanced the study of both Christianity and Islam in Africa with major works, always; he has also advanced understanding between Christians and Muslims in active relationships.” Walls called Sanneh a “visionary, man of faith, scholar, teacher, writer, architect, motivator, networker, dear friend. . . . Let us give thanks for the life and work of Lamin Sanneh, remembering his widow Sandra, his children and grandchildren, and all those who will miss him most.” 10
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Author biography