Christian-Muslim Relations in Tanzania: A Threat to Future Stability and Peace?

Abstract

This paper examines Christian-Muslim relations in Tanzania with a view of establishing whether recent confrontations between Muslims and Christians are a real threat to the future of interfaith relations. The paper gathers information and evidence from secondary sources, and primary sources such as blog posts, personal communications, etc. The findings are that although recent confrontations may seem to challenge the relative peaceful interfaith relations, the cases presented do not give adequate evidence to make a conclusion that the future of Christian-Muslim relations is bleak. The paper concludes that far from being motivated by religious factors, recent confrontations have little to do with religious differences and more to do with political manipulations of religious diversity.

Keywords: Christian-Muslim relations, Tanzania, religion, politicisation, religious diversity.