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Religion In South Africa
Religion in South Africa is dominated by various branches of Christianity. South Africa is a secular state with a diverse religious population. Its constitution guarantees freedom of religion. Many religions are represented in the ethnic and regional diversity of the population. History A diverse variety of African Traditional Religions of the early Khoisan and later Bantu speakers were practiced in the region prior to contact with European seafarers and settlers. The first symbols of Christianity in southern Africa were in the form of crosses planted along the coast by early Portuguese seafarers. With the establishment of a trading post at the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch in 1652, Christianity obtained a permanent foothold and gained converts among the indigenous population. This was reinforced by the arrival of the French Huguenots shortly thereafter. After the British occupations of the Cape in 1795 and 1806, this Christian tradition prevailed. During the twentiet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African Independent Church
An African-initiated church (AIC) is a Christian church independently started in Africa by Africans rather than chiefly by missionaries from another continent. Nomenclature A variety of overlapping terms exist for these forms of Christianity: African-initiated churches, African independent churches, African indigenous churches, and African-instituted churches. The abbreviation AIC covers them all. The differences in names correspond to the aspect that a researcher wishes to emphasise. For instance, those who wish to point out that AICs exhibit African cultural forms, describe them as ''indigenous''. These terms have largely been imposed upon such groups and may not be the way they would describe themselves. The term ''African'' refers to the fact that these Christian groupings formed in Africa, but AICs differ from one another. Not all African cultural systems are the same. Regional variations occur among West, East, and Southern Africans, and the AICs will reflect these. AICs c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories, and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament in Christianity) and chronicled in the New Testament. Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the 1st century Hellenistic Judaism in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the South Caucasus, Ancient Carthage, Egypt, and Ethiopia, despite significant initial persecution. It soon attracted gentile God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indian South Africans
Indian South Africans are South Africans who descend from indentured labourers and free migrants who arrived from British India during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The majority live in and around the city of Durban, making it one of the largest "Indian" populated cities outside of India. As a consequence of the policies of apartheid, ''Indian'' (synonymous with ''Asian)'' is regarded as a race group in South Africa. Racial identity During the colonial era, Indians were accorded the same subordinate status in South African society as Blacks were by the white minority, which held the vast majority of political power. During the period of apartheid from 1948 to 1994, Indian South Africans were called and often voluntarily accepted, terms which ranged from "Asians" to "Indians", and were legally classified as being members of a single racial group. Some Indian South Africans believed that these terms were improvements on the negatively defined identity of "Non-White", which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buddhism In South Africa
Buddhist traditions are represented in South Africa in many forms. Although the inherently introspective nature of Buddhism does not encourage census, adherents to these traditions are usually outspoken and supported by perhaps an even greater, though hidden number of sympathisers. Temples, centres and groups are common in the metropolitan areas and the country is thought to comprise the largest Buddhist community in Africa. History Apart from various Buddhist groups brought to the Cape Colony from Southeast Asia during the 1680s, and the many indentured labourers brought to Natal from India during the latter part of the 19th century (some of whom were Buddhist, and some of whom were Hindu who later converted to Buddhism once in South Africa), most Buddhists in South Africa are converts, and not Asian. Various Buddhist groups grew up in the major cities from the 1970s, and there has been a proliferation of distinct Buddhist traditions since the mid-1980s. These include Theravada, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hinduism In South Africa
Hinduism is practised throughout South Africa, but primarily in KwaZulu-Natal. Approximately 1.1% of the South African population professed to be Hindu, according to the 2011 census. This is down from the 1.4% based on the 1996 census. The 2016 General Household Survey measured a further decline to 0.9%. Nevertheless, the population has been increasing in absolute terms from 551,669 in 2001 to 569,476 in 2011, and by this measure, South Africa has the largest concentration of Hindus in Africa after Mauritius. *The figures for 2013 and 2016 are not official census data. The majority of Hindus in South Africa are Indian South Africans, largely descendants of indentured laborers who migrated under the British colonial government, from 1860 to 1919, to work in plantations and the mining operations owned by European settlers. Many came from Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other states of India. Because of their Indian descent, Hindu settlers in South Afri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Malay
Cape Malays (, in Arabies script) also known as Cape Muslims or Malays, are a Muslim community or ethnic group in South Africa. They are the descendants of enslaved and free Muslims from different parts of the world who lived at the Cape during Dutch and British rule. Although the initial members of the community were from the Dutch colonies of South East Asia, by the 1800s the term ''Malay'' encompassed all practicing Muslims at the Cape, regardless of origin. They initially used Malay as a ''lingua franca'' and language of religious instruction, and this was one of the likely reasons that the community were referred to as ''Malays''. Malays are concentrated in the Cape Town area. Cape Malay cuisine forms a significant part of South African cuisine, and the community played an important part in the history of Islam in South Africa. The community played a part in developing Afrikaans as a written language, initially using an Arabic script. "Malay" was legally a subcategory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Islam In South Africa
Islam in South Africa is a minority religion, practised by roughly 1.6% of the total population. Islam in South Africa has grown in three phases. The first phase brought the earliest Muslims as part of the involuntary migration of slaves, artisans, political prisoners, and political exiles from the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) that lasted from about 1652 to the mid-1800s. The second phase was the arrival of indentured labourers from British India to work in the sugar-cane fields in Natal between 1860 and 1868, and again from 1874 to 1911. Of the approximately 176,000 Indians of all faiths who were transported to the Natal province, almost 7–10% of the first shipment were Muslims. The third phase has been marked by a wave of African Muslims following the end of apartheid in 1994. Recent figures put the number of these immigrants at approximately at between 75,000 and 100,000. In addition, a considerable number of Muslims from South Asia have also arrived as economic migra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Huguenots
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Bezanson Hugues (1491–1532?), was in common use by the mid-16th century. ''Huguenot'' was frequently used in reference to those of the Reformed Church of France from the time of the Protestant Reformation. By contrast, the Protestant populations of eastern France, in Alsace, Moselle (department), Moselle, and Montbéliard, were mainly Lutheranism, Lutherans. In his ''Encyclopedia of Protestantism'', Hans Hillerbrand wrote that on the eve of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, the Huguenot community made up as much as 10% of the French population. By 1600, it had declined to 7–8%, and was reduced further late in the century after the return of persecution under Louis XIV, who instituted the ''dr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christianity In Africa
Christianity in Africa first arrived in Egypt in approximately 50 AD, reached the region around Carthage by the end of the second century. In the 4th century, the Aksumite empire in modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea became one of the first regions in the world to adopt Christianity as their official religion. The Nubian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia followed two centuries later. Important Africans who influenced the early development of Christianity include Tertullian, Perpetua, Felicity, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Cyprian, Athanasius and Augustine of Hippo. The Islamic conquests into North Africa brought pressure on Christians to convert to Islam due to special taxation imposed on non-Muslims and other socio-economic pressures under Muslim rule. The Eastern Orthodox Church of Alexandria and Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (which separated from each other during the Chalcedonian Schism) in Egypt and the Orthodox Tewahedo Church (that split into Et ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bantu Languages
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The total number of Bantu languages ranges in the hundreds, depending on the definition of "language" versus "dialect", and is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages."Guthrie (1967-71) names some 440 Bantu 'varieties', Grimes (2000) has 501 (minus a few 'extinct' or 'almost extinct'), Bastin ''et al.'' (1999) have 542, Maho (this volume) has some 660, and Mann ''et al.'' (1987) have ''c.'' 680." Derek Nurse, 2006, "Bantu Languages", in the ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'', p. 2:Ethnologue report for Southern Bantoid" lists a total of 535 languages. The count includes 13 Mbam languages, which are not always included under "Narrow Bantu". For Bantuic, Linguasphere has 260 outer languages (which are equivalent to languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khoisan
Khoisan , or (), according to the contemporary Khoekhoegowab orthography, is a catch-all term for those indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who do not speak one of the Bantu languages, combining the (formerly "Khoikhoi") and the or ( in the Nǁng language). The San were formerly called Bushmen, (from Afrikaans ''Boesmans'' from nl, Boschjesmens); and the were formerly known as " Hottentots", speculated to be a Dutch onomatopoeic term referring to the click consonants prevalent in the Khoekhoe languages. However there is no evidence of this etymology."A very large number of different etymologies for the name have been suggested ... The most frequently repeated suggestion ... is that the word was a spec. use of a formally identical Dutch word meaning ‘stammerer, stutterer’, which came to be applied to the Khoekhoe and San people on account of the clicks characteristic of their languages. However, evidence for the earlier general use appears to be lacking. Another fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African Traditional Religion
The traditional beliefs and practices of African people are highly diverse beliefs that include various ethnic religions.Encyclopedia of African Religion (Sage, 2009) Molefi Kete Asante Generally, these traditions are oral tradition, oral rather than Religious text, scriptural and passed down from one generation to another through folk tales, songs, and festivals, include belief in an amount of higher and lower gods, sometimes including a supreme creator or force, belief in spirits, veneration of the dead, use of Magic (supernatural), magic and traditional African medicine. Most religions can be described as Animism, animistic with various polytheistic and pantheistic aspects. The role of humanity is generally seen as one of harmonizing nature with the supernatural. Spread Adherents of traditional religions in Africa are distributed among 43 countries and are estimated to number over 100 million.''Britannica Book of the Year'' (2003), ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (2003) p.306 A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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