Methodists and Muslims in the Gambia

The Gambia (West Africa) is a predominantly Muslim country, with a small Christian community. Christian-Muslim encounters in the Gambia can be traced back as far as the fifteenth century. This article explores part of this long interreligious history of the Gambia. It researches - on the basis of archival materials - the attitudes and perceptions of the Gambian Methodist Church towards Muslims in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The article argues that, although the attitude of the Methodists towards Muslims changed in the middle of the twentieth century from aggressive evangelization towards more irenic relations, Methodism in the Gambia still perceives Christian witness to Muslims to be one of its core callings.