Islam has become the bogeyman of Western nationalist populists, and the media is full of stories about conflicts and acts of terror against the religious other. Narratives on peaceful coexistence, especially between Muslims and Christians in Muslim majority contexts, tend to drown under the familiar trope of religious violence.

Although Tanzania is one of the Muslim–Christian hinge nations with the least interreligious violence, tensions do exist. This is the case especially in the coastal areas, where the encounter of religions and lifestyles is most intense. Zanzibar island is the centre of Tanzanian Islam, with a tiny Christian minority consisting mostly of migrants from the mainland. In spite of religious tensions caused by migration and tourism, Zanzibar is a case study of successful interreligious cooperation to ease religiously motivated tensions.

Arngeir Langås’ doctoral dissertation deals with the religious leaders’ joint committee in Zanzibar. After a lengthy historical background on the religious and political developments in Zanzibar, it proceeds into a detailed narrative of the development and functioning of the committee. Thereafter, he analyzes this interreligious initiative.

Two of the analytical perspectives are diapraxis and receptive ecumenism. Diapraxis is a neologism denoting a step forward from dialogue where praxis is lifted more to the fore. It is dialogue that walks the talk and appears as a suitable approach for this topic. Receptive ecumenism is a rising approach in ecumenism, where the aim is to learn from the partners rather than primarily trying to convince them or find consensus. Here, this ecumenical paradigm is extended to interreligious relations. This is not problematic given that one is not exclusivist in theology of religions, at least in terms of revelation.

The analysis then proceeds to studying religion and politics in Zanzibar. There, religion is politics because the hot topic – state union with the mainland – divides opinions following religious convictions. Christians and traditional Muslims favour the union, whereas the recently landed forms of Islamism oppose it as leading to Christian domination. Naturally, the government strongly supports those wishing to preserve the status quo. Thus, even the interreligious committee is political in the sense that it is backed by the government and the diapraxis inevitably involves taking sides concerning the union. Especially in this area, Langås’ work is nicely complemented by an almost simultaneous PhD dissertation by Hans Olsson (Jesus for Zanzibar: Narratives of Pentecostal (Non‐)Belonging, Islam, and Nation, Brill 2019). Olsson studied the largest Pentecostal community in Zanzibar and even interviewed members of Uamsho, the banned Islamist movement. Langås’ narrative and analysis thus present the irenic image of government‐supported interreligious relations from the point of view of religious specialists. On the other hand, Olsson analyzes the more conflictual grassroots communities, whose relationship with the government proves to be much more complex.

The strength of Langås’ narrative lies in his thorough knowledge of the matter. Having lived in Zanzibar for a longer period, he is well familiar with the cultures and history. He also acted as the secretary of the interreligious committee. This places him in a methodologically difficult situation researching developments where he himself is one of the main actors of the studied actions. He is well aware of this and takes it into account in his methodological approach by counterchecking the committee reports and his personal notes of the meetings against documents produced by other members of the committee and other actors.

This book, especially combined with Olsson, gives the reader valuable first‐hand information on one of the most essential locations of Muslim–Christian encounter in East Africa. After reading these two works, our knowledge on the topic has expanded vastly.

伊斯兰教已成为西方民族主义民粹主义的忌ge者，媒体上充斥着有关针对宗教另一方的冲突和恐怖行为的故事。关于和平共处的叙事，尤其是在穆斯林占多数的情况下，在穆斯林与基督教徒之间的叙事，往往被熟悉的宗教暴力论淹没。

尽管坦桑尼亚是宗教信仰暴力最少的穆斯林与基督教的枢纽国家之一，但确实存在紧张关系。尤其是在沿海地区，宗教和生活方式的交往最为激烈。桑给巴尔岛是坦桑尼亚伊斯兰教的中心，有一个很小的基督教少数派，主要由来自该大陆的移民组成。尽管移民和旅游业引起了宗教紧张局势，但桑给巴尔还是成功开展宗教间合作以缓解出于宗教动机的紧张关系的案例研究。

阿恩吉尔·朗格斯（ArngeirLangås）的博士学位论文涉及桑给巴尔的宗教领袖联合委员会。在关于桑给巴尔宗教和政治发展的悠久历史背景之后，它进入了委员会发展和运作的详细叙述。此后，他分析了这种宗教间的主动性。

分析的两个观点是根深蒂固和接受普遍主义。魔咒是一种新名词，表示从对话中向前迈出的一步，在这种对话中，魔咒更加突出。对话可以使对话活跃起来，并显示为适合该主题的方法。接受性普世主义是普世主义中一种新兴的方法，其目的是向合作伙伴学习，而不是主要是试图说服他们或寻求共识。在这里，这种普遍的范式被扩展到宗教间的关系。鉴于至少在启示方面，人们在宗教神学上不是排他性主义者，所以这没有问题。

然后进行分析，以研究桑给巴尔的宗教和政治。那里的宗教是政治，因为热门话题-与大陆的国家联盟-在信仰宗教之后分裂意见。基督教徒和传统穆斯林赞成该联盟，而最近登陆的伊斯兰教形式反对该联盟导致基督教统治。当然，政府强烈支持那些希望维持现状的人。因此，即使是宗教间委员会在政治上也得到了政府的支持，而且纠缠不清不可避免地涉及到与工会有关的方面。特别是在这方面，Langås的工作是很好的补充了一个几乎同时发生的博士论文由汉斯·奥尔森（耶稣桑给巴尔：五旬的叙事（非）归属感，伊斯兰教，民族，Brill 2019）。奥尔森研究了桑给巴尔最大的五旬节社区，甚至采访了被禁止的伊斯兰运动Uamsho的成员。因此，从宗教专家的角度来看，兰格斯的叙述和分析展现了政府支持的宗教间关系的古老形象。另一方面，奥尔森（Olsson）分析了冲突程度更高的基层社区，事实证明，这些基层社区与政府的关系更加复杂。

朗格斯的叙述力在于他对问题的透彻了解。他在桑给巴尔居住了很长一段时间，对文化和历史非常熟悉。他还担任宗教间委员会秘书。这使他处于方法上困难的情况下研究发展，而他本人则是所研究行为的主要参与者之一。他很清楚这一点，并在他的方法论方法中考虑了这一点，通过对照委员会其他成员和其他行为者产生的文件核对委员会的报告和会议的个人笔记。

这本书，特别是与奥尔森的结合，为读者提供了关于东非穆斯林与基督徒相遇最重要地点之一的宝贵的第一手资料。读完这两本书之后，我们对这一主题的知识有了很大的扩展。