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" Islamic da' wa in Korea: "
Sungsu Park
T. C. Muck
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Latin Dissertation
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English
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| Record Number
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1103907
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| Doc. No
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TLpq1420376099
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| Main Entry
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Sungsu Park
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T. C. Muck
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| Title & Author
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Islamic da' wa in Korea:\ Sungsu ParkT. C. Muck
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| College
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Asbury Theological Seminary
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| Date
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2013
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| student score
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2013
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| Page No
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269
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| Abstract
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As a missionary religion, Islam has expanded its religious boundaries to the world beyond the Arabian Peninsula since the beginning of Muhammad's religious movement. Muslims first contacted Koreans thirteen hundred years ago in China and then arrived in Korea at the end of the Shilla Dynasty. Throughout a few hundred years of history, Muslims greatly influenced Korean society in such arenas as politics, culture, economics, and even religion. However, ironically, their da'wa movements were not successful because they joined with the colonizing powers of the Yuan dynasty and later the Japanese. Muslims oppressed the Korean people in order to maintain their economic and political power. In this sense, the religion of Islam was not presented as favorable for the Koreans. By the second half of the twentieth century, however, the negative image of Islam began to soften in Korean society as Muslims spontaneously participated in the Korean War as allies and through their active involvement in the rehabilitation of war-devastated Korean society. Through these efforts, Islam has now become a more positive religion to Koreans and has grown. Moreover, foreign and Korean Muslims have developed da'wa methods in order to make Islam a popular religion in Korea. As a result, the religion of Islam has become a revival religion in Korea in the twenty-first century. While Korean Christian churches have declined since 1995, the Muslim population in Korea has increased constantly. Particularly in the last decade, numerous Koreans have become interested in and are transferring their religious identities to Islam. My research explores the reasons for these conversions, identifies the characteristics of Korean Muslim converts, and suggests missiological responses for the Korean Church toward the Islamic da'wa movements taking place in Korea. This dissertation is comprised of six chapters. Chapter one introduces the background of this study, the research problem, the assumptions for the research, and methodologies used. Chapter two explores the missionary world of Muslims within etymological, theological, and historical approaches to the missiological term da'wa. In this chapter, a hypothesis that Islam is a missionary religion is proven. Chapter three chronologically researches the history of Korean Islamic movements. In chapters four and five, I use data analysis comparing the results of antecedent research and identifying the uniqueness of this study. This research shows that Islam is a revivalistic religion in Korea today. In particular, the rate of Korean Christians' conversion to Islam is greater than to other religions, such as Buddhism and Confucianism. These Korean Muslim converts are well-educated and middle class members of Korean society. Their previous religious traditions did not satisfy their spiritual and intellectual thirsts, whereas they found that Korean Muslim communities responded appropriately to their religious needs. Moreover, the converts interviewed in this study reported that their main reason for conversion to Islam was the clarity and simplicity of Islamic theology. For these reasons, these Koreans have transferred their religious identities to Islam
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| Subject
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Conversion motifs
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Da'wa
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Islam
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Korea
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Philosophy, religion and theology
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Social sciences
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