Andrew C.

Diprose Research Project for ICS 6013: CIU-Korntal (June 2005 course)

Bangladesh and its majority people, the Muslim Bengalis

Geography and people:

Bangladesh is nestled in the crook of the Bay of Bengal, surrounded by India. It shares a
border in the south-east with Myanmar and fronts onto the Bay of Bengal. The country is
very flat, and is dominated by the braided strands of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Jamuna
delta. Over 90% of the country is composed of alluvial plains less than 10m above sea
level, making it an inviting proposition to flood-prone rivers and tidal waves. The only relief
from these low-lying plains occurs in the north-east and south-east corners where modest
hills rise to an average height of around 240m and 600m respectively. 1
It is also one of the most populous nations of the world. Its overall density, 890 persons per
square kilometre, is much higher than that of most other countries of the world. However, it
is not all urban, in fact at least 70 percent of its population is rural. Back in the late 1980s,
about 82 percent of the population of Bangladesh resided in rural areas but in recent years
the population in urban areas has risen due to economic problems in the country side. On
the whole, apart from in parts of the Sylhet and Rangamati regions, its villages are
scattered collections of homesteads surrounded by trees. 2 Bangladeshs capital city,
Dhaka, is a chaotic city. Overpopulation has helped to render the environment in this city
quite inhospitable. Because of this and because jobs in the city are hard to find, on the one
hand many of the newcomers end up returning at least temporarily to their villages,
especially during the harvest season when there is more work available in the country
side; on the other hand, many of Bangladeshs highly skilled workers have left the capital
and have migrated to the Western Europe and the USA. 3
Bangladesh is a melting pot of races. Proto-Australoids, Aryans, persons of Arab, Persian
and Turkish origin all migrated there over the centuries and contributed to the formation of
the majority people which we know as Bengalis. Bangladeshs tribal population constitutes
just over 1 percent of the population and the tribals tend to live in the Chittagong Hills and
in the regions of Mymenshingh, Sylhet, and Rajshahi. 4 Bangladesh is nearly 83 percent
Muslim, ranking third in Islamic population on a worldwide scale, following Indonesia and
Pakistan. Sunni Islam is the dominant religion amongst Bangladeshis. Although loyalty to

1
Data and quote derived from the www.goldenbangla.com web site which provides some useful brief
information on the geographical characteristics and the people of East Bengal, which for a time was called
East Pakistan and after the civil war with West Pakistan became Bangladesh as it is known today.
2
As found in www.mongabay.com/reference/country_studies/bangladesh/
3
See www.mongabay.com/reference/country_studies/bangladesh/
4
Quote from www.mongabay.com/reference/country_studies/bangladesh/SOCIETY.html.
Islam is deeply rooted, in many cases, partly due to its history (see below), beliefs and
observances in rural areas tend to conflict with Orthodox Islam. 5 Until relatively recently
when Islamisation was enforced by the government, Bangladesh was relatively free of
sectarian strife though, for historical and cultural reasons, not very sensitive towards the
Gospel.

Some history:
The birth of Bangladesh as an independent nation as well as the gradual rise of Islam
amongst its population must be considered in light of the fact that present day Bangladesh
occupies what was, and still is, frontier territory on the eastern side of great rivers of the
Indian Subcontinent.
Bangladesh occupies a territory to the East of what used to be Bengals agrarian frontier, a
frontier which a few centuries ago divided the Bengal deltas cultivated terrain from the
wild forests or marshlands that were as yet unpenetrated, or only lightly penetrated, by
plow agriculture and agrarian society.6 Islams penetration and gradual assimilation as an
integral part of the nations culture and world view often went hand in hand with the
transformation of the Eastern part of Indias Bengal from a land of forests and marshlands
into a new society of predominantly Muslim peasants who cultivated fertile lands which
were subject to periodic inundations of water from Bangladeshs rivers. 7
Bengal has a history of domination of its territory on the part of rulers from other
parts of India and other parts of the world. A Muslim presence in Bengal can be traced
back to at least as early as the ninth century A.D., when Arabian and Persian merchants
arrived in Vanga, or Gaur as the region was known. 8 Bengal, (mainly West Bengal as East
Bengal was scarcely populated and did not form a cohesive social unit back in those
days), was an area in which travellers found a thriving Hindu civilization with important
Buddhist communities in its midst.9
In the course of time, between 1204 and 1760, though often associated with the rest of
Hindu majority India, Bengal was often dominated and locally controlled by Muslim rulers
belonging to a whole host of ethnic groups. First it was dominated by Turkic people and
Afghanis during the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Subsequently, when the
5
See www.mongabay.com/reference/country_studies/bangladesh/SOCIETY.html .
6
Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier. 1204-1760, Berkley: University of California Press, 1993,
page xxiii.
7
Mary Frances Dunham, Jarigan: Muslim Epic Songs of Bangladesh, Dhaka: The University Press Limited,
1997, page 14
8
Dunham, Jarigan, page 14.
9
Dunham, Jarigan, page 14.

2
Moghuls, a dynasty of Chagatai Turks, gradually managed to obtain control of Bengal after
having annexed the rest of India10, Persians and other peoples, who adhered to Islam and
were linked to the Moghuls, also ruled over Bengal. Moghul governors in Bengal were
linked to the rest of the Moghul empire but, as had often happened throughout Bengals
history, local governors enjoyed a considerable independence. Bengals geographic
isolation encouraged political separation, and encouraged accommodation to the patterns
of local life.11
In addition to Islam being the religion of many of Bengals rulers from the year 1204
onwards, (that was the year in which Muhammad Bakhtiyar conquered northwestern
Bengal),12 other factors also contributed to Eastern Bengals gradual adherence to Islam.
Amongst these factors, an important one is the following: The conversion to Islam of
many of the people who resided in East Bengal, this includes many migrants and tribals,
was largely due to the pioneering work of Islamic religious leaders, especially the Sufi pirs
(spiritual leaders) from the Muslim world of the Middle East. These enterprising immigrants
set about building mosques and madrasas (schools for Islamic education), and organized
the clearing of the land to expand agriculture. 13 So, one can see that many of those who
lived in East Bengal prior to the advent of the Moghuls, or who migrated there when the
amount of arable land gradually increased, also adhered to the religion of those
benefactors who had organised the clearing of the land. Indigenous communities of people
who had been fishermen and shifting cultivators became incorporated into sedentary
communities that focused on the charisma and the organisational abilities of Muslim
pioneers14 and Islam gradually became an integral part of the life of these communities.
When considering the situation of the Muslim peasants, living and cultivating the arable
areas of Bangladesh, we discover that adherence to Islam was not a question of overnight
conversion. Rather, what often happened was something like this: First, Allah and Islams
lesser agencies (saints, pirs, Muhammad, jinns, etc.) were incorporated into the peasants
already existing indigenous cosmology with its plethora of various gods often including an
indigenous high god; Then came the identification stage in which Islams high god was
identified with the previously existing (Bengali) high god and the same thing happened with
other lesser agencies. Finally, at least on a theoretical level, previously existent gods and
beings derived from the indigenous populations polytheistic cosmology tended to be

10
Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, page 137.
11
Dunham, Jarigan, page 15.
12
Eaton, Rise of Islam, page 23.
13
Dunham, Jarigan, page 14.
14
Eaton, Rise of Islam, pages 226-227.

3
displaced, leaving these people only with Allah followed by a host of lesser superhuman
agencies, including the Prophet Muhammad at the upper end and various charismatic pirs
at the lower end.15 It seems that such a displacement of elements which had previously
formed an integral part of their cosmology and world view was only partial. Folk Bengali
cosmology was, and to a degree still is, rather fluid and it can allow many nominal Muslim
Bengalis, especially in rural areas, to interact creatively with exogenous ideas and
agencies.16 This view can be substantiated when considering elements of Hinduism and
its gods present in Jarigan, which are Muslim Epic songs of Bangladesh.17 Further, in my
interactions with some Bangladeshi men in Western Europe, I have also found that many
Bengali Muslims though observing formalities like the fast during the month of Ramadan
are also quite open to interacting with (and sometimes incorporating) ideas derived from
Hinduism and Christianity. My experience is coherent with Dunhams study of Jarigan and
the participation of many non-Muslim Bangladeshis, including some Hindus, in the
festivities related to the Muslim month of Muharram.18
Though a great majority of the population of what was to become Bangladesh
adhered to Islam, until the partition of British India in 1947 Hindus controlled about 80
percent of major parts of the economy and held important government jobs. Soon after
1947, a Pakistani-based elite began to dominate civil service and other important roles in
Bangladesh. This and other factors, including West Pakistans lack of care of Bangladeshis
during the first few days after the devastating cyclone during the early 1970s, enhanced
the Bangladeshis desire for independence. A civil war between East Pakistan and West
Pakistan in the early 1970s brought many deaths and caused many to flee the nation. After
many receiving many Refugees into India, India intervened and Bangladesh finally
became independent.19 After independence, a brief period ensued in which Islamisation
was not pursued because, in the 1972 Constitution, secularism was announced as one of
the fundamental principles of state policy. However, this state of affairs didnt last long as in
1977 the Zia government introduced the principle of absolute faith and trust in the Allah
15
Eaton, Rise of Islam, page 303 (see also pages 301-302).
16
Eaton, Rise of Islam, page 303.
17
For an example of this, see Dunhams presentation of the Kasem-Sokhinar Jari a story whose setting is in
680 A.D. and relates to Kasem, a nephew of the Caliph Hussein, and yet, even in the midst of a narrative
relating to Orthodox Islam, one finds reference to Yama, a Hindu god. One might say that it could be a
question of terminology as the narrative is speaking about Kasems imminent death and Yama is the Hindu
god of death. Nonetheless, it remains significant that this Bengali Muslim narrative, composed during the
1950s makes use of Hindu names and terminology relating to death and the god of death. See Mary Frances
Dunham, Jarigan: Muslim Epic Songs of Bangladesh, pages 222-230.
18
Dunham, Jarigan, page 6.
19
Important events in the early 1970s are narrated in a small book written from the perspective of those
Christians who helped Bangladeshis after the devastating cyclone and during and after the civil war with
Pakistan. See James C. Hefley, Christ in Bangladesh, London: Coverdale House Publishers, 1973.

4
Almighty into the constitution and totally omitted article 12 which contained the
mechanisms for the implementation of the principle of secularism. 20 Symbolic measures
symbolising the presence and importance of Islam followed these formal declarations:
Posters with quotations from the Holy Quran were hung in government offices, festoons
were flown with national flags during Eid festivals, and so on. About 10 years later, the
Ershad government continued the process of Islamisation. The establishment of the Zakat
Fund headed by the President of Bangladesh himself and the proposed education policy of
the government to introduce Arabic and Islamics from Class I in the schools are indicative
of the regimes interest in the Islamisation process.21 On January 20, 1988 president
Ershad stated that the cultural life of the Bangladeshis would be firmly based on Islamic
principles. One can understand a little of what kind of Islam was being advocated by
considering Ershads own actions and proposals. Ahamed tells us that General Ershads
personal lifestyle, his frequent visits to various shrines and mosques, his liberal grants to
these institutions especially for repairs, reconstruction and beatification, and his attitude to
the pirs (holy men) and Imams (religious leaders) have profoundly influenced the
process of Islamization.22 Ershads public implementation of his own devotion to Islam
culminated in the declaration of Islam as the State Religion of Bangladesh on June the 7 th,
1988.

The Islam of the Bengalis of Bangladesh:

As already seen above, Bengalis adherence to Islam came about gradually and what
came to be seen as their national religion has been influenced by many sources and
streams. The constitutive elements of Popular Islam in Bangladesh have been derived
from a wide variety of sources: from Hinduism, from Tantrism, from Buddhism, from
Pre-Islamic Folk practices and Cosmology as well as from Orthodox Islam proper as
theorised and practiced in Saudi Arabia and Persia. We can only examine some of these
elements in this paper and furnish some brief explanatory comments.
TANTRISM: This term refers to a large number of texts dealing with the esoteric practices of
some Hindu, Buddhist and Jaina sects. It tends to deal with such aspects of popular
Hinduism as spells, rituals and symbols. It is, like Folk Islam, essentially practical. 23 In both
its Hindu and Buddhist forms, spiritual progress is to be achieved through enabling the
20
Quote taken from Emajuddin Ahamed, Dil Roushan Jinnat Ara Nazneen, Islam in Bangladesh at the
following internet address: www.power_xs.de/delta/islam.html .
21
See Ahamed, Islam in Bangladesh
22
Ahamed, Islam in Bangladesh
23
P.A. Bushell, Shah Jalal: Patron Saint of Bangladesh, London: Ph.D. Thesis, Brunel University, 2005,
chapter 1, page 10.

5
union of the male force with the female, personified in Shiva (male) and Shakti (female) in
the Hindu description, and Purusha (male) and Pakriti (female) in the Buddhist. 24 One
may ask how Tantrism become part of Islam in Bangladesh. We must not forget that Islam
in Bangladesh was strongly influenced by mystical tendencies present in Sufism.
A. Mookerkjee mentions the link between Tantrism and Sufism by stating that during the
Muslim rule in India, the philosophical movement of Sufism came under the influence of
Tantric doctrines and teaching.25 After the arrival of Persian speaking Sufis in Bengal,
Persian and Arabic translations were made of a tantric yoga manual, Amrtakunda, and it
circulated in Bengal for about five hundred years. Tantrism and Sufism have some
similarities though, of course, the original philosophical basis of Islam and Tantra are very
different. Enamel Haq has noted the similarity between the seven lotifah in the human
body as centers of meditation within the Sufi system and the six cakra meditation systems
which are important in the Tantric system. 26 The Tantras also contain a storehouse of
magical beliefs and practices, both white and black magic. These are means of achieving
victory in disputes, curing diseases, preventing hunger and thirst, and reviving the dead,
as well as killing, destroying, paralysing and controlling. 27 Such practices are common
today both amongst tribal people of Bangladesh and amongst people belonging to higher
grades of culture. Locally rooted Tantric ideas, including magical practices and forces,
constitute an important part of Folk Islam today. Tantric roots and practices can be seen in
many of the stories and practices associated with famous Folk Islam shrines in
Bangladesh, including the shrine of the popular Shah Jalal of Sylhet; He has been dead for
over 600 years now but is still revered and is the focus of popular devotion all over
Bangladesh.
SUFISM: Sufism is a tradition of Islamic mysticism which appeared very early in Islam and
became essentially a popular movement emphasizing love of God rather than fear of
God. Sufism stresses a direct, unstructured, personal devotion to God in place of the
ritualistic, outward, observance of the faith. An important belief in the Sufi tradition is that
the average believer may use spiritual guides in his pursuit of the truth. These guides
friends of God or saints are commonly called fakirs or pirs. In Bangladesh the term pir is
more commonly used and combines the meanings of teacher and saint. 28

24
Phil Bushell, Shah Jalal, chapter 1, page 11.
25
A. Mookerjee, Tantra Magic, Ondon: Charles Kilton Ltd., 1978, page 2.
26
Muhmmad E. Haq, A History of Sufi-ism in Bengal, Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1975, page 135.
27
P.A. Bushell, Shah Jalal, chapter 1, page 12.
28
A quote from the article found on the internet at
www.mongabay.com/reference/country_studies/bangladesh/SOCIETY.html

6
Sufi saints were active in the conversion of the Turks before they came to India; Then
when Turkish people gradually managed to, directly or indirectly, rule all over India,
including East and West Bengal, these Muslim rulers acknowledged Sufi authority in the
spiritual realm as a partnership with their own authority in the physical realm. 29 It seems
that some of the Sufi theologians and Saints were also soldiers. 30 Many Sufi migrants were
not only thinkers and religious people but also entrepreneurs who, as we have seen
previously, supervised the transformation of Bengals far eastern frontier into fruitful
agrarian land. They tended to arrive with, or after, or possibly in some cases, just before,
the Muslim armies.31 The most famous name amongst Sufi saints in the Indian
Subcontinent is that of Khaja Muinuddin (died 1236). He established the Chisti tariqa in
India. The Chisti Sufis actively co-operated with the Muslim rulers of India in the social and
practical transformation of Bengals land and society into an agrarian society of Muslim
peasants.32 Most Bangladeshi Muslims today are influenced to some degree by Sufism,
although this influence often involves only occasional consultation or celebration rather
than formal affiliation. Both fakirs and pirs are familiar figures on the village scene, and in
some areas the shrines of saints almost outnumber the mosques. 33 Most pirs have murids
(disciples) who follow them. There are two main types of disciples, those who live in close
association with the pir and those who constitute a kind of lay associate of the pir or
murshid; the latter type of disciple earns his living in secular occupations, consults the pir
at times, participates in religious ceremonies and makes contributions to the support of the
murshid. In addition to this, the disciple may be initiated into a brotherhood that pledges
its devotion to the murshid.34 Pirs do not attain their office through consensus and are not
normally considered to be community representatives. Pirs are considered to be advisers
and sometimes have taken an active part in politics, supporting political candidates.

29
Bushell, Shah Jalal, chapter 1, page 21.
30
Bushell, Shah Jalal, chapter 1, page 22.
31
Bushell, Shah Jalal, chapter 1, page 28.
32
Bushell, Shah Jalal, chapter 1, page 30.
33
Islam in Bangladesh, an article found on the Internet at http://countrystudies.us/bangladesh/39.htm
34
Quote from Islam in Bangladesh.

7
PIRS, MAZARS AND OBSERVANCES TO REMEMBER THE DEATH OF A PIR AND/OR HIS SPIRITUAL
WEDDING:

Observances to remember the death of a pir are important in South Asia. The anniversary
of the death of a pir is observed annually and popular belief considers this annual occasion
to be a specially propitious time for seeking the intercession of the pir.35 Large numbers
of the faithful attend anniversary ceremonies which are quite similar in form and content to
many Hindu festivals. Though several nineteenth and twentieth-century fundamentalist
reform movements aimed at ridding Islam of all elements extraneous to Orthodox Islam,
the practice of pir veneration and looking to such figures as mediators between human
beings and god has continued unabated.36 Mazars (shrines) of sufis and pirs are
important not only in Folk Islamic practices but also as centers for preaching Islam and
teaching Quranic principles and the Sunnah in Bangladesh. Sufis and Pirs have served to
propagate both Orthodox Islam and Folk Islam.37 Holy Places linked to Pirs will often have
a mosque, a madrassa and a shrine proper, all in one area, adjacent to one another. An
example of this is the shrine of Shah Jalal Darga of Sylhet. 38 Lets now consider some of
the practices at this shrine and why people do these things.
Bangladeshis will visit Shah Jalals Durgah and get involved in folk practices such as
feeding the fish in a pond adjacent to the majar and putting money in a pot on the
compound as well as more orthodox practices like the giving of alms; this for the following
reasons as well as other reasons not mentioned here 39:
1) Obtaining barakah, very important within the flow of life in Bangladesh. Barakah is
linked to the shrine because the shrine is linked to the (dead) saint. P.A. Bushell writes the
concept of baraka whereby blessing is transmitted from one who has excess [of baraka] in
return for devotion and other possible offerings, while appearing to be universal in the
Islamic world, resonates particularly with the historical structure of Bengali society. In
Richard Eatons view, the Mughal administration sought to maintain its grip on the empire
by establishing a hierarchical loyalty system. On the local level, land grants were made to
enterprising individuals, usually Muslims, who mobilised the peasantry to deforest and
cultivate the land, thus establishing a patron-client relationship. 40 Though this factor was
35
Quote from Islam in Bangladesh.
36
Quote from Islam in Bangladesh.
37
See Emajuddin Ahamed, Islam in Bangladesh at the following Internet address:
www.power-xs.de/delta/islam.html
38
Phil Bushell focuses his study on this shrine and the beliefs and practices, both orthodox and non-
orthodox, associated with the shrine proper and the adjacent mosque.
39
See P.A. Bushell, Shah Jalal, chapter 6.
40
Bushell, Shah Jalal, chapter 6, page 13.

8
already mentioned above in relation to Bangladeshs history, I believe it is important here
to remember the connection between barakah and patron-client relationships in the minds
of many Bangladeshis. This connection could prove to be a significant factor in their
interpretation of Westerners Aid and Development work carried out amongst them during
the last decades of the twentieth century and should not be forgotten when seeking to
explain the Gospel to them;
2) Fulfilling vows previously taken at the durgah when seeking practical help of various
kinds from the deceased saint;
3) For the solution of financial problems;
4) For healing of physical sickness not treatable by doctors in Bangladesh;
5) For help in the search of husbands for ones daughters;
6) In order to search for piece of mind;
7) To solve problems linked to infertility.
MULLAHS IN BANGLADESH: Mullahs are important both in the cities and in the villages. They
are called upon for prayers and for various religious ceremonies. In the villages they are
often called upon to perform a variety of services far from the purview of orthodox
Islam.41 Village mullahs are often sources of amulets, talismans and charms. These
objects are used as remedies for practical problems as well as being used, as in many
other Islamic nations, to provide protection from evil spirits and bring good fortune.
SYNCRETISM BETWEEN BUDDHISM AND ISLAM AMONGST BANGLADESHI MUSLIMS:
Muhammad Enamul Haq tells us that when Buddhist Turks and other people were
converted to Islam in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, they introduced their old practices
and beliefs to Islam under new names. This is important as, often, from the thirteenth
century onwards, it was Turks, with Sufi tendencies, who brought Islam to Bengal. Haq
writes: Though they kept everything intact, yet therea became pir and dhupa, dhuna,
sandalpaste, lotus flowers, etc. were subsequently replaced by luban, itar and gulab.
Chaitya puja was current in Bengal as in other lands where Buddhism flourished. The
descendants of Chaitya worshippers when converted to Islam became saint
worshippers.42
HINDU INFLUENCES: Folk Islam in Bangladesh is also pervaded by Hindu influences. The
latter can be seen in the practice of illuminating the house for the celebration of Shabi
Barat (Festival of the Bestowal of Fate), a custom derived from the Hindu practises at
41
Quote from Islam in Bangladesh, the article found on the Internet at
http://countrystudies.us/bangladesh/39.htm
42
Muhammad Enamul Haq, A History of Suf-ism in Bengal, Dacca: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 1975,
pages 324-325.

9
Diwali (Festival of Lights). Rituals to exorcise evil spirits (jinni) from possessed persons
also incorporated Hindu influences. Often, villagers would fail to distinguish between Hindu
and Muslim shrines.43

What has been done to reach Bangladeshis with the Gospel:

Bengal was first evangelised back in William Careys time. William Carey concentrated
mainly on the Hindu speaking population who constituted and still constitute the majority
population of what was once called West Bengal and today is still an integral part of India.
Since his time, a similar trend continued in East Bengal. The church was planted and
firmly established amongst Bangladeshis but on the whole those reached werent Muslims,
rather they were people of Hindu and Tribal background. Until the early 1980s, apart from
some notable exceptions like Phil Parshall and others working amongst Muslims in a more
or less contextualised manner, it seems that many missionaries and national Christians
continued to concentrate on Bangladeshs minorities because: a) it seemed to difficult to
reach the majority population; b) apart from aid and development work it was difficult to
interact significantly with the Muslims without incurring problems with the Muslims
governing Bangladesh.44 (Until 1980 the only Bengali language Bible available, which was
also distributed in India as well as being available in Bangladesh, was a Bible translation
which used terminology which was derived from Hindu cosmology and was therefore more
suitable for Hindus than for Muslims.) Things began to change during the 1980s when
some missionaries finally realised that they must find a way to reach the Bangladeshi
Muslims and make the Gospel understandable for them; Within a few years, through Gods
sovereign intervention plus the implementation of various human strategies some major
breakthroughs began to take place.45 A veteran cross-cultural worker amongst Sylhettis in
Great Britain46 considers the following factors as important for the turning of more than
100 000 Bangladeshi Muslims to Christ in recent years:

43
See Ahamed, Islam in Bangladesh
44
A book which also refers to Bangladesh using a different name for this nation itself refers to this situation.
The author tells us that prior to the early 1980s this nation was home to dwindling minority of non-Muslims. A
limited number of Christian missionaries were allowed to do relief and development in the impoverished
country, but were required to restrict their evangelism to the non-Muslim minorities (from page 110 of David
Garrison, Church Planting Movements: How God is Redeeming a Lost World, Midlothian, VA: WIGTake
Resources, 2004). It must be said that is quite possible that though some Bangladeshis might have
misunderstood the motivations and implications of Christian Aid and Development work carried out there
from the early 1970s onwards it is (also) quite reasonable to suppose that Christian love in action served to
prepare many hearts for reception of Gods Word presented in a contextualised way when it finally became
available.
45
For an account of some of these developments from a Southern Baptist Perspective see David Garrison,
Church Planting Movements, pages 110 ff.
46
This person is known to me but for security reasons wishes to remain anonymous.

10
 1) Compassionate response by Christians to the 10 million refugees who fled to India
in the genocide of 1971 (and later returned to Bangladesh) 47
2) The fact that from 1972 onwards Muslim convert evangelists (MBBs) started to
witness to fellow Bangladeshis whilst remaining culturally Muslim;
3) In 1979 a Bengali translation of the Quran was finally produced. This helped many
Muslims to realise that, contrary to what they had heard week after week in their
Mosques, the Quran had a large number of passages in which the Biblical
scriptures (the Torah, The Zabur and the Injil) and Jesus were highly commended
and in which Muslims were urged to heed their message
4) The publication in 1980 of a Muslim-friendly translation of the New Testament,
which was quickly distributed, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of copies
throughout the country, to people many of whose hearts were already attracted to
Jesus through the new Bengali Quran they had just read. In the year 2000, the
whole Bible came out in a Muslim-friendly language.
A fifth element which our informant refers to is the large indigenous movement to Christ
amongst Muslims in Bangladesh, largely independent of the traditional churches. As
Garrison also tells us, these Christ-centred groups are organised in village house
churches called (Isa) Jaamats. This movement began through the witness of two
Bangladeshi MBBs, one of which had been evangelised by a Western missionary in
1983 and grew in his faith during some years spent in Dhaka. 48 The movements
development and initial growth was quite independent of Western influence. It then
expanded into the whole of the nation with the help of a IMB Strategy Coordinator who
provided logistical, practical and financial support to help one of the two above
mentioned MBBs became himself a strategist. 49 This movement to Christ amongst
Bangladeshis has a price. One of the Bangladeshi MBBs who spearheaded it was
murdered in January 2003 when the report of this remarkable growth of MBBs was
released in IMB circles.50 The number of MBBs in Bangladesh is currently well over 150
000 though only God knows exactly how many there are. Estimates from various
sources range between 100 000 and over 500 000 MBBs linked to this and similar
movements.

47
The series of significant events involving Christian workers in Bangladesh in 1971 and 1972 is recounted in
the following (small) book: James C. Hefley, Christ in Bangladesh, London; Coverdale House Publishers,
1973.
48
Garrison, Church Planting Movements, page 114.
49
Garrison, Church Planting Movements, page 116.
50
Garrison, Church Planting Movements, page 116.

11
Personally I have found Bangladeshis (here in Italy) to be open to speaking about
spiritual things but less receptive than some other Muslim peoples, e.g. North African
Arabised peoples, to deep level Gospel truth. I believe that both in Western Europe,
and in Bangladesh itself, Christians must continue, and if possible intensify their efforts,
to reach Bangladeshis with the Gospel but that it must be done in a culturally sensitive
way by giving practical demonstrations of Gods love, praying for felt needs in their
presence as well as distributing Muslim-friendly versions of our Holy Scriptures in their
language. If one or more of these elements are lacking the Gospel might either end up
misunderstood or not be accepted at all.

12