Priests, Diviners, Mallams: State Power In Asante and The Practice of Promoting Better Understanding Among Different Religious Faiths

Abstract

This research note is part of a larger investigation into Islam and religious tolerance in Ghana. At a time when ethnic/cultural pluralism has been identified as a major contributor to political instability and thus a threat to the modern state, we present our observation that pluralism
of the traditional culture, and in our particular case the Akan and therefore Asante cosmology that allows the harnessing of spiritual resources to sustain state and society, was and continues to be the most important contributor to peaceful co-existence.