Episode 348 - By the Sun and Its Brightness

History of Japan

Isaac Meyer

Japan, History, Japanese

4.8 • 744 Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2020

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, we cover the short yet fascinating history of Islam in Japan. What factors led to a connection between the Islamic world and Japan? Who led the efforts to build bridges between the two? And why is the history of this relationship so generally unknown?

Show notes here.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week's episode is brought to you by Audible.
0:04.6	Audible has over 425,000 titles to choose from, all compatible with iPhone, Android,
0:11.8	Kindle, or your MP3 player of choice. For listeners of the show, Audible is offering a free 30-day
0:18.5	trial membership complete with credit for a free audiobook of your choice.
0:23.1	You can cancel any time and keep the free book, or keep going with one of Audible's subscription offers.
0:29.5	Go to audibletrial.com slash Japan to claim your offer.
0:33.6	This week, I'm going to recommend the first samurai, the life and legend of the warrior
0:38.5	rebel Tyrono Masakato, by Carl Friday.
0:42.7	The story of Masakato is a fascinating one from very early in the history of the samurai
0:48.1	class, and Carl Friday is probably one of the best writers out there in English working on pre-modern Japan.
0:56.5	Go to audible trial.com slash Japan to claim your copy. Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 348, by the sun and its brightness.
1:24.7	This episode is the first of several focused on the role in modern Japan of the two
1:30.1	largest religions in the world by follower count, Christianity and Islam. And that's a unique
1:37.1	topic to tackle, because as you are most likely aware, Japan is fairly unique in the world of having
1:43.3	almost no adherence of either of those religions.
1:47.2	Broadly speaking, there are about 2.4 billion Christians on Earth, followed by 1.8 billion Muslims.
1:54.6	By comparison today, Japan has just under 2 million Christians, about 1.5% of the population, and I haven't even been
2:03.3	able to find numbers on Japan's Muslim community beyond a few tens of thousands.
2:09.2	The best I could do was find a source saying the whole country has between 30 and 40 mosques
2:14.4	in total.
2:16.5	Yet despite their fairly minimal presence within Japan, both of these religions have fascinating
2:21.4	histories entangled with the story of modern Japan.
	...

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