ABSTRACT
Despite the sizable number of religiously induced or motivated migration, scholarly discussions concerning what happens to migrants who end up in a hosting/transit country with a ‘religious otherness’ chiefly remains a hushed topic. This study discusses how the Church of Pentecost/CoP co-exists within Sudan’s Muslim-majority hosting communities. It teases out the historical and contemporary factors explicating Sudanese migrant-hosting communities ‘religious antipathy’ against ‘religious others’. The now dislodged NCP Islamist policymakers’ cautious yet constrained approval for Habaš pānţé to operate in the country has in most likelihood been informed by the premise that Habaš CoP induce a weaker threat to the religious balance of their Muslim-majority constituents than such a policy stand being guided by a principled stand governing (displaced) religious minorities’ rights. Furthermore, the policy stand seems to have partly been informed by the possible knee jerk reactions from and sensitivities of the Christian-majority regional countries and donor governments of the Global North to political Islam in Sudan. Finally, the study posits that Habaš pānţés have persistently been susceptible to restrained religious freedom in Sudan where they are routinely predisposed to considerable vulnerabilities and ill-treatments within the country’s ‘religious market place’.
