Introduction

This introduction proposes directions for a comparative anthropology of Muslim and Christian religion. While the anthropologies of Islam and Christianity flourish, comparative inquiries across religious boundaries have remained remarkably underdeveloped. As a result, parallels, overlaps, and situated differences between religious groups in today’s pluralist environments are often disregarded. This piece sets out the aim of this special section to develop ethnographic comparison, not of religious traditions as such, but of the ways in which everyday religious lives take shape within a shared social space, whether local or national. Such comparative work has the potential to provide insights and reveal connections that would likely be overlooked in non-comparative accounts, and that invite a critical rethinking of conventional understandings of difference and particularity.