Featured Author for Feb. 2019: Lamin Sanneh (1942-2019)

Lamin Sanneh was D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity at Yale Divinity School as well as Professor of History at Yale University. Born in The Gambia and descended from an ancient African royal family, he grew up Muslim and converted to Christianity. He studied at the University of Birmingham, England; the Near East School of Theology in Beirut: and earned his doctorate in Islamic History at the University of London. Dr. Sanneh taught in several Universities, including the University of Ghana, Legon; the University of Aberdeen, Scotland; and Harvard University before coming to Yale in 1989 where he served several times as chair of the Council on African Studies.

A convert from Islam to Christianity and a practicing Catholic, he was appointed by Pope John Paul II to serve on the Pontifical Commission of the Historical Sciences at the Vatican and by Pope Benedict XVI to the Pontifical Commission on Religious Relations with Muslims. Dr. Sanneh authored more than two hundred articles in scholarly journals and more than a dozen books on Islam and Christianity, including the ground-breaking work Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture which challenges the conventional view of the history of mission. Among his many awards and honors he was named Commandeur de l’Ordre National du Lion, Senegal’s highest national honor; the John W. Kluge Chair in the Countries and Cultures of the South at the Library of Congress (2004-5); and the Marianist Award for his teaching and scholarship from the University of Dayton.

(Photo: Yale Divinity School)