The Power of Language and the Politics of Religion

English, the lingua franca of the Commonwealth, is also the World's most influential language in human history. The influence of English as the language of academe may be reflected in the fact that more books about all the religions of the world have probably been published in English than in any other language on earth. This is perhaps because the former British Empire has always had to deal with a multiplicity of religions within its dominions. Today, the Commonwealth of Nations comprises more than a third of the Muslim population of the world-lodged in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, and elsewhere. The Commonwealth also includes about a third of the Christian countries of the world--in Africa, the Caribbean, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and the Anglophone world of the Pacific. Tins article addresses such paradoxes as to why Muslims are well represented in the Commonwealth while Arabs are not, and why Christianity is under siege globally while the English language is the dominant international language. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]