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Paper short abstract:

Against a background of decline and discrimination, the Muslim community of colonial Bujumbura changed internally. This paper shows that the changes, continuities and characteristics of this community can be understood as interplay between local circumstances and influences from elsewhere.

Paper long abstract:

For most of the colonial era, Bujumbura was a predominantly Muslim town. Although their numerical and political importance in town steadily declined, Muslims remained a part of the urban population to be reckoned with. In this paper I want to make sense of the evolution of this community's internal organization as interplay between local circumstances and challenges on the one hand, and long distance connections and influences on the other hand.

Having their ancestral roots west of the African Great Lakes and drawing their religious inspiration from the Indian Ocean world, the town's Muslims are carriers of a culture that is both East and Central African. At the same time, the community building as well as the changes in religious practices and social organization can only be understood within the very local circumstances of colonial Bujumbura.

I endeavour to disentangle these dynamics, bringing together Congolese, Swahili, Islamic, Burundian, intra-community and local/urban influences and interactions. The gradual adoption and adaptation of an Islamic identity, Qadiriyya Sufism and orthodox reform are explained against a background of very local challenges, a regional East Central African embeddedness.

In the end I argue for an explanatory scheme that includes layered and intertwined spatial scales that are simultaneously at work. Moreover, interlocking historical developments take place in different spheres of life and in different places, thereby constituting trans-local interconnectedness and local specificity at the same time.