Paper short abstract:

This paper traces the broader connections of German East African Islam in the examples of a popular religious revival and of legal scholarship. It contrasts these wider flows with the false alternative between “local Islam” and “outside influence” proposed by the nascent German Islamic Studies.

Paper long abstract:

German colonialism in East Africa was marked by volatile discourses on Islam with a tendency toward insular interpretations of Muslim agency and politics. This led to remarkable misinterpretations of Islamic scholarship and popular movements alike, with the nascent German Islamic Studies contributing to the confusion. Here, a shift from the normative lens of Orientalism to an emphasis on local diversity led to a hyper-focus on difference and a wilful dismissal of broader connections and flows. The paper will discuss these misreadings and the broader connections of German East African Islam via two examples: 1) the popular religious revival sparked by the so-called “Mecca letters” of 1908, and 2) the fiqh erudition of ʿUmār bin Ṣṭambūl in Tanga. In both cases German scholars – first among them Carl Heinrich Becker, who is often seen as the founder of Islamic Studies in Germany – only managed to construct East African Islam as local divergence from “orthodox” Islam, ignoring evidence of broader flows at their disposal. Where wider connections were acknowledged, these were interpreted through a narrow political lens that sought to map and contain the “outside disturbance” of “local” Islam. Based on a forthcoming book on Islam in German East Africa, the paper will endeavour to deconstruct this false alternative between the global and the local in a careful analysis of its sources, showing how the colonial archive can still yield hitherto undiscovered traces of connectivity buried under a long history of European interpretation.

Paper short abstract:

After the World War II, the Catholic image of Islam was shaped by the "portraits" sent from the Apostolic Delegation of Sub-Saharan Africa headed by Msgr. Marcel Lefebvre. On the basis of this documentation, this paper aims to retrace the origin of some Islamophobe stereotypes.

Paper long abstract:

After the World War II, when the time seemed ripe for relative democratisation of the colonies, students from Africa studied at the universities of the Near East (in particular Al-Azhar in Cairo) and acquired a level of the Arabic language that permitted them to refer to the Islam, that became the source of the legitimacy of political action that no longer depended on recognition by the colonial administration but on sources of faith found in countries, like Egypt, which had freed itself of colonialism. This scenario sparked a deep Catholic unease in the colonial territories under the Apostolic Delegation of Dakar headed by Msgr. Marcel Lefebvre. From this moment on, the image of Islam in the Catholic world was shaped mainly by the reports sent to the Holy See from the Apostolic Delegationin Africa. It is no coincidence that the Catholic missions tried harder to proselytise areas where the pressure of the Islam movements was strongest, for example Madagascar and Cameroon. This topic, nonetheless has been overlooked by historiography because of the impossibility of accessing Vatican archives relating to the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958). The opening of the archives of Pius XII has made a vast unpublished documentation that permits us to bring to the surface the Catholic narrative about Islam. This paper aims at analyzing this correspondence that, throughout the 1950s, still confirmed the permanence of a highly concerned judgement on Islam already expressed in 1939 by a secret Vatican enquiry, to date unknown to historiography.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how global Islamic politics, particularly one between Iran and Saudi Arabia, shapes the ambiguous religious pluralism approach embraced by the Shaykh Ibrahim el-Zakzaky-led Shia group and how that complicates and reshapes the local religious landscape in Nigeria.

Paper long abstract:

When Iran’s revolutionary army ousted Shah’s government in 1979, some members of the Yan’uwa Musulmi (Muslim Brotherhood), a Sunni religious movement in Nigerian universities dressed like Ayatollah Khomeini to show their support. It heralded a new motivation for their struggles to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria. A decade later, a splinter group of Yan’uwa Musulmi led by el-Zakzaky converted to Shi’ism. With the help of the Iranian government, he led the propagation of Shi’i faith across Nigeria. The emergence of this Shia group amidst the growing influence of Saudi-backed Salafi groups marked a significant shift in the local, regional, transregional, and global entanglements in the activities of Muslim reform movements in Nigeria. In this paper, I examine how global Islamic politics shapes the ambiguous religious pluralism approach embraced by the el-Zakzaky-led Shia group and how that complicates and reshapes Nigeria’s religious landscape. Based on his view that there is a global Islamic movement led by Iran, el-Zakzaky considered his Shia group as its Nigerian branch and named it Harkat al-Islamiyah fi Nigeria (Islamic Movement in Nigeria). While the IMN opposes contemporary Sunni Islam leadership, it exploits the legacies of Usman dan Fodio, the iconic nineteenth-century Sunni reformer as its basis for promoting Shia ideologies. I also analyze how IMN’s approach of integrating groups within the movement (e.g., culturally marginal groups such as ‘yan gayu (a highly cosmopolitan youth category) and non-Muslims) that are in many ways opposed to mainstream Islam feeds into global Islamic politics and complicates local one

Paper short abstract:

My presentation provides reflections on the relations between the Swahili coast and the wider Muslim world, looking at the case of a Swahili poem and its author, Ustadh Mahmoud Mau, who was inspired by the Arabic pamphlet of a globally influential Islamic scholar, Sh. Ali al-Tantawi (d.1999).

Paper long abstract:

My presentation seeks to provide some conceptual reflections on the relations between the Swahili coast and the wider Muslim world, illustrating aspects of intellectual stimulation as well creative self-reliance. I focus on the case of a Swahili poem and its author, Ustadh Mahmoud Mau (whom I first encountered in 1999), in relation to the Arabic pamphlet of a globally influential Islamic scholar, Sh. Ali al-Tantawi (d.1999), known for his anti-colonial and Salafi leanings. The poem ‚Wasiya wa mabanati' (Advice to the girls), composed in 1974, was inspired by al-Tantawi's booklet 'Ya binti!' (Oh daughter!, from the 1950s). The 'Wasiya…' poem was popular on the Kenyan coast in the 1990s because of the beauty of its new recording, and because its narrative drove home points of critique of the deterioration of proper norms and etiquettes in society, linked to growing foreign influences and local carelessness. Tantawi's pamphlet warned young Muslim women not to succumb to the dangers of westernization, to be steadfast against all temptations and uphold respectability. Mau's Swahili poem picks up and embeds this theme in a tragic narrative about a young woman whose life becomes destroyed, and concludes with general existential reflections on life. Based on readings, recent fieldwork, and conversations with Ustadh Mau, I discuss aspects and dimensions of translocal and transregional relations (particularly intra-Muslim ones) that are relevant here, relating contemporary life in Lamu to its bigger historical rival, Mombasa, as well as larger centres in the wider world.

Paper short abstract:

Based on local written and oral accounts of the history of the Kumasi Zongo, this paper discusses the intersection of different scales of history to analyse the making of Muslim identities in contemporary Ghana and their expression in competing writings of ‘authentic’ Zongo history.

Paper long abstract:

Based on written and oral accounts of the history of the Kumasi Zongo(s), this paper discusses the intersections of local, transregional and transnational histories as a way to analyse the making and contestations of Muslim identities in present-day Ghana. The paper takes the history of a particular (and smaller) Mosque in Kumasi as a starting point to trace these intersections and contestations (and draws on Enid Schildkrout’s (1974) earlier work on conflicts around the Central Mosque in Kumasi in the 1960s/1970s). Investigating the history of the Mosque reveals links to the colonial history of Kumasi in terms of infrastructure (e.g. a colonial park established on the site of a Muslim cemetery), as well as in terms of Muslim identities and social organisation (e.g. elevating the Hausa chief to Sarkin Zongo and the contestation of this by other Muslim communities). These historical links and encounters have contemporary repercussions, which are expressed in various and competing writings of ‘authentic’ Zongo history. These accounts draw on a variety of transregional and transnational connections and influences, such as the tracing of early Muslim communities in Kumasi to for instance Hausa and Wangara origins and to different events of the British empire. These accounts draw on oral history, maps, terminology, colonial documents (such as receipts) and earlier anthropological, historical, and missionary writings (such as Dupuis, Freeman, Wilks, and others). The paper presents preliminary research that is carried out in collaboration with Dr. Eugenia Anderson and with assistance by Zaidan Rachid.

Paper short abstract:

Focusing on ongoing processes of modifications of exclusivist positions within Salafism, the paper offers finetuned analyses of ongoing discourses within Ethiopian Salafism, pointing to the need to pay attention to such dynamics and their role in producing what we call global Salafism.

Paper long abstract:

Various Salafi movements in Africa are undergoing processes which entail modifications of previous exclusivist positions. While these dynamics may be informed by global discourses, this paper argues that local developments often are more important. With Ethiopian Salafism as the case in point, the paper offers finetuned analyses of situated dynamics, pointing to the need to pay attention to such dynamics and their role in producing what we call global Salafism. Salafism appeared in Ethiopia as an exclusivist movement that focused on correct ritual practice and personal piety, that refrained from getting involved in the affairs of the larger Muslim community, and that shunned societal and political engagement. Departing from such positions, Salafis has over the last years become much involved in the Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council (EIASC); the main representative organization of Ethiopian Muslims. Analyzing this change, the paper points to how Salafis’ participation in the EIASC – and, their engagement with the broader Muslim community – has made them revisit earlier isolationist positions. At the same time, the Salafis’ entrance to the EIASC has met much resistance and accentuated existing intra-religious tensions. It has introduced Salafism and Sufism as new terms in the local vocabulary, where representatives of the latter are accusing the former of seeking to impose what they see as extremism in Ethiopia. Situating these developments locally, the paper demonstrates how socio-economic changes have impacted internal Salafi discourses – which in turn have enabled the Salafis to negotiate their stigma vis-à-vis the state.

Paper short abstract:

To integrate informal French Arabic Schools (FAS) into formal education, in 2017, Burkina Faso proposed to their Muslim students a formal bilingual curriculum initiated in 1991. This curriculum, however, is diversely applied by school owners to keep their connections to the Arab Muslim world.

Paper long abstract:

To be “modern” and “good” Muslims with future formal employment prospects, FAS students in Burkina overlap Islamic and secular curricula in different schools. However, not all students can overlap curricula and therefore most graduates need to resort to religious employments and trial-and-error entrepreneurialism. Based on findings of field research from a recently concluded PhD, this paper discusses engagements by the State and the school owners with Islam by analysing FAS’s complexities, tensions, dilemmas, and potential. About 10% of Burkinabe youth attend FAS, mostly sponsored by the Arab countries where they continue their secondary school education and graduate. However, failing socio-professional insertion there, these graduates return to Burkina where their certificates are unrecognised for various reasons. As a result of students and graduates’ demonstrations for recognition, the State proposed a bilingual curriculum in which Islamic studies are taught in Arabic and the rest in French. However, whereas the bilingual curriculum is apparently welcomed by learners, its implementation by schools’ owners remains largely ineffective, varying from school to school. Moreover, most school owners neglect or reject the French language and secular subjects, claiming that their priority is to provide an Islamic education in the Arabic language, and it is the State’s duty to provide secular education. To explain these entanglements, this paper argues that contrary to the common narrative in current literature, FASs are not being reactionary to Western advances in technology, but their dilemma is how to compete with it in controlling the minds of learners.

Paper short abstract:

This ethnographic and multi-sited paper explores the transnational ties to Kuwait of a Tanzanian Shi'i Muslim NGO. Global networks and resources are adapted to address local and national disadvantages of a minority community in religiously-mixed East Africa.

Paper long abstract:

Media and policy analysis often depicts African Muslims as pawns in the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, ignoring the wider history of trans-regional connections between Africa and the Middle East. Yet Iran is not the only Shi‘i player in Africa. This paper examines a prominent Shi‘i Islamic organization in Tanzania with connections to Kuwait. Transnational ties create opportunities for the empowerment of Tanzanian Muslims who adapt global networks and resources to address their local and national disadvantages. Based on ethnographic research in Kuwait and Tanzania, I explore one trajectory for the expansion of Shi‘i Islam in religiously-mixed East Africa.

The origins, discourses and objectives of Ahl al-Bayt Centre (ABC), which follows the teachings of Ayatollah Shirazi, highlight the interconnection of diverse local, national, and transnational actors in social welfare provision. ABC was originally founded as a small Quranic school in Northern Tanzania in 1986 by clerics from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. The school expanded into an Islamic seminary and vocational training center through assistance from Al-Thaqalain Social Philanthropy Association. The only officially registered Shi‘i Islamic NGO in Kuwait, Al-Thaqalain’s founder is a Member of Parliament who used his political clout to obtain this status. With generous charitable contributions from Kuwaiti Shi‘a, ABC developed into an indigenous Tanzanian organization that prioritizes spiritual as well as material advancement. Its goal is to better position Tanzania’s Shi‘a as capable, self-sufficient, and professionalized nationals able to proudly contribute to their country despite the history of marginalization of Muslims in East Africa.

Paper short abstract:

Using Niger as a case study, this paper discusses Turkey's presence on African religious landscape. It analyses Turkish Islam as a new model in Africa supported by religious diplomacy and humanitarianism led by government agencies in a context of competition between foreign Muslim actors.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past two decades, Turkey has become involved in the African religious field, seeking to compete with Wahhabi and Salafi missionaries by promoting a Turkish model of Islam rooted in Sufism and Hanafi schools of thought (doctrine). Based on ethnographic research conducted in Niger, this paper addresses three dimensions of Turkey's new presence in the African religious landscape driven by government agencies: Turkish Islam as a new model in Africa, religious diplomacy in Africa around the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), and the role of the Diyanet Foundation's educational and humanitarian actions in a context of competition between Muslim foreign actors in Africa. The paper argues that Turkey's religious offensive in Africa under the discourse of the Global Ummah aims to introduce the Turkish religious model, which is a means of increasing its influence over Muslim communities.

Keywords: Turkish Islam, Africa, Niger, Religion, Diyanet