Fruit of a field survey carried out in “ Mtwara corridor Between the Indian Ocean and the great African lakes, Felicitas Becker’s book describes the history of the Islamization of this poor and neglected region, from the time of anti -colonial struggles to the emergence of radical Islamism.
Felicitas Becker’s work is quite remarkable for his project and method. It accounts for the process of penetration of Islam into southeast of Tanzania, since the time of German colonial domination over Tanganyika during the period of independence of Tanzania. The keyword of the title is that of Mainland : THE “ continent “, Basically the triangle which goes from the Rofiji delta to Mtwara on the coast, and to thought inward.
This project required long stays on inconvenient land, these regions being distant, at various titles, from central power ; Felicitas Becker, professor of African history at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, has consulted many archives and carried out several hundred interviews, in places as diverse as Lindi, Mtwara, Mikindani, Ndanda, Dar Es Salaam and Mingoyo, between 1998 and 2005. She met religious personalities, notables and ordinary villagers. The notion of oral history ceases here to be a “ horizon Theoretical to become a method, expensive but fruitful: what do the inhabitants of Southeast Tanzania mean when they say they are Muslims ? And what is their religious practice ?
Islam and the opening of villages in the outside world
First of all, note that the percentage of Muslims is a third of the population in Tanzania, a little lower than that of Christians. The alternation of the monsoons allowed maritime round trips between the Persian Gulf and the African Coast. Archaeologists have found ruins of mosques dating from the first centuries of the Hegira. It is at XIXe A century than the installation of the Sultan of Oman in Zanzibar launched the city as the real commercial square of trade with Africa of the Great Lakes and beyond. But these tracks and fortified villages did not signal a rooting. How did Islam arrive in the villages ? How the teachers, the teachers, the walimu (President Julius Nyerere used this term for himself) have they established their lessons ? What difficulties have they encountered ? In the expression knowledge “ local “, The author rightly notes that the local is a political category rather than spatial. It consists in knowing how to recognize itself there between myriads ofNGOadministrations, various networks. Self -sufficiency does not decrease dependence: a strong awareness of this situation penetrates the villagers who, for the most part, only eat what they produce. Precariousness is an essential dimension of their existence, but it has been articulated differently at various moments. Life is a battle and it is sometimes necessary to keep in mind the capacity for innovation in the religious field, and obviously social. This capacity is sometimes expressed in an original and relevant way by people without habit of contact with foreigners: “ Hearing them has often been a precious experience “Writes Felicitas Becker (p. 22).
The penetration of Islam has produced a change in knowledge modes. But it was not enough to make the memories of slavery disappear and the differences in status that went with it. The premises has always been perceived in a global geometry: the commercial networks of the Indian Ocean, today Islamist networks, face new divisions.
Revolt Maji Majiwhich lives in 1905-1907 several African peoples to rise against the German colonial authorities, was it a protonationist movement led by a leader “ enlightened »» ? This is the thesis of the Tanzanian historian Gwassa. Yet Kinjetile, the historic leader of the movement, rather tried to resume and rethink his religious, spiritual and intellectual heritage in a moment of crisis, while traditional frameworks collapsed. We can show the continuity of ritual practices of the region with what is called the territorial cults of Central Africa (p. 52) and we know the importance of “ religious sites For kinjeketiles.
In this poor region of the interior of the country, Muslim education has opened villages to the outside world. The colonial government was far away and the nobility (uunngwana) lived on the coast ; thanks to medersasthe villagers were able to show the people of the coast that they were not barbarians. The central difference opposes dinireligion (Muslim), and jaditradition. It is understood by all. Knowing how to write and read is more than adding a new means of processing information: it is entering a new network of social relationships. The establishment of Islam transported ritual sites to the village’s social space. In this process, the villagers have tinkered with a way to be Muslims (p. 177).
The Koranic schools, by maintaining contact with the cities of the coast, therefore opened in the world while used in local society. Parents’ resistances in the face of Christian schools, which appeared with colonization, therefore also wanted to defend local cultures (p. 145). These themes are exposed and analyzed with force and the interviews give them a particular accuracy. The book is rich in original analyzes and remarks that only a long field work allows: the author notes that Muslim laws are not very clear about the attitudes to have in the face of local practices, because they come from elsewhere, but also because they are flexible. It also contradicts a certain number of received ideas, noting for example that there is no cause and simple effect relationship between resistance to colonization and adoption of Islam, but rather a perpetual negotiation with the “ identify “Swahili and the coast.
The rise of radical Islamism
In a final chapter, the author describes how radical Islamism is trying to adorn himself in this particular Islam – let’s not forget that Tanzania was, with Kenya, one of the first targets of Islamist terrorism. In the colonial era, Muslim brotherhoods were the support of nationalist parties and the abandonment of the region during part of the presidency of Julius Nyerere (1964-1985) aroused strong resentment within the population. The Muslim Youth Movement Ansar was founded in Tanga in 1979 to defend the rights of Muslims and ask for social and educational services ; It is linked to the activity of Mombasa and to the entire network of preachers in the center and eastern Tanzania. Muslim intellectuals gathered at the university, brotherhood officials were far from the South, the traditional economy, based on dhows (Traditional boats of the African Eastern Coast) and the mangrove wood collapsed. In addition, liberalization has weakened the economy of southern Tanzania, making agriculture without attractive for young people.
In the South, the followers of the Ansar movement attack the practices of the brotherhoods, in particular to the dhikr. The combination of an economic crisis, a literal approach to religious texts and a globalized movement gives new topicality to these criticisms of popular piety and puts old generations in bad posture. Felicitas Becker discussed with the representatives of this movement and the chapter it devotes to it is also the story of conversations on interpretation. She is sensitive to their capacity for innovation, to what she calls their hip hop swaggerto a certain sense of provocation and spectacle. We are here far beyond a university story, and this is also that that makes the value of this book.
It is therefore an exciting text to read, convincing by its method and its results, which mixes written archives and oral archives, field work and in -depth knowledge of literature on an abandoned region, theater of one of the main anti -colonial revolts. The Mtwara corridor, the transition from the Indian Ocean to the Great Lakes, is in what was a buffer area for a long time, between the anti-colonialist wars of southern Africa and Tanzania which should not be forgotten that it was the main support of the liberation movements and as such a target designated by South Africans. Today, Tanzania, a member of both the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community, is the regional link: political and religious innovation is again understood in territories for too long abandoned by politicians and researchers.