Muslim Minorities in Africa
Abstract
Despite increased research about Islam in Africa, Muslim minorities remain relatively understudied. This neglect is particularly striking given the fact that Muslims constitute a significant minority religious group in at least a dozen countries on the continent. This panel, therefore, aims to explore the experience of Muslims in Christian majority contexts, as well as Muslim minority movements such as the Ahmadiyya among majority Sunni communities in Africa. Special attention will be paid to the diversity of ways in which Muslim minorities have engaged with the state and politics. How have perceptions of marginalization influenced struggles for recognition and participation in the public sphere? How has the use of media contributed to shaping alternative counter-publics? The panel will also reflect upon state discourses and the management of issues related to citizenship, national identity, ethnicity, secularism, and religious pluralism, which have contributed to the construction of the identity of Muslim minorities. How has the heightened scrutiny of Muslims in the context of the “global war on terror” affected the status of such minorities? The panel includes ethnographically grounded contributions examining the plurality of ways in which “ordinary” Muslims in minority contexts practice their religion and make their religious identity meaningful in their everyday lives. How does this diversity of religious expression result in divisions among Muslim minorities? In addition to interfaith coexistence, competition, and conflict, it will also interrogate the influence of interactions with Christians and so-called African “traditional” religions on the religiosity of Muslim minorities both through complex processes of borrowing and appropriation as well as in drawing boundaries with religious Others. By engaging these questions from rich empirical case studies and employing multidisciplinary perspectives, this panel aims to contribute to the burgeoning literature on Muslims minorities elsewhere in the world, which has, so far, largely focused on Western contexts.
Event: 62nd Meeting of the African Studies Association (ASA)
Location: Boston
Country: United States
Language: English
Year: 2019
Papers in this Panel
Islam and Politics in the DR Congo
The history of the Congolese Muslim minority, estimated at 5-10% of the population, was one of repression and marginalization. Islam arrived in eastern Congo in the pre-colonial period (c. 1860) as Swahili-Arab traders from east Africa penetrated the interior as far as present-day Maniema province in search of ivory and slaves. Congolese Muslims experienced intense repression during the colonial period, resulting in detachment from politics and the state that carried over after independence. In addition, deep internal divisions at the local, provincial, and national levels riddled the community for decades. Surprisingly, in the post-conflict period the Muslim minority became increasingly active, as evidenced by a proliferation of Islamic associations. In particular, there was a concerted effort to establish Muslim public schools throughout the country. In addition, members of the Muslim community have expressed interest in furthering their participation in fledgling democratic institutions. This paper analyzes the history of the Muslim community’s marginalization from the state and recent attempts to overcome internal divisions in order to increase its social and political footprint. It ultimately argues that the Muslim minority has been able to overcome historic state repression to engage in hybrid governance with the weak Congolese state.
Un/making religious difference through auditory practices? Muslims as a religious minority in southwestern Uganda
How does a focus on auditory aesthetic practices enhance our understanding of the dynamics of religious coexistence? How do audible constructions of religious difference relate to practices and conventions that circumscribe realms of religious coexistence beyond the “public ear”? In Uganda, Muslims form numerically and politically a religious minority. In the Ankole region in southwestern Uganda, relations between Muslims and Christians are shaped by a shared repertoire of symbolic forms and patterns of sociality, yet also by past violent altercation and, more recently, by religious competition fueled by the activities of transnational actors and funds. In an urban setting characterized by latent and antagonism between specific groups of Muslims and of Christians, efforts to claim public presence through auditory practices have particular political poignancy. The paper explores how select religious leaders, Muslims and Christians, respond to a situation they deplore as a cacophony of public sound, religious argument, and normative positions. In response to this “cacophony”, Christian and Muslim leaders seek to instill in their followers particular modes of sonic (and visual) attentiveness so as to navigate the challenges of a highly heterogeneous religious and normative field. In a critical reassessment of Adorno’s seminal 1938 article on changing modes of perception (“Hörgewohnheiten”), the paper examines how religious leaders conceive of the proper relationship between believers’ (ethical and sensory) “perceptiveness”, religious devotion and dedication to “God’s cause”.
The Challenges of Ahmadiyya Community’s Commitment for Development and Modern Humanitarianism
This paper offers a perspective on how a Muslim minority is engaged with the state and how its marginalization influenced struggles for recognition and participation in the public sphere through the example of the Ahmadiyya Movement and the evolution of their social welfare activities in West Africa, by placing a special emphasis on Burkina Faso. The paper describes the contemporary social welfare activities of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and their NGOs in Burkina Faso and the problems arising in contact with other Islamic Communities and their Faith-based organizations (FBOs) in this country. Finally, the politics of Humanitarianism of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is discussed, and it is argued that humanitarian aid is one of the issues favoring public recognition as well as interreligious dialogue to which the Ahmadis are equally strongly committed.
“Good Muslim, Bad Muslim” in Togo: The Construction of a Religious Minority Amid a Constitutional Crisis (2017-2018)
Historically, Togo’s Muslim minority has played a negligible role in politics. However, the constitutional crisis that erupted in 2017 when unprecedented anti-government protests spread across the country, demanding an end to the fifty-years of rule by the Gnassingbé family, attracted attention as an apparent Islamic “awakening”. Tipki Atchadam, the new opposition figurehead, built a strong popular base in the center and north of the country, especially among Muslims and his Tem ethnic group, in regions that were traditionally strongholds of the ruling regime. This paper will examine the “good/bad Muslim” rhetoric used by the Togolese state which has equated Muslims’ outspoken criticism of the regime with a dangerous rise of political Islam. Atchadam and his Parti National Panafricain (PNP) were regularly accused of links to violent Islamist radicals. Two well-known imams who were close to the PNP, were also imprisoned for issuing calls for jihad against the state. Furthermore, I argue that these events reflect latent intergenerational conflicts within the Muslim community. The tacit support given by Union Musulmane du Togo representatives—the “good Muslims”—to the regime on its management of the crisis has seriously undermined their credibility among youth and have contributed to the emergence of new voices.
Participants
John H. Hanson
Discussant
Indiana University-Bloomington