Levtzion Nehemia - The history of Islam in Africa

The History of Islam in Africa

The History of Islam in Africa

edited by Nehemia Levtzion & Randall L. Pouwels

Ohio University Press

Athens

James Currey

Oxford

David Philip

Cape Town

First published 2000 in the United States of America by
Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701

Published 2000 in the United Kingdom by
James Currey Ltd, 73 Bodey Road, Oxford OX2 OBS

Published 2000 in Southern Africa by
David Philip Publishers (Pty) Ltd,
208 Werdmuller Centre, Newry Street, Claremont 7708, South Africa

2000 by Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels

Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved

Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper

20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 9 8 7 6

Jacket/cover photographs:

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The History of Islam in Africa / edited by Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8214-1296-5 (cloth: alk. paper). - ISBN 0-8214-1297-3 (paper:alk. paper)

1. Islam-Africa-History. I. Levtzion, Nehemia. II. Pouwels, Randall Lee, 1944

BP64.A.1H62 1999

297'.096dc21

99-27729

CIP

A CIP record of this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0-85255-782-5 (James Currey cloth)

ISBN 0-85255-781-7 (James Currey paper)

ISBN 0-86486-454-X (David Philip paper)

Contents

Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels

Peter von Sivers

M. N. Pearson

Nehemia Levtzion

Ivor Wilks

Jay Spaulding

David Robinson

John O. Voll

Jean-Louis Triaud

Lansin Kaba

William F. S. Miles

Lidwien Kapteijns

Randall L. Pouwels

David C. Sperling, with additional material by Jose H. Kagabo

Edward A. Alpers

Robert C.-H. Shell

Abdin Chande

Allan Christelow

Roberta Ann Dunbar

Stefan Reichmuth

Knut S. Vikr

David Owusu-Ansah

Ren A. Bravmann

Kenneth W. Harrow

Eric Charry

Maps

Preface

This volume is intended to pioneer an approach to the history of Islam in Africa on a continent-wide scale. The editors are gratified that the balance has been redressed between East and West Africa. Although the study of Islam in West Africa is by far more advanced than the study of Islam in East Africa, the two regional sections of this volume, on Eastern and Southern Africa, have been given roughly equal weight. The editors do not know any other work on Islam in Africa in which Islam in East Africa achieves such prominence in a continental context.

We have been particularly concerned with the dynamics of religious interaction between the essentials of Islamthose elements that fostered unity and continuity within a discernible community of discourseand the particular historical, cultural, and environmental factors that produced diversity and local forms of Islam. Our aim was to provide comprehensive studies of the experience of Muslim communities all over Africa.

In Africa, diversity has produced rich traditions of widely varied religious meanings, beliefs, and practices. Islam energized, enlivened, and animated life in African communities, and at the same time Islam has been molded by its African settings. As a result of the interaction between Muslim and African civilizations, the advance of Islam has profoundly influenced religious beliefs and practices of African societies, while local traditions have Africanized Islam. The ways Islam has thrived in the rich panoply of continent-wide historical circumstances have fostered discord at least as often as these ways of Islam have helped realize unity and agreement.

The main challenge for all of us who participated in this project has been to limn specific ways in which Islam and Muslims have played creative roles in the story of Africas development. Muslims were important in the process of state-building, in the creation of commercial networks that brought together large parts of the continent. Muslims introduced literacy that, in addition to its religious significance, also made Muslims scribes to African rulers in charge of state records, as well as exchanges of inter-state diplomacy, inside Africa and beyond.

The twenty-four chapters of this volume have been written with the personal authority of the best scholarship in the history of Islam in Africa. Some of our authors began writing on Islam in the 1960s, when African history in general, and the history of Islam in Africa in particular, were first recognized as academic disciplines in their own right. Other authors joined the ranks in the seventies and eighties, and the youngest authors bring the fresh fruits of scholarship derived from their recent dissertations.

The volume greatly benefited from a conference sponsored by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. We met after the first drafts of most of the chapters had been circulated among all participants. The dynamics of the conference enabled interaction at two complementary levels: among authors who wrote on adjacent regions or on consecutive periods, as well as among authors who wrote regional chapters and those who wrote the general thematic chapters.

Following an introduction by the editors, who chart the principal themes of the volume, there are two very special chapters brought together as , General Themes, have been encouraged to draw on the regional and chronological chapters in order to enrich and to enliven their comparative studies.

The editors wish to express their deep gratitude to the contributors to this volume, who in addition to their excellence in scholarship have also proved their comradeship and devotion to the idea of producing this comprehensive volume.

We extend our thanks to the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute for generously hosting the conference in June 1997.

Finally, our thanks go to Gillian Berchowitz, senior editor at the Ohio University Press; to the copyeditor, Dennis Marshall; the typesetter, Karol Halbirt; the cartographer, Chris Akers; and all those at the Press who contributed to the production of this unique volume.

The History of Islam in Africa

INTRODUCTION

Patterns of Islamization and Varieties of Religious Experience among Muslims of Africa

Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels

I slam reached Africa through two gateways, from the east and the north. From both directions the carriers of Islam navigated across vast empty spaces, the waters of the Indian Ocean, and the desert sands of the Sahara. Both ocean and desert, which so often are considered barriers, could be crossed with appropriate means of transportation and navigational skills, and they were, in fact, excellent transmitters of religious and cultural influences. Densely populated lands, on the other hand, functioned as filters, their numerous layers slowing down the infiltration of religious and cultural influences.