Governance and Islam in East Africa: Muslims and the State

by Farouk Topan (Editor), Kai Kresse (Editor), Erin E. Stiles (Editor), Hassan Mwakimako (Editor)

Overview

Recent studies of Muslims in Kenya and Tanzania have tended either to examine governance of Muslims in relation to security issues, or to discuss the reforms attempted within communities and their implications for Muslim theology, rituals and general welfare. Both these approaches are covered in this book, and a third is added – the study of Muslims as citizens or residents of their respective countries, looking at their activities and attitudes in relation to the various challenges they face together with their fellow compatriots and citizens.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474482974
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	05/31/2024
Series:	Exploring Muslim Contexts
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Farouk Topan is Professor Emeritus at the Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, London. He has taught at the universities of Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, Riyad and the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London. He is also a writer of Swahili fiction and has published several short stories and two of his plays have been part of the school curriculum in Tanzania.

Kai Kresse is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Freie Universityät Berlin, and Vice Director for Research at Leibniz Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin. He has conducted anthropological fieldwork on the Swahili coast, working on local thinkers (poets, scholars, activists), the transmission and negotiation of knowledge, and the production and interpretation of texts, with a focus largely on internal debates among coastal Muslims in post-colonial Kenya. He is the author of Philosophising in Mombasa(2007; shortlisted for the Herskovits Award of the African Studies Association) and Past Present Continuous: Swahili Muslim Publics and Post-colonial Experience (2018).

Erin E. Stiles is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, where she also chairs the programme in Religious Studies. Her research focuses on the intersections of religion, law and gender, and she conducts fieldwork in Zanzibar, where she has done extensive ethnographic research on Islamic family law and dispute resolution.

Hassan Mwakimako is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Pwani University, Kenya. His research focuses on the interface between colonial and postcolonial state policy and practice towards Islam, religion and politics and contemporary Islam. He has been Visiting Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA), a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Zentrum Moderner Orient, (ZMO) Berlin, Germany and African Studies Visiting Fellow at the Centre of African Studies, University of Cambridge.

Table of Contents

AcknowledgementsMap of eastern Africa

IntroductionFarouk Topan, with Kai Kresse, Erin E. Stiles and Hassan Mwakimako

PART I: POLITICS

1. An Islamic Interpretive Strategy for Exploring Grassroots Governance in Northern KenyaMark LeVine

2. The Kenyan State and Coastal Muslims: The Politics of Alienation and EngagementJeremy Prestholdt

3. Counter-Narrativity as Peace, Love and Unity: Citizenship and Belonging in a Kenyan Muslim Counter-Radicalisation Programme Halkano Abdi Wario

4. Beyond Vicious Circles in the Kenyan Post-colony? On the Value of Discursive Space in Muslim PoliticsKai Kresse

5. Islam, Politics and the Limits of Authority in Mainland Tanzania, 1955–1968James R. Brennan

6. Politics, Lived Islam and Muslim Public Discourse in Zanzibar: Reflections on Cultural Identity, Belonging and Governance, 1984–2016Kjersti Larsen

7. The Inter-religious Dynamics of Muslim Politics: The Zanzibar CaseHans Olsson

PART II: INSTITUTIONS

8. The Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM): Jostling for Representativeness among Muslims in Kenya Hassan Mwakimako

9. Muslim Networks, Public Services and Development Intervention in Post-Socialist Tanzania: Between Liberalisation and AlienationFelicitas Becker

10. Shehes and the State: The Role of Muslim Religious Leaders in Public Health Governance in Rural TanzaniaMohamed Yunus Rafiq

11. Facing Change at the Margins of the Kenyan Nation: The Promise of the Lamu PortCharlotte Knote

PART III: LAW

12. Beyond an Impasse: Rule of Law and the Kenyan Kadhis’ CourtsSusan F. Hirsch

13. The Law of Evidence Applicable in the Kadhis’ Courts of Kenya: A Study of Two Decisions by Kadhi Abduljabar, Kadhis’ Court Nairobi at Upper HillTito Kunyuk

14. Courts within Courts: Kadhis and their Courts in the Kenyan Judicial SystemAbdulkadir Hashim

15. The Case of the Stubborn Heir: State and Non-State Actors in Zanzibar’s Kadhis’ Courts Erin E. Stiles

About the ContributorsIndex

Editorial Reviews

This volume focuses on politics, institutions and law in Islamic East Africa. By adopting a broad and multidisciplinary approach at both the macro and micro level, we are given new and sometimes surprising insights into changing relations between the state and Islam. A very welcome addition to the literature.

Pat Caplan

This volume unites contributions by both Western academics as well as Kenyan/Tanzanian academics and bridges the North-South-divide in academic research. It is far ahead of current scholarship and will add considerably to the established wisdom.

Roman Loimeier