This essay is a continuation of my previous blog on how Africa adopted Islam in three stages: containment, mixing, and reform by the sword. The first two are Jihad al-qawl or Preaching of the tongue and the last one is Jihad Jihad bi al-sayf.
Our aim is to see what the similarities and differences are between the Islamization of Africa and that of the Sub continent. I already talked about the “containment” stage with the “enclavement”, a safe space for the minority Muslim traders and clerics, saints, Sufis to live among strangers. This was provided by the indigenous Africa Monarchs. I also talked about how “land” was seen by the traditional African indigenous population and how an entire village was based on some kind of common lineage or kins. Among them, the Muslim strangers (traders, clerics, saints) were “strangers or zonga Next, I am going to talk about the second stage or mixing. In my previous blog I said that the indigenous people flocked to the Muslims spiritual clerics and healers who gave them amulets and charms. Also, as I said before, many of them were employed in the Royal Court as they knew how to write and were keepers of Royal documents. They also brought in stitched clothes and hats, and their way of dressing were adopted by the indigenous people. In this post, I have going to talk of the mixing elements and some of the problems faced by the stranger non kin Muslims. As we saw before, some of these are the same as in the Sub continent, although, not the writing part. For example, in Kashmir, Sanskrit was the Court language and it was used till after the establishment of Islamic rule the Court language became Persian.
In the mixing period, Islam further went inside Africa by forming the Jamaats (semi detached religious communities) that developed by offering prospects of stable livelihood to dispossessed peoples of servile origins and serving as sanctuaries for offenders fleeing form their own clans and families” (Azumah, p, 27). In addition, Quranic schools were set up where one could get Islamic education. Further, Azumah pointed out that sometimes unborn children were given Muslim names to save them from infant mortality. This custom was there among the indigenous people, now it acquired a new dimension.
Here the problem was Muslims, according to the Sharia law cannot live as Dhimmis or protected minorities. In order to understand this problem, we have to understand the following terms:
- Dar Ul Islam: Land of Islam (or governed territory)
• Dar Ul Harb: Land of other or ungoverned
• Dar al-Sulkh: The House of Truce
• Dar al-Ahd: The House of Pact or Covenant
According to the Sharia law, Muslims cannot live in Dar Ul Harb (or ungoverned land), they have to either go to Dar Ul Islam or covert the Dar Ul Harb into Dar Ul Islam. Temporarily they can live in an in between region or Dar Ul Ahd. The indigenous population did not convert easily. According to Azumah, Nana Osei Kwame, King of Ashanti (1777-1804) was dethroned because of what the elders saw as his unguarded enthusiasm towards the Muslim tradition, which was viewed as a potential threat to the traditional system. Further, starting from the 16th century, the Moosi tribe had a Yarse (Muslim trading group settled in an enclavement) and had imams throughout the land who influenced the Royalty but they did not necessarily convert to Islam (Azumah, p, 48).
Thus, as Azumah pointed out, the Muslim minorities were caught between keeping their Muslim identity and status and assimilating. In places like Ghana and Togo they underwent a cultural assimilation, losing their distinctive Islamic identity and turning into prayer grounds into shrines where sacrifices were made to invoke the aid of the “Muslim god”. The mixing stage was not easy, as the Arab and Persian Muslims saw themselves as racially superior Arabs thought of themselves as ustaarabu while the indigenous people as washenzi or savages. Then there was metaphysical superiority. There was a sense that the indigenous people did not have the idea of a Supreme Being, as their cosmology was different. For Africans the macro or the Universe is reflected in the micro or the human being. Those who converted were treated as second class citizens. There was thus a contradiction between the Universal claim or the Umma of Islam and the tribal local indigenous Muslims. When they could not convert the locals, the imams or traders would say that they would be converted after death. Even when they “converted” it was more taking up some rituals arts and services and not as an institutionalized system. This is known as “inclusive religiosity” or a mixture of the indigenous and Islamic cultures. According to Sanneh, “Conversion or resistance to belief is not, at least initially, a matter of verbal debate but of social custom and convention expressed in such things as dietary and sartorial habits, ritual taboos, and ethnic and residential identity. Even in the doctrine of tawhid, of prescribed belief in the divine unity, is transmitted within the indigenous mythological code of belief in the supernatural and the ethical system based on it, rather than by philosophical disputation, as in Avicenna’s or al-Ghazali’s treatise.” (Azumah, p, 55). Here we see a similarity with those converted from either Hinduism or Buddhism in the Sub continent as follows:
“Ashrafi and Aljab Muslims: The first point is, Hindu Muslim divide and the clash emanating from this divide is not a simple communal affair. The term communal is misnomer here. British historian have used this terms since 18th century. This is their term and it was erroneously by their fellow travelers. Even the word Sampradayik following communalism was not discernable in Indian terms, by both Hindus and Muslims, before 19th century, thought incessant struggle had been wages by the Hindus since the beginning of 8th century resisting the inroads of alien Islamic invasion in India. The basic identity conundrum was they were alien forces invading the land and people, secondly the invades were of antagonistic reeti-neeti and mulyabodh …. thirdly they had a different religious faith and order which was inflexible, exclusive, vigorously expansionist and eager for reigning on others. Those were principally the Turkey flags in India thought at the initial stage the Arab and then the Afghan flags had their shares. But those were not the flags of for the majority of the Muslims in India who, in subsequent period had to enter into Islam as a breakaway s from the Indian societies. Those Muslims were ex Hindus and their number surged to be 98% of the Muslims in India. The Turks, Iranians, Afghans, Arabians etc, that invaded Indian as alien races having Islamic faith and later on others of the same categories that entered into India as job seekers could not have formed more than 2% of Indian Muslims and he 98% of Indian Muslims were exploited by the 2% of alien Muslims more severely than even the Hindus. The Hindus were tortured, robbed of their fortunes, md economic prosperity, their temples were desecrated, but the Buddhists and Hindus converted to Islam were robbed of their innate culture, moral and ethical inheritance and way of living that used them through generations. Conversion was not merely a shift of faith, conversion is much more deep rooted, it is much more a question of society and civil life and it involves the whole inherent cultural and traditional world. ….The Indian Muslims enjoyed no recognition from the upper echelons of the ruling classes of the invader Muslims, i.e., Ashraf Muslims and the converted Muslims were regarded as Aljab Muslims. “ (Dinesh Chandra Sinha and Ashok Dasgupta, 1946 The Great Calcullta Killings and Noakhali Genocide, Published by Sri Himanshu Maity, Tuhina Prakahsani, Kolkata, 2011).
The above ambivalent identity was not accepted in the 19th century, as it was opposed to the philosophy of Jihad, which as I said in my previous blog, was ultimately to bring everyone under the Islamic Umma. So, Jihad al-qawl: Preaching of the tongue had to give way to Jihad Jihad bi al-sayf.
References:
Dinesh Chandra Sinha and Ashok Dasgupta. (2011). 1946 The Great Calcutta Killings and Noakhali Genocide, Published by Sri Himanshu Maity, Tuhina Prakahsani, Kolkata.
Azumah, J.A. (2001). The Legacy of Arab Islam In Africa. One World Publication.
