ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS AND THE POLITICAL
ECONOMY IN AFRICA: AN OVERVIEW OF
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA - 2

[The Concept ]    [The Context ]   [Contemporary Islamic Movement ]   [African Political Economy ]   [Further Evidence ]   [Description to Prescription ]   [The Human Factor ]          [Role of Movements ]   [Conclusion ]  Appreciating the Context The African continent, like the rest of the Muslim World, has had its fair share of rich Islamic history and culture. It prides itself as the first place of refuge (Hijra) where Islam crossed over even before it went to Madina. It has produced some of the greatest institutions of learning like the well known Al Azhar and less known but equally great Sankore in Timbuktu. These institutions have produced some of the most brilliant and prolific scholars of the Ummah. The continent has also witnessed the rise of several Muslim states of varying complexities over the last millennium. In addition to the well known states of North Africa and the Maghrib, there were the less known empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhay in West Africa, the Hausa states and Kanem-Borno in the central Savanna, the Funj and the Fur States in the Nile valley and the Kilwa kingdom at the East African coast. It has also raised among its scholars mujaddidin, many of whom carried out jihads and built Islamic states which lasted until the colonial rule; from Usman Dan Fodio of the Sokoto Caliphate to Muhammad Abdallah Hassan in Somaliland. Many of these actually had encounters with the colonial army. Islam thus predated Western Christianity by several centuries. It was only in the 15th century that the Portuguese, with their new found marine technology, arrived at the African coasts. As soon as they discovered the potential, other European nations followed. The mission was essential material, looking for alternative route to India, market for their goods, raw materials for their industries and eventually slaves for their plantations in the 'New Found Land'. But soon they discovered that Christianity will greatly enhance their enterprise. The Christian missionaries may not have realised that when they set sail for Africa. Many of them were men of God who were out to spread the gospel, or so they believed. But nor sooner they came, they realised that they can only operate by the leave of the European merchants and later the colonial army. Too often they became ready accomplice, the glaring example being that of the Dutch reform church of South Africa which created a theological basis for apartheid and continued to support it until its tail end. The concern of the mission as well as their patrons, the colonial establishment, was not only to raise converts, but also to halt the rather fast spread of Islam in the continent. This was particularly successful in the dense forest of West African, the southern Sudan, and central and southern Africa. [2] The story of colonialism is a familiar one. Colonial methods of subverting and containing Islam may have been generally the same everywhere, but in Africa, more than any other place, the departing colonial army made sure they handed the reins of power to a Christian elite. One case is Senegal, with its overwhelming Muslim majority, which was ruled by Leopard Sengor, a Catholic for some uninterrupted two decades. The other is the case of Tanzania where Julius Nyerere, another Catholic, ruled for over two decades. Only where it was not possible did they concede the reins to secularized Muslims, grudgingly, and after making sure that sufficient contingency arrangements have been made to contain them. Part of this contingency arrangements was to cultivate a Christian fifth column within the Muslim body politic to oppose every move the society makes to restore Islam.[3] Many of the ulama were elbowed out of position and some were even recruited to serve the colonial interest. Thus Muslim activists in Africa have had to face a rather strange trio of evangelical Christians, secularized Muslim elite and, no less daunting, fossilized Muslim ulama.