Islam: Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Nigeria's Muslim population, generally estimated to be over 50 million, is the largest in this part of Africa, and the focus in this article is on the growth and impact of Islam there, and in East Africa, especially in Tanzania. Broadly speaking, there have been three stages in the development of Islam in tropical Africa: quarantine, mixing, and reform. In the first of these stages Muslims, mainly merchants from North Africa, tended to live in closely knit communities and apart from the indigenous population. The second stage was characterized by the mixing of Muslim and traditional beliefs and rituals, a process which gave rise to the third stage, that of reform. The article is particularly concerned with the role of the scholar-mystic as reformer and nationalist and the impact of colonialism and Islam in the context of the post-independence nation-state.