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ISLAM IN THE INTERIOR OF PRECOLONIAL EAST AFRICA: EVIDENCE FROM LAKE TANGANYIKA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 August 2019

PHILIP GOODING
PHILIP GOODING*
Affiliation:
McGill University
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Abstract

Most histories of East Africa's precolonial interior only give cursory attention to Islam, especially in histories of present-day west-central Tanzania and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Most converts to Islam in this context are usually viewed as ‘nominal’ Muslims. This article, by contrast, builds on recent scholarship on other regions and time periods that questions the conceptual validity of the ‘nominal’ Muslim. New converts necessarily questioned their social relationships, ways of living, and ritual practices through the act of conversion. On the shores of Lake Tanganyika, new converts were observable through the act of circumcision, dietary restrictions, abidance by some of Islam's core tenets, and the adoption and adaptation of certain phenomena from East Africa's Indian Ocean coast and islands. Interior populations’ conversion to Islam was bound up with broader coast-interior material, cultural, and religious exchanges.

Keywords

precolonialIslamslaveryTanzaniaCongoBurundiZambia
Type
Re-Interpreting Affiliations in 19th Century Records
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 60 , Issue 2 , July 2019 , pp. 191 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

I wish to thank Richard Reid, Giacomo Macola, the late Jan-Georg Deutsch, Gwyn Campbell, Shane Doyle, and two sets of anonymous readers for The Journal of African History, all of whom provided valuable insights at various stages of this article's formulation. I am also grateful for the support of the Wolfson Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, both of which funded some of the research for this article. Finally, thank you to the School of Oriental and African Studies and the Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University for their institutional support. Author's email: [email protected]

References

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14 This pattern of slavery followed by conversion to Islam, a re-definition of labour roles, and then a form of ‘freedom’ is established in, for example, nineteenth-century West Africanist Islamic history. See, for example, Stilwell, S., ‘The development of “Mamlūk” slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate’, in Lovejoy, P. E. (eds.), Slavery on the Frontiers of Islam (Princeton, NJ, 2004), 103Google Scholar.

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19 See, for example Council for World Mission / London Missionary Society Archive, London (CWM/LMS) 06/02/006 Walter Hutley, ‘Mahommadanism in Central Africa: Its influence’, Aug. 1881. This is notwithstanding the fact that Muslims sometimes broke the law and enslaved other Muslims or forced new converts within their followings to remain in bondage. See for example P. Lovejoy, ‘Slavery, the Bilād al-Sūdān, and the frontiers of the African diaspora’, in Lovejoy, Slavery on the Frontiers, 17–8.

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25 Wagner, M., ‘Environment, community and history: “Nature in mind” in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Buha, Western Tanzania’, in Maddox, G., Giblin, J. L., and Kimambo, I. (eds.), Custodians of the Lake: Ecology and Culture in the History of Tanzania (London, 1996), 191Google Scholar.

26 See, for example Archivio Generale dei Missionari d'Africa, Rome (A.G.M.Afr.) Journal du R. P. Coulbois, 3 June 1884, Chronique Trimestrielles, 26 (Apr. 1885). For the inherent problems of such categorisations, see Allen, ‘Town and Country’, 298–301; Bennett, N. R., ‘Mwinyi Kheri’, in Bennett, (ed.), Leadership in Eastern Africa: Six Political Biographies (Boston, 1968), 148Google Scholar.

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28 CWM/LMS/06/02/006 Walter Hutley, ‘Mahommadanism in Central Africa: Its influence’, Aug. 1881; A.G.M.Afr. C.16-73 letter from R. P. Guillet to White Fathers, 20 Aug. 1881; CWM/LMS/06/02/014 letter from D. Picton Jones to R. Wardlaw Thompson, 23 Jan. 1889.

29 CWM/LMS/06/02/005 letter from William Griffith to J. O. Whitehouse, 5 Nov. 1880. See also RMCA HA.01.017-7 Emile Storms, ‘Les Wagoina’.

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32 CWM/LMS/06/02/007 letter from William Griffith to R. Wardlaw Thompson, 13 Mar. 1882.

33 A.G.M.Afr. C.16-7 Journal du P. Deniaud, 14 Jan. 1880; J. Becker, La vie en Afrique ou trois ans dans L'Afrique Central, Volume II, (Paris, 1887), 45–6; F. Coulbois, Dix années au Tanganyika (Limoges, 1901), 64; Jacques, V. and Storms, E., Notes sur l'ethnographie de la partie orientale de L'Afrique Équatoriale (Bruxelles, 1886) 66–7Google Scholar; Page, ‘Manyema hordes’, 80–1; Rockel, ‘Slavery and freedom’, 95; McDow, Buying Time, 152–3; Rossi, B., ‘Introduction: Rethinking slavery in West Africa’, in Rossi, B. (ed.), Reconfiguring Slavery: West African Trajectories (Liverpool, 2009), 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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35 Becker, Vie en Afrique I, 220–1; CWM/LMS/06/02/005 letter from Walter Hutley to J. O. Whitehouse, 12 Aug. 1880; Page, ‘Manyema hordes’, 72; Rockel, ‘Slavery and freedom’, 87–109.

36 A.G.M. Afr. Diaire de Kibanga, 30 Oct. 1888; RMCA HA.01.017-5. Ramaeckers to AIA, 18 Jan. 1882; Clarence-Smith, W. G., Islam and the Abolition of Slavery (London, 1988), 66Google Scholar; Gooding, ‘Slavery, ‘respectability,’ and being ‘freeborn’,’ 152–3.

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38 RMCA HA.01.017-7 Emile Storms, ‘Zanzibar’, and Emile Storms, ‘Les Wagoina’.

39 A. Abel, Les Musulmans noirs du Maniema (Bruxelles, 1960), 9.

40 See, for example Horton and Middleton, The Swahili.

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42 See, for example Abel, Les Musulmans noirs, 9; Gordon, D., ‘Wearing cloth, wielding guns: consumption, trade, and politics in the South Central African interior during the nineteenth century’, in Ross, R., Hinfelaar, M., and Peša, I. (eds.), The Objects of Life in Central Africa: The History of Consumption and Social Change, 1840–1980 (Leiden, 2013), 27Google Scholar.

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48 See Castryck, ‘Bordering the lake’. Emphasising the coastal traders’ Manyema followers’ desire to convert to Islam directly contradicts Bimangu and Tshibangu, who argue that they had no desire to convert at all. See Bimangu and Tshibangu, ‘Contribution à l'histoire’, 228.

49 Interview with Rashidi Hamisi bin Kasa, Ujiji, 12 Nov. 2013; interview with Zuberi Shabani Aburula, Ujiji, 12 Nov. 2013.

50 Northrup, Beyond the Bend, 24; Page, ‘Manyema hordes’, 74; interview with Selimani Kadudu Musa, Simbo, 13 Nov. 2013; interview with Zuberi Zindino Kalema, Simbo, 13 Nov. 2013. If a West/North African case study is used as precedent, it might be argued that conversions may have taken place on the road between Manyema and Ujiji as well. See J. Hunwick, ‘The religious practices of black slaves in the Mediterranean Islamic world’, in Lovejoy, Slavery on the Frontiers, 150.

51 Interview with Rashidi Hamisi bin Kasa; interview with Fatima Binti Mansour bin Nassour, Ujiji, 12 Nov. 2013.

52 CWM/LMS/06/02/006 Walter Hutley, ‘Mahommadanism in Central Africa: Its professors’, Aug. 1881; Sperling, ‘The coastal hinterland’, 289.

53 Interview with Rashidi Hamisi bin Kasa; interview with Branbati Ali Kiola and Isa Pama Kiola, Ujiji, 12 Nov. 2013; interview with Fatima Binti Mansour bin Nassour; interview with Saidi Hamisi Kunga, Ujiji, 11 Nov. 2013; interview with Selimani Kadudu Musa; interview with Hamisi Ali Juma al-Hey, Ujiji, 14 Nov. 2013. See also Abel, Les Musulmans noirs, 9.

54 Interview with Rashidi Hamisi bin Kasa.

55 Interview with Saidi Hamisi Kunga; interview with Hamisi Ali Juma al-Hey.

56 Interview with Saidi Hamisi Kunga.

57 Becker, ‘Commoners’, 227–49.

58 A.G.M.Afr. letter from C. Randabel to White Fathers, 26 July 1883, Chronique Trimestrielles, 21–22 (Apr. 1884); CWM/LMS/06/02/007 letter from William Griffith to R. Wardlaw Thompson, 13 Mar. 1882; CWM/LMS/06/02/010 letter from John Harris to R. Wardlaw Thompson, 15 Mar. 1885; CWM/LMS/06/02/012 letter from D. Picton Jones to R. Wardlaw Thompson, 14 Nov. 1887.

59 CWM/LMS/06/02/009 letter from D. Picton Jones to R. Wardlaw Thompson, 2 Dec. 1884. See also CWM/LMS/06/02/009 letter from D. Picton Jones to J. O. Whitehouse, 24 June 1884.

60 See also Abel, Les Musulmans noirs, 10–16.

61 Oded, Islam in Uganda, 77–80; Becker, ‘Commoners’, 246; Prange, Monsoon Islam, 3; Ricklefs, ‘Rediscovering Islam’, 397–418.

62 CWM/LMS/06/02/006 Walter Hutley, ‘Mahommadanism in Central Africa: Its influence’, Aug. 1881.

63 Ibid. Livingstone, D., The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa. From Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Five to His Death. Continued by a Narrative of His Last Moments and Sufferings, Obtained from His Faithful Servants Chuma and Susi, ed. Waller, H. (New York, 1875), 224Google Scholar; Jacques and Storms, Notes sur l'ethnographie, 66.

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65 Earle, Colonial Buganda, 147–8; Oded, Islam in Uganda, 77.

66 A.G.M.Afr. Diaire de Massanze, 5 Sept. 1882; R. P. Colle, Les Baluba, Volume I (Bruxelles, 1913), 273–7; Livingstone, Last Journals, 305; Stanley, Dark Continent II, 89.

67 This may have also influenced the encounter between coastal Muslims and future Yao converts near to Lake Malawi's shores during this period. See Msiska, A. W. C., ‘The spread of Islam and its impact on Yao rites of passage, 1870–1960’, The Society of Malawi Journal, 48:1 (1995), 73Google Scholar. For West/North Africa, Hunwick argues that Muslim slave owners preferred circumcised slaves, even if they were not yet Muslim. See Hunwick, ‘The religious practices of black slaves’, 149, 151.

68 Livingstone, Last Journals, 37.

69 See above; CWM/LMS/06/02/007 letter from William Griffith to R. Wardlaw Thompson, 13 Mar. 1882.

70 CWM/LMS/06/02/006 Walter Hutley, ‘Mahommadanism in Central Africa: Its influence’, Aug. 1881. See also CWM/LMS/06/02/005 letter from Walter Hutley to J.O. Whitehouse, 12 Aug. 1880.

71 CWM/LMS/06/02/006 Walter Hutley, ‘Mahommadanism in Central Africa: Its influence’, Aug. 1881.

72 See also Glassman, Feasts and Riot, 117–20.

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75 Interview with Selimani Kadudu Musa.

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77 Ibid. 37, 100; Lovejoy, Transformations, 14, 34; McDow, Buying Time, 152.

78 For another case study that emphasises the importance of the domestic sphere in Islamic history, see Hunwick, ‘The religious practice of black slaves’, 149–71.

79 CWM/LMS/06/02/006 Walter Hutley, ‘Mahommadanism in Central Africa: Its influence’, Aug. 1881; Livingstone, Last Journals, 223–4.

80 Becker, Vie en Afrique II, 310. The author's translation.

81 Ibid. 309

82 For a comparison with Buganda, see Earle, Colonial Buganda, 144–5.

83 CWM/LMS/06/02/006 Walter Hutley, ‘Mahommadanism in Central Africa’, Aug. 1881.

84 Murjebi, L'autobiographie, 71, 118, 119.

85 Becker, Vie en Afrique II, 309–10.

86 Rockel, Carriers of Culture, 98.

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89 Becker, Vie en Afrique II, 18; Livingstone, Last Journals, 354.

90 Becker, Vie en Afrique I, 463, and II, 18.

91 CWM/LMS/06/02/006 Walter Hutley, ‘Mahommadanism in Central Africa’, Aug. 1881; Livingstone, Last Journals, 224; Jacques and Storms, Notes sur l'ethnographie 66.

92 Iliffe, A Modern History, 78–9; Oded, Islam in Uganda, 66–7; Pallaver, ‘Muslim communities’, 7.

93 Glassman, Feasts and Riot, 134.

94 Oded, Islam in Uganda, 79.

95 Ibid.

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97 See, for example Pouwels, ‘The East African coast’, 251–71.

98 CWM/LMS/06/02/006 Walter Hutley, ‘Mahommadanism in Central Africa: Its professors’, Aug. 1881; Sperling, ‘The coastal hinterland’, 289. Note, the absence of mosques is divergent from Buganda, where they were built throughout much of the kingdom during the late 1860s and early 1870s.

99 CWM/LMS/06/02/006 Walter Hutley, ‘Mahommadanism in Central Africa: Its professors’, Aug. 1881.

100 Becker, Vie en Afrique II, 463. See also Pouwels, ‘The East African coast’, 262.

101 Bennett, ‘Mwinyi Kheri’, 151.

102 See also Abel, Les Musulmans noirs, 37–8.

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105 Hore, E., Tanganyika: Eleven Years in Central Africa (London, 1892), 106–7Google Scholar; Gooding, ‘Lake Tanganyika’, 138–40; Swann, Fighting the Slave-Hunters, 77–8.

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107 See also Gooding, ‘Lake Tanganyika’, 141–2; Roberts, ‘“Fishers of men”’, 49–50, 54; Wagner, ‘Environment, community and history’, 181–6.

108 Stanley, Dark Continent II, 67.

109 A.G.M.Afr. Diaire de Massanze, 17 Oct. 1882. The author's translation. See also RMCA HA.01.017-7 Emile Storms, ‘Resistance des marcheurs en caravan’.

110 Roberts, ‘“Fishers of men”’, 49–70.

111 A.G.M.Afr. C.16-7 Journal du P. Deniaud, 9, 21 Oct. 1879; A.G.M.Afr. Diaire de Massanze, 17 Oct. 1881; Von Wissmann, Hermann, My Second Journey Through Equatorial Africa from the Congo to the Zambesi in the Years 1886 and 1887, trans. Bergmann, M. J. A. (London, 1891), 258Google Scholar; Jacques and Storms, Notes sur l'ethnographie, 84; National Archives – Royal Geographical Society (NA RGS) JMS/2/144 V. L. Cameron, ‘Diary of a Boat Journey’, 19 Mar. 1874, 1, 3, 4 Apr. 1874.

112 See also Gooding, ‘Lake Tanganyika’, 144–68.

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115 Swann, Fighting the Slave-Hunters, 77.

116 Agius, D. A., ‘Decorative motifs on Arabian boats: meaning and identity’, in Starkey, J., Starkey, P., and Wilkinson, T. (eds.), Natural Resources and Cultural Connections of the Red Sea (Oxford, 2007), 105Google Scholar; Agius, D. A., In the Wake of the Dhow: The Arabian Gulf and Oman (Reading, 2009), 52, 67–8Google Scholar, 93.

117 For West/North African case studies in which formerly non-Muslim slaves converted to Islam and adapted pre-existing spiritual practices to their understanding of their new faith, see Hunwick, ‘The religious practices of black slaves’, 149–71; I. M. Montana, ‘Ahmad ibn al-Qāḍī al-Timbuktāwī on the Bori ceremonies of Tunis’, in Lovejoy, Slavery on the Frontiers, 173–98.