1 For an overview, see Lapidus, Ira M., A history of Islamic societies, second edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 197–225 and passimGoogle Scholar; Nehemia, Levtzion, ‘Toward a comparative history of Islamization’, in Nehemia, Levtzion, ed., Conversion to Islam, New York, NY: Holmes and Meier, 1979, pp. 1–23Google Scholar, and other essays in this collection. For the Middle East, seeRichard, Bulliett, Conversion to Islam in the medieval period: an essay in quantitative history, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979Google Scholar. For specific locations in Africa, see the bibliography in the same volume and Nehemia, Levtzion and Randall L., Pouwels, The history of Islam in Africa, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2000Google Scholar. On conversion in Central Asia, see Adshead, S.A.M., Central Asia in world history, New York, NY: St Martin’s Press, 1993, pp. 44–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Lapidus, Islamic societies, p. 183 and passim.

3 Ricklefs, Merle, Mystic synthesis in Java: a history of Islamization from the fourteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, White Plains, NY: Eastbridge Books, 2006, passim.Google Scholar

4 Levtzion, ‘Toward a comparative history’, p. 15. My typology of these agents is distilled from all the references mentioned so far. ‘Further Islamic lands’ is a phrase used by Holt, P.M.Lambton, Ann K.S. and Bernard, Lewis, The Cambridge history of Islam, vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.Google Scholar

5 For scholarly lineages, see, for example,Louis, Brenner, The Shehus of Kukawa: a history of the al-Kanemi dynasty of Bornu, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1973Google Scholar. For conversion myths, see Devin, DeWeese, Islamization and native religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and conversion to Islaim in historical and epic tradition, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994, passimGoogle Scholar; Clifford, Geertz, Islam observed: religious development in Morocco and Indonesia, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968Google Scholar; Jones, R., ‘Ten conversion myths from Indonesia’, in Levtzion, Conversion to Islam, pp. 129–58.Google Scholar

6 Fisher, Humphrey R., ‘Many deep baptisms: reflections on religious, mainly Muslim, conversion in Black Africa’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 57, 1, 1994, pp. 64–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nehemia, Levtzion and Jay, Spaulding, Medieval West Africa: views from Arab scholars and merchants, Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2003, pp. 29–30, 115–18.Google Scholar

7 At this point, their importance is widely recognized: see Lapidus, Islamic societies, pp. 206–17; Jonathon, Glassman, Feasts and riot: revelry, rebellion and popular consciousness on the Swahili coast, 1856–1888, Oxford: James Currey, 1995, pp. 133–45Google Scholar, describes the participation of recent converts in public Muslim rituals, but within a Muslim social setting.

8 On Central Asia, see Adshead, S.A.M., Central Asia in world history, New York, NY: St Martin’s Press, 1993, pp. 44–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar and passim; on West Africa, see David, Robinson, The holy war of Umar Tall, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.Google Scholar

9 A notion criticized by DeWeese, in Islamization and native religion, pp. 9–14, 51–4.

10 Felicitas, Becker, Becoming Muslim in mainland Tanzania, 1890–2000, Oxford and London: Oxford University Press and the British Academy, 2008Google Scholar. For standard accounts of Islamization in East Africa, see the relevant chapters in Levtzion and Pouwels, Islam in Africa.

11 Nehemia, Levtzion and Jay, Spaulding, Medieval West Africa: views from Arab scholars and merchants, Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2003, pp. 29–30, 115–18.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., Medieval West Africa, passim; DeWeese, Islamization and native religion, pp. 3–6; Ricklefs, Mystic Synthesis, ch. 2.

13 On the early development of Islam on the Swahili coast in general, see Pouwels, Randall L., Horn and crescent: cultural change and traditional Islam on the East African coast, 800–1900, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On Somalia, see Lee, Cassanelli, The shaping of Somali society: reconstructing the history of a pastoral people, 1600–1900, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.Google Scholar. On the archaeological record, see Mark, Horton, Shanga: the archaeology of a Muslim trading community on the coast of East Africa, Nairobi: The British Institute in Eastern Africa, 1996.Google Scholar

14 Nehemia, Levtzion, Traders and chiefs in West Africa: a study of Islam in the Middle Volta Basin in the precolonial period, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968Google Scholar; Edward Alpers, ‘Towards a history of the expansion of Islam in East Africa: the matrilineal peoples of the southern interior’, in Terence Ranger and Isaria Kimambo, eds., The historical study of African religion, Nairobi and London: Heinemann, 1971, pp. 172–201; Marshall Hodgson, The venture of Islam: conscience and history in a world civilization, 3 vols., Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1975; Ricklefs, Mystic synthesis.

15 Geertz, Islam observed.

16 Mervyn, Hiskett, The sword of truth: the life and times of Shehu Usuman dan Fodio, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1994.Google Scholar Robinson, Holy war.

17 August, Nimtz, Islam and politics in East Africa: the Sufi orders in Tanzania, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1980Google Scholar; Anne, Bang, Sufis and scholars of the sea: family networks in East Africa, 1860–1925, London: Routledge, 2003Google Scholar; Abdul, Hamid El Zein, The sacred meadows: a structural analysis of religious symbolism in an East African town, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1974.Google Scholar

18 Levtzion and Spaulding, Medieval West Africa, xiv–xvii.

19 Ricklefs, Mystic synthesis, pp. 33–55 and passim; Adshead, Central Asia, ch. 5.

20 Most explicitly Fisher, ‘Many deep baptisms’; idem, ‘The juggernaut’s apologia: conversion to Islam in Black Africa’, Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute, 55, 1985, pp. 153–73. Also Levtzion and Spaulding, Medieval West Africa, pp. 29–30, 115–18; and relevant chapters in Levtzion and Pouwels, Islam in Africa.

21 Hodgson, Venture of Islam, vol. 2, pp. 532–74 (p. 539 for the term ‘culture gradient’).

22 Glassman, Feasts and riot, pp.133–45 and passim.

23 On Islamic studies as a variant of ‘Orientalism’, see Zachary Lockman, Contending visions of the Middle East: the history and politics of Orientalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

24 Dale, Eickelman and James, Piscatori, Muslim politics, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.Google Scholar

25 Mitchell, Richard P., The Society of the Muslim Brothers, second edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.Google Scholar

26 Geertz, Islam observed, pp. 25–43.

27 DeWeese, Islamization and native religion, pp. 3–14.

28 Michael, Lambek, Knowledge and practice in Mayotte: local discourses of Islam, sorcery and spirit possession, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993Google Scholar; idem, ‘Certain knowledge, contestable authority: power and practice on the Islamic periphery’, American Ethnologist, 17, 1990, pp. 23–40.

29 Lambek, ‘Certain knowledge’, pp. 23–7.

30 Robert, Launay, Beyond the stream: Islam and society in a West African town, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992, p. 10.Google Scholar

31 One confrontation that can be interpreted in these terms is the one reported by Pouwels, Randall L., in his ‘Sheikh al-Amin b. Ali Mazrui and Islamic modernism in East Africa’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 13, 1981, pp. 329–45Google Scholar. Also see my account below.

32 Thomas, Gibson, Islamic narrative and authority in Southeast Asia, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.Google Scholar

33 Even within this coastal zone, the politics and ritual expressions of Islam were complex and diverse. See David, Parkin and Stephen, Headley, Islamic prayer across the Indian Ocean: inside and outside the mosque, London: Curzon Press, 2001.Google Scholar

34 This continental expansion is distinct from, if arguably related to, the parallel process of ritual innovation and the intensification of Islamic allegiances associated with the spread of Sufism on the coast. On this latter process, see Bang, Sufis and scholars; el Zein, Sacred meadows.

35 Karl, Weule, Native life in East Africa, London: Isaac Pitman & sons, 1909Google Scholar; Chauncy, Maples, ‘Masasi and the Rovuma district in East Africa’, Proceedings of the Royal Geographic Society, 2, 1880, pp. 338–53.Google Scholar

36 On commercial expansion, see Abdul, Sheriff, Slaves, spices and ivory in Zanzibar: integration of an East African commercial empire into the world economy, 1770–1873, Oxford: James Currey, 1987Google Scholar; Edward Alpers, Ivory and slaves in East Central Africa: changing patterns of trade to the later nineteenth century, London: Heinemann, 1975. On the participation of up-country peoples, see Stephen, Rockel, Carriers of culture: labor on the road in nineteenth-century East Africa, Portsmouth, NH, 2006Google Scholar; on the activities of coastal Muslims up-country, see Hamid bin, Muhammad Al-Murjebi, Maisha ya Hamid bin Muhammad al Murjebi yaani Tippu Tip, tr. W.H. Whiteley, Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau, 1974.Google Scholar

37 Alan Thorold, ‘The Yao Muslims’, PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1995; interview with Mohamed Kawambe, Mnacho-Nandagala, 3 September 2000.

38 Levtzion and Spaulding, Medieval West Africa, pp. 29–30, 115–18.

39 On the Qadiriyya, see Martin, B.G., ‘Muslim politics and resistance to colonial rule: Shaikh Uways b. Muhammad al-Barawi and the Qadiriya brotherhood in East Africa’, Journal of African History, 10, 1969, pp. 471–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Muslim brotherhoods in nineteenth-century Africa, Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Martin emphasizes the interests and leadership of the Arabophone elite. For the interpretation of Sufism as a challenge to these elites, see Glassman, Feasts and riot, pp. 133–45.

40 Interview with Fadhil Zubeiri, Lindi-Mikumbi, 24 July 2000; with Mwalimu Mfaume, Kilwa-Pande, 19–20 June 2004.

41 Tanzania National Archives (henceforth TNA), Newala District Book, section ‘Laws and customs’, sheet 21/2.

42 Interview with Hassan Athuman Pachoto, Rwangwa-Likangara, 23 October 2003.

43 Nimtz, Islam and politics, passim.

44 George, Shepperson, ‘The jumbe of Kota Kota and some aspects of the history of Islam in British Central Africa’, in Lewis, I.M., ed., Islam in tropical Africa, London: Oxford University Press and the International African Institute, 1966, pp. 193–207Google Scholar; Edward Alpers, ‘East Central Africa’, in Levtzion and Pouwels, Islam in Africa, pp. 303–27.

45 Kolumba Msigala, ‘Memoirs’, Oxford, Rhodes House Library, UMCA/USPG archive box files D1(2), fos. 21–40.

46 ‘Schadensprotokolle’ assessing losses in the Maji Maji War, TNA G3/72, passim; Norbert Aas, Koloniale Entwicklung im Bezirksamt Lindi (Deutsch-Ostafrika), Bayreuth: Bumerang Verlag, 1989.

47 DeWeese, Islamization and native religion, pp. 137–9, for over-representation of Sufis in post-facto accounts of Islamization in the Golden Horde.

48 See e.g. ‘Mnero, 1930–31’, Chronik der Kongregation St Ottilien, 1931, St Ottilien: printed in manuscript form, pp. 25–7.

49 On this process among Christians, see Lamin, Sanneh, Translating the message: the missionary impact on culture, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989Google Scholar. See the conclusion to this article for questions about Sanneh’s claims on Islam.

50 Alpers, ‘Expansion of Islam in East Africa’, pp. 172–201; interview with Ibrahim Nassoro Kimbega, Rwangwa-Mchangani, 7 September 2003.

51 The most detailed single account of unyago is Bantu M. Munga, ‘Unyago wa wavulana wa Kimakonde’, unpublished manuscript, Dar es Salaam University Library. See also Joachim Amman, ‘Sitten und Gebraeuche der Wamwera’, typescript, Ndanda mission library. For a missionary attempt to come to terms with unyago, see Terence, ‘Missionary adaptation of African religious institutions: the Masasi case’ in Ranger and Kimambo, Historical study of African religion, pp. 221–51.

52 Amman, ‘Sitten und Gebraeuche’; John, Iliffe, A modern history of Tanganyika, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979, pp. 168–70Google Scholar, on Kinjikitile.

53 E.g. Matthew Schoffeleers, ed., Guardians of the land: essays on Central African territorial cults, Umtali: Mambo Press, 1977; David Lan, Guns and rain: guerillas and spirit mediums in Zimbabwe, Oxford: James Currey, 1985.

54 This topic was not amenable to formal interviews, but recurred in conversation, e.g. in the Machenza household in Lindi-Mikumbi. Visitors to the mgende shrines, some of them smartly dressed urbanites, could be observed in Liwale town, where they hired ‘bicycle taxis’ to take them to the shrines.

55 Interviews with Muhammad Chikwakwa Ntapule, Mnacho-Nandagala, 2 September 2000; with Issa Makolela, Rwangwa-Likangara, 3 September 2003; with Saidi Mponda, Mnero-Kimawe, 14 September 2000; with Bushiri Bakari Lipyoga, Rwangwa-Dodoma, 9 October 2003.

56 Alpers, ‘Expansion of Islam in East Africa’, pp. 172–201.

57 On the effects of war, see Weule, Native life; Iliffe, Modern history, pp. 193–202, 240–7.

58 TNA, file G 9/47, 161: Bezirksamt Lindi to Dar es Salaam, 12 January 1909, report on a journey through Lindi district, starting 5 September 1908; TNA G9/48: ‘Allgemein religioese Bewegungen’/Reports on the state of Islam in different districts of German East Africa, pp. 85–164.

59 Sheriff, Slaves, spice and ivory, on the British takeover of Zanzibar; Glassman, Feasts and riot, for the traumatic effects of the imposition of colonial rule for urban Muslim elites.

60 Gus Liebenow, J., Colonial rule and political development in Tanzania: the case of the Makonde, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1971.Google Scholar

61 Weule, Native life, passim; Martin, Klein, The slave trade and decentralised societies’, Journal of African History, 42, 2001, pp. 49–65.Google Scholar

62 On ‘big men’ as a longer-term political phenomenon, see Jan, Vansina, Paths in the rainforest: towards a history of political tradition in Equatorial Africa, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.Google Scholar

63 Felicitas, Becker, ‘Traders “big men” and prophets: political continuity and crisis in the Maji Maji War, 1905–07’, Journal of African History, 45, 2004, pp. 1–22Google Scholar

64 On the aftermath of the Maji Maji War, see Iliffe, Modern history, pp. 193–202.

65 Aas, Koloniale Entwicklung, passim; TNA G 3/77 on the economic losses due to Maji Maji; TNA 1733/14 Kilwa district, annual report 1923.

66 Interview with Asumini Litanda, Mnero-Mwandila, 16 September 2000.

67 Glassman, Feasts and riot, pp.133–45.

68 On the connotations of this term, see ibid., ch. 1 and passim.

69 On the role of Islamic allegiance in social exclusion on the nineteenth-century Swahili coast, see Jonathon Glassman, ‘Stolen knowledge: struggles for popular Islam on the Swahili coast, 1870–1963’, in Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti, ed., Islam in East Africa: new sources (archives, manuscripts and written historical sources, oral history, archaeology). Proceedings of international colloqium, Rome 2–4 December 1999, Rome: Herder, 2001, pp. 209–25; Frederick Cooper, ‘Islam and cultural hegemony: the ideology of slaveowners on the East African coast’, in Paul Lovejoy, ed., The ideology of slavery in Africa, Beverley Hills, CA and London: Sage Publications, 1981, pp. 271–307; F.O. Karstedt, Beiträge zur Praxis der Eingeborenenrechtssprechung in Ostafrika, Dar es Salaam: Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Zeitung, 1912.

70 Interview with Hassan Mang’unyuka, Tanzania, 1968, quoted in J.T. Gallagher, ‘Islam and the emergence of the Ndendeuli’, unpublished PhD thesis, Boston University, 1971, p. 132.

71 E.g. interview with Muhammad Mkweka, Rwangwa-Nachingwea, 5 September 2003; with Muhammad Mperemende, Rwangwa-Nachingwea, 5 September 2003; with Issa Makolela, Rwangwa-Likangara, 6 September 2003.

72 On the beginnings of the Masasi mission, see Chauncy, Maples, ‘Masasi’, pp. 338–53; Terence Ranger, ‘European attitudes and African realities: the rise and fall of the Matola chiefs of Southeast Tanzania’, Journal of African History, 20, 1979, pp. 63–82Google Scholar. On the Benedictines, see Godfrey, Sieber, The Benedictine congregation of St Ottilien: a short history of the monasteries, general chapters and constitutions, biographies of its superiors general, St Ottilien: Eos Verlag, 1992.Google Scholar

73 According to the statistics kept by the Mission Benedictines, St Ottilien, library.

74 See anonymous, anecdotal reports in Missionsblätter von St Ottilien, e.g. 14, 1910, pp. 163–5; 45, 1950, pp. 140–1; 52, 1948, pp. 159–62; 53, 1949, pp. 15–16.

75 This is particularly tangible in the handwritten chronicles of Benedictine mission stations. See Chronikbuecher Ndanda and Nyangao, Archiv der Erzabtei St Ottilien.

76 Interview with Rashid Selemani Selijira, Rwangwa-Dodoma, 12 October 2003.

77 Interview with Bushiri Bakari Lipyoga, Rwangwa-Dodoma, 9 October 2003.

78 David, Parkin, The sacred void: spatial images of work and ritual among the Giriama of Kenya, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992Google Scholar; Bill, Bravman, Making ethnic ways: communities and their transformations in Taita, Kenya, 1800–1950, Oxford: James Currey, 1998.Google Scholar

79 Interviews with primary court judges Brigita Pira, Lindi-Jamhuri, 7 September 2004 and Damas Gakwinya, Mingoyo, 9 September 2004.

80 The fear of being fed pork was a constant problem for Muslim students at mission boarding schools. See e.g. interview with George Mpwapwa and Ludwina Mpwapwa, Rwangwa-Nachingwea, 31 October 2003.

81 J.N.D. Anderson, Islamic law in Africa, London: Frank Cass, 1970.

82 Interview with Issa Makolela, Rwangwa-Likangara, 3 September 2003.

83 Interviews with Mohamed Abdallah Mperemende, Rwangwa-Nachingwea, 5 September 2003; and with Mohamed Selemani Mkweka Mpulumundo, Rwangwa-Nachingwea, 6 September 2003.

84 In Swahili, the main language of East African Muslims, the term madrasa is applied to Qur’an schools mostly of a very basic level, in distinction to shule or skuli, the words used for schools derived from missionary and colonial state precedents.

85 I attended this women’s madrasa fairly regularly while conducting interviews in Rwangwa during September and October 2003. The interviewees included the three main teachers: Mohamed Mkweka on 6 September, Bakari Lipyoga on 9 and 19 October; Hassan Pachoto on 23 October. Saidi Mtolea, Mkweka’s blind disciple, contributed to the group interview on 19 October, as well as Lipyoga and Mohamed Kawambe.

86 Michael, Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam: religion and society in the modern Arab world, New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1982Google Scholar, p. 16.

87 Conversations with Zuhura Mohamed, Mnacho-Nandagala, August 2003, and numerous comments at bars and restaurants.

88 For an account of missionary ‘Swahilists’ in Kenya, see Alamin, Mazrui, Swahili beyond boundaries: literature, language and identity, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2007Google Scholar, ch. 3. German missionary scholars of Islam in present-day Tanzania included Martin Klamroth and Carl Becker. The latter’s ‘Materials for the understanding of Islam in German East Africa’, tr. B.G. Martin, Tanzania Notes and Records, 68, 1968, pp. 31–61, is an inventory of books known on the coast.

89 Representative of this attitude are Martin Klamroth, ‘Ostafrikanischer Islam’, in Allgemeine Missionszeitschrift, 37, 1910, pp. 477–93; Lyndon Harries, Islam in East Africa, London: Universities Mission to Central Africa, 1954; and numerous writings in Missionsblätter, the organ of the Catholic mission present in the region discussed here.

90 TNA1733/14, Kilwa district annual report 1923.

91 Nimtz, Islam and politics, pp. 59–66 and passim, indicates this shift of focus.

92 Levtzion, ‘Toward a comparative history’, pp. 16–18.

93 Rafael Israeli, ‘Islamization and sinicization in Chinese Islam’, in Levtzion, Conversion to Islam, p. 160.

94 DeWeese, Islamization and native religion, pp. 59–66, especially 63–4.

95 Gibson, Islamic narrative and authority, introduction.

96 A particularly clear and unapologetic statement of the claim that Islamization constitutes an, albeit limited and problematic, form of ‘modernization’ is found in J.N.D. Anderson, ‘Tropical Africa: infiltration and expanding horizons’, in Gustave E. von Grunenbaum, ed., Unity and variety in Muslim civilization, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1955, pp. 261–83.

97 On the ironies and aporias of modernization theory in the contemporary ‘Third World’, see e.g. James Ferguson, Expectations of modernity: myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian copperbelt, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999, and Lockman, Contending visions, pp. 99–147.

98 E.g. Ronald, Lukens-Bull, ‘Between text and practice: considerations in the anthropological study of Islam’, Marburg Journal of Religion, 4, 2, 1999, pp. 1–18.Google Scholar

99 See e.g. Ernest Gellner’s insistence that unity rather than diversity is the explanandum in the study of Islamic societies, in his Muslim society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981, introduction.

100 For the persistence of this tendency, see Lockman, Contending visions, ch. 7, especially pp. 216–18, 249–51.

101 Andrew, Shryock, Nationalism and the genealogical imagination: oral history and textual authority in tribal Jordan, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997.Google Scholar

102 Brinkley, Messick, The calligraphic state: textual domination and history in a Muslim society, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993.Google Scholar

103 Lapidus, Islamic societies, p. 183.

104 Sanneh, Translating the message, pp. 211–38; Louis Brenner and Murray Last, ‘The role of language in West African Islam’, in J.D.Y. Peel, ed., ‘Popular Islam’ south of the Sahara, Manchester: Manchester University Press in association with the International African Institute, 1985, pp. 432–46.