Anthropology of Africa

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Anthropology of Africa

• SY26C
• Week 4

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Islam in Africa

• 1 in 3 Africans is Muslim
• Islam transformed many African societies
• 2 main types of introduction of Islam to Africa
• North Africa Arab conquest ? Arabisation
• Sub-Saharan Africa Muslim traders through
  peaceful means ? retention of ethnic identity
• Importance of Sufi mystics and reform movements

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Islam an introduction

• Prophet Muhammad (last of Jewish prophets) last
  and most complete divine revelation
• Divine revelations in Quran (word of God)
• Key only one God, creator of heaven and earth,
  who wants all to follow his will to enter
  paradise
• 5 pillars of Islam
• 1. fasting
• 2. alms to poor
• 3. pray 5 times a day
• 4. public proclamation of belief in Allah
• 5. pilgrimage
• Emphasis on social change

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Islam the global religion

• After prophets death in 632, military jihads to
  expand territory
• ? empire from Iberian peninsula to edge of China
• ? world civilisation comprised of Asian,
  European, African cultures

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Islam in North Africa

• Arabs established themselves as ruling elite and
  settled in garrisons
• Relatively quick conversion within 400 years
  most of N. Africa was Muslim
• Arabs conquered N. Africa in first 200 years
  after Muhammads death
• Muslims were in the majority by 11th century
• Berbers resisted conquest Egypt later conversion
  

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Islam in North Africa

• Reasons for conversion
• Economic benefits
• Social interaction between Africans and Arab
  traders, herders
• Arabisation
• Close relationship between political leaders and
  religious leaders (ulama)
• Ottoman Empire attempt to unify N. Africa
  increased strength of Muslim heritage

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Islam in West Africa

• Much slower process
• Individual efforts of North African merchants
• Kings/rulers limiting Muslim influence enclaves
• Initial converts local merchants, political
  leaders
• BUT adherence to local traditions
• e.g. Ghana, Mali, Songhay
• Conversion continued by African merchants
• Reputations as healers, saints
• e.g. Jakhanke

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Islam in Eastern Africa

• Swahili (sahel)
• Creole culture resulting from Muslim commercial
  expansion
• Indigenous Africans Arabs from Arabia and
  Persia
• Adopted commercial values and religious beliefs
  of Muslims, extended to coastal settlements
  supported by Arabs
• Monopolised international gold trade by 13th c.
  from Zimbabwean gold mines

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Islam in Northeastern Africa

• Similar to Islams introduction in rest of
  sub-Saharan Africa
• Although Nubian resistance ? boundary at
  Egypt-Sudan border
• Somalia/Red Sea similar to Swahili
• Interior Northeastern Africa more like W.
  African empires
• e.g. Dar Fur, Sinnar in 17th and 18th c.

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Islam and Europeans in Africa the early days

• Eastern Africa
• European maritime expansion ? Swahili
  relinquishing international gold trade
• Limited European penetration of eastern coast
• Christian enclave in Ethiopia, although some
  later conversion
• West Africa
• More cooperation than conflict with Europeans in
  early days of European contact
• With time, some conflict over control of gold
  trade
• Benefits from fall of W. African empires slaves

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Islam and the slave trade

• Islamic law prohibits enslavement of Muslims
• Islamic law allows enslavement of non-Muslims
• Justification of enslavement to convert slaves
• Northern Africa, Southwestern Asia Muslims used
  African, Asian, European slaves as domestics,
  manual labourers, soldiers
• Trade in African slaves involved millions of
  Africans over 1,000 years
• Protection of Islam may have encouraged
  conversion in regions where Muslim merchants sold
  slaves to Europeans at the coast
• Eg Fulbe of Senegambia asserted their Muslim ID
  and fought several jihads in 18th c. to establish
  territory where they could live without fear of
  enslavement

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Variants of Islam in Africa Sufism

• Sufism
• mystical variation of Islam
• an important relationship is between student and
  master (shaykh)
• authoritarian relationship similar to
  pre-existing relationships of patronage in
  Africa, e.g. Berber herders
• Maghrib Sufism strong pilgrimages to tombs of
  shaykhs
• Religious brotherhoods (turuq/tariqua sing)

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The Maghrib(Western North Africa)
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Sufism in Africa

• 18th c. Sufism became important in sub-Saharan
  Africa neo-Sufism
• led by shaykhs who linked Sufism to social
  concerns
• Most important turiqua to enter W. Africa was
  Qadiriyya (founded in 11th c. Baghdad) largest
  in Muslim world
• Leader Sidi al-Mukhtar al-Kunti manager of
  commercial enterprise as much as religious leader
• Other turiqua formed/ Sidis spread in W. Africa
  in 19th c.
• Sufi activity in commercial enclaves in northern
  area of Sudan
• Shaykhs political mobilisation, particularly in
  response to European expansion at end of 19th c.
• Sudanic Africasavannah lands stretching just
  below Sahara from Atlantic Ocean to Red Sea

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Jihad in Africa

• Shaykhs declared jihads against African rulers in
  W. Africa, esp. in the 19th c.
• E.g. Northern Nigeria early 19th c. Uthman dan
  Fodio (Fulbe) organised jihad in Sokoto spread
  all over northern Nigeria
• Led to the Sokoto Caliphate wars created
  thousands of captives, incorporated into
  households or used as slaves on plantations
• Resistance among infidels
• Increased membership in movement by designating
  certain ethnic groups as Muslim
• Womens participation e.g. Nana Asmau,
• Longterm impact of all the jihads was Muslim
  majorities in many of the regions of savanna

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Islam and Europeans 19th century

• European demand for resources encouraged
• rulers to increase or initiate empires in
  economically productive areas
• e.g. Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali
• merchants to increase slaveholdings
• e.g. Swahili and Omani merchants on E. African
  coast
• Under control of Europeans (in alliances)
• e.g. Omani sultan in Zanzibar
• Resistance
• Martyrs
• Shaykhs 1. guerrilla war 2. direct confrontation
  3. emigration

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Berlin Conference 1884-1885

• The Scramble for Africa
• or
• The Partition of Africa

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Berlin Conference

• Europe announced in no uncertain tone its
  arrival in Africa.
• advance of civilisation and the benevolent
  tutelage of barbarians (DuBois)
• They have come together to enact into law,
  national rapine, robbery and murder. (Theodore
  Holly, first black Protestant Episcopal Bishop
  African-American)
• We have artificial nations carved out at the
  Berlin Conference in 1884, and today we are
  struggling to build these nations into stable
  units of human societywe are in danger of
  becoming the most Balkanised continent of the
  world. (Julius Nyerere 1962)

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Berlin Conference Background

• The first international conference concerned with
  Africa
• Explorers had mapped out most of Africa from
  1850s on (Livingston, Stanley, etc)
• European nations already had colonies up and down
  the coast
• Africas size, resources, strategic importance
  meant that Africa was of great interest to
  European empires
• Gathering of 15 countries Germany,
  Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, USA,
  France, UK, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia,
  Sweden, Norway, Turkey
• France, Germany, Great Britain, and Portugal were
  the major players
• Second Scramble (Nyerere)

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Berlin Conference Aims

• End to European nations conflicts over African
  territory ground rules especially over Congo
• Need for overseas territories urgent cheap
  labour, raw materials, and new markets
• Bismarck expand German spheres of influence in
  Africa and play off Germany's colonial rivals
  against one another
• Modernisation of Africa purging of slave trade
  and alcohol trade
• Unrestricted spread of missionary activity in
  Congo

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Berlin Conference Results

• Free Congo State commerce, navigation
  neutral zone
• spheres of influence doctrine
• effective occupation doctrine
• 1885-1914
• Britain30 of population (Nigeria
  15m) France15
• Germany9 Belgium7
• Italy1

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Partition
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Partitioning

• At the continental scale the widespread use of
  physical features and astronomical lines largely
  de-humanised the boundaries of Africa.

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Partitioning the process

• Used
• 1. physical features
• 2. astronomical lines (lat. and long.)
• 3. other straight lines
• Sometimes astronomical lines gave way to physical
  features eg. Congo (Zaire) /Uganda/Sudan after
  Nile-Congo watershed found
• Rarely coincided with tribal boundaries
• every boundary cuts through at least one culture
  area e.g. Nigeria/Cameroon boundary cuts through
  14, Burkina Faso through 21

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Partitioning the process

• A few attempts to draw lines along traditional
  lines
• Rwanda/Tanganyika, 1922
• Some attention to local interests following
  boundaries based on treaties
• But treaties were only adhered to if in European
  interest
• Some attention to human geography
• Benin/Nigeria gave villages a 4km space around
  them, small towns8K

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Partition the legacy
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Partition the legacy

• The inherited political geography of Africa is
  as great an impediment to independent development
  as her colonially based economies and political
  structures.
• Weak boundaries throughout Africa not
  perpetual problems but are timebombs waiting for
  a change of political circumstance to ignite the
  fuseleading to military conflict.
• Political boundaries were drawn by Europeans,
  for Europeans, and apart from some localised
  detail, paid scant regard to Africa, let alone to
  Africans.

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Partition the legacy

• Obstacles to gaining complete independence
• Lumped together people of different ethnicities,
  sometimes ? secessionist movements and civil war
• Creation of long and narrow countries ?
  development concentrated on short sea coast
• Many countries too small to be economically
  viable
• Others too big for effective government
• 14 landlocked countries ? problems of access
• Colonial capitals on remote coasts remain

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Partition the legacy

• Exception
• Abuja
• Replaced Lagos as capital of Nigeria in 1976
• Political neutrality, national unity

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Partition the legacy

• Arbitrariness
• divides people subject to interpretation
  inconsistency creates uncertainty
• Scarce resources directed towards military
  because
• Boundary conflicts sometimes lead to war
• eg. Tanzania/Uganda Kagera Salient and Kagera
  Triangle

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Partition the legacy

• Retarded economic development
• border region is marginal geographically and also
  economically usually compounded by poor
  infrastructural development
• W. Africa modern transport usually within the
  nation-state, not across boundaries, and usually
  not even close
• W. Africa more than 90 of boundaries are more
  than 50 miles from a railway OR elongated shape
  of some countries means that even if within 50
  miles, cant access the railway

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Partition the legacy

• No change post-independence cost, vested
  interests, inertia
• Organisation of African Unity
• No boundary change has come from OAU action
  (apart from 1982 Swaziland/SA)
• inhibited a boundary change between Mali and
  Mauritania

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