Rural Islamism during the ‘war on Terror’: a Tanzanian Case Study

In the Tanzanian country town of Rwangwa, a bitter confrontation has developed between Sufi Muslims and Islamist reformers. The Islamists draw on Middle Eastern inspiration, but the conflict arises equally from local, regional and national context, and is cultural as well as religious and political. Situated in an economically and educationally disadvantaged region, access to land and trade forms the focus of conflicts between the young (Islamists) and the older (Sufis). Islamists criticize the closeness of Sufis to government, which they accuse of discrimination against Muslims. The main objects of debate, though, are ritual and scripture. The Islamists reject Sufi burial rites and appeal to their superior knowledge of the Quran to justify their stance, reinforcing and profiting from the on-going transition from orality to literacy. While mainstream Muslim observers condemn the Islamists’ aggressive posturing and opposition to authority, they accept their claim to superior learning and to possession of an Islamic alternative to western notions of progress. THIS ARTICLE ANALYSES a conflict between traditionalist Sufi Muslims and anti-Sufi Islamists, which I encountered during field work in a southern Tanzanian country town called Rwangwa.1 It is a case study of a striking feature of Islamist movements: their ability to combine a fairly unchanging and consciously universalist message, presented in nearidentical form in sites as diverse as Egypt and Nigeria, with very specific local concerns. Islamists in Rwangwa expounded typical Islamist views, e.g. on returning to ‘original’ Islam as lived by the Prophet, and the importance of women’s modesty. Yet, in other regards, their stances were improvised, eclectic and dependent on local, regional and national The author is assistant professor of African History at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver ([email protected]). The research that produced this article was undertaken while working as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. For moral and practical support during this period, thanks are due to John Iliffe and Bence Nanay. 1. The controversy over Sufism in Africa has been much written about. See especially Eva Rosander and David Westerlund (eds), African Islam and Islam in Africa: Encounters between Sufis and Islamists (Hurst and Co., London, 1997). In the present case, the wholesale rejection of Sufism was less of an issue than that of specific practices that had Sufi roots. The Sufis can be called ‘traditionalist’ inasmuch as they appeal to the example of earlier generations to justify these practices.