Introduction

This chapter is organised along the same lines as the chapters on Senegal/ Mali and Nigeria/Niger: following a presentation of the historical context of the development of Islamic reform, I focus on the trajectory of Sufioriented reform, before delving into the evolution of Salafi-oriented reform. Like Senegal, Mali, Niger, Chad and Ethiopia, post-colonial Tanganiyka (Tanzania, after the union with Zanzibar in 1964) established state control over Islamic activities after independence. This policy misfired, however, and was challenged in the early 1980s by oppositional Islamic associations. At the same time, these associations had to come to terms with the growth of evangelical churches. The confrontation between Muslim associations and Pentecostal churches has informed (mainland) Tanzania's public sphere to a considerable extent since the 1980s, comparable only to the situation in northern Nigeria, although conflict in Tanzania has so far been mostly nonviolent. Finally, I will compare the development of Salafi-oriented reform in (mainland) Tanzania with Kenya, where Muslims had to respond to similar colonial and post-colonial challenges.

In contrast to West Africa, Islam expanded into the East African interior fairly late, essentially in the nineteenth century in the context of the commercial expansion of the Sultanate of Zanzibar. This spread of Islam continued under colonial rule. Muslim scholars acquired considerable influence in societies that had come into contact with Islam only recently. The influence of religious scholars, in particular those of the Sufi orders, in Swahili society became manifest in the context of the so-called ‘Arab uprising’ of 1888–9, and in the Maji-Maji rebellion of 1905. In the context of these movements of resistance against German colonial rule, the trader and scholar networks of the Sufi orders, in particular the Qādiriyya that had won great influence among traders, served to link the rebel groups. After the repression of the Maji-Maji rising, a wave of conversion to Islam started in the areas affected by it, stimulated by the religious scholars of the Sufi orders and their networks.