What’s New About Muslim Ismaili Transnationalism? Comparing Business Practices in British East Africa, Colonial Mozambique and Contemporary Angola (original) (raw)

Continuity and Innovation in Ismaili Transnational Business Culture

2017

UID/ANT/04038/2013Through a comparison between transnational business practices of Ismaili Muslim settled in the British and Portuguese colonial territories of East Africa and in contemporary Angola, we aim to discuss the impact of colonial experiences in the reconfiguration of postcolonial migrant entrepreneurial cultures. Articulating several guiding empirical questions, we will attempt to show that the continuing centrality in the (politico-economic, relational, and cultural) logic of the particular nation-state in which Ismaili business activities are embedded, the notion of a disadvantageous network closure, concomitant with the importance of face-to-face contacts, the mutual trust and understanding sustained through personal relations, and the tendency for national loyalty to prevail over religious belonging (whenever any potential conflict between the two exists) constitute crucial dimensions of an accumulated tacit knowledge (functional, behavioural, identitarian) which is s...

The African Roots and Transnational Nature of Islam

Journal of Islamic Studies and Culture, 2015

Most works dealing with Islam and Africa trace the roots of their connection to the first Hijra when two groups totaling more than 100 Muslims fled persecution in Mecca and arrived in the Kingdom of Axiom (modern-day Ethiopia) in 614 and 615 AD, respectively. A few works would begin with the story of Bilal ibn Rabah or Bilal al-Habashi, the former enslaved Ethiopian born in Mecca during the late 6 th Century (sometime between 578 and 583 AD) and chosen by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as the first Muezzin (High Priest, or Caller of the Faithful to prayer) of the Islamic faith. More recent sources would add the fact that the African/Black Saudi Arabian Sheikh Adil Kalbani is now the Imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca. This chronology misses the African roots of Islam: i.e. the story of the Egyptian Hagar or Hājar (in Arabic), the second wife of Abraham or Ibrahim (in Arabic). It also misses the fact that Luqman The Wise, who wrote the 31 st Sura of the Qur'an, was an African. Today, Islam is practiced everywhere and has emerged as the fastest growing din (meaning in Arabic "way of life," as Islam is more than just a religion) in the world. The African flavor to Islamic practices is evident in the Americas, the Caribbean, and many European countries with significant concentrations of African Muslims. Using Transnational Theory, this paper analyzes the challenges African-centered Muslims face in these majority-Christian states in terms of the concept of the sovereign state and the difficulties that this poses. Thus, the following aspects are examined: (a) defining new Africancentered Muslim actors, (b) modes of change African-centered Muslims encounter, (c) factors impacting success of African-centered Muslims, and (d) challenges for the role of the state in dealing with African-centered Muslims. Before doing all this, however, it makes sense to begin with a brief discussion of Transnational Theory, with its attendant concept transnationalism, and Africancentrism for the theoretical grounding of this essay. As I state in my essay titled "A Time Series Analysis of the African Growth and Opportunity Act: Testing the Efficacy of Transnationalism" (Bangura, 2009), transnationalism is defined as the heightened interconnectivity between people around the world and the loosening of boundaries between countries. The concept of transnationalism is credited to Randolph Bourne, an early 20 th Century writer, who used it to describe a new way of thinking about intercultural relationships. Scholars of transnationalism seek to show how the flow of people, ideas, and goods between regions has increased the relevance of globalization. They argue that it makes no sense to link specific nation state boundaries with, for instance, migratory labor forces, transnational corporations, international

The Making of a Diasporic Muslim Family in East Africa

Diversity and Daily Life, 2014

ABSTRACT Gujaratis are renowned for their mobility and it is therefore not surprising that they enjoy a ubiquitous presence in the global Indian diaspora. The setting up of British and German administrations in eastern Africa during the late 19th century led to increased migration from Gujarat. Those migrating included both Hindus from various caste groups and Muslims belonging to different religious communities. Among the Muslims, individuals belonging to the Khoja Ismaili community had a prominent role in trade even before the setting up of British administration on the mainland. This book chapter examines how trade, community, and empire provided the channels for social and economic mobility in the case of a Khoja family that migrated to eastern Africa from Kathiawad (Gujarat) in the late 19th century. Based partly upon biographical and autobiographical accounts, this family narrative mirrors the engagement of the Khoja community with modernity in the context of colonial and post-colonial eastern Africa. [Published in Robin Jeffrey and Ronojoy Sen (eds) 2014. 'Being Muslim in South Asia. Diversity and Daily Life'. New Delhi: Oxford University Press]

Introduction: Islam and Muslim Life in West Africa – Practices, Trajectories and Influences

De Gruyter eBooks, 2022

Islam has become one of the main themes of research in African studies in the last two decades. In academic engagement with West Africa, in particular, only a few topics have attracted more interest and contributions. Consequently, the literature has grown diverse, multidisciplinary and engaging, while examining topics such as pietism, gender relations, authority, activism and, increasingly, violence and security. On the ground, Islam is highly visible in the media and at the centre of public life because of so-called jihadi attacks on state institutions, widespread religious entrepreneurship, the emergence of new authoritative figures and a dynamic challenge to traditional power structures that shape the experiences of being Muslim. What can we learn from these developments? What dynamics do they draw attention to? What new and local research perspectives are they inspiring? What do these perspectives add? This volume is informed by these questions and adds to a history of academic engagement with Islam in West Africa. Inspired by a locally framed agenda, it offers the floor to scholars from the region, providing them with visibility and urging them to elaborate on their insights. As the initiators of major political entities (e.g. Ghana, Mali, Macina, Songhay, Sokoto), Muslim communities in West Africa have been shaped by their encounters with European imperialism, which organized their lands into possessions, protectorates, territories and then colonies. Imperialism was a process of social subjugation that led to the establishment of the modern state: an institution that subordinated political logic to its regulatory power. Prior to European imperialism, however, Muslim traders and scholars developed ties and connections across and beyond West Africa, illustrating the fact that Muslims have regularly engaged in educational networks, economic exchanges and cooperation beyond the confines of their polities. While historic ties with the Maghreb, Egypt and the Hijaz contributed to the making of Muslim West Africa, connections with modern

Review of Johnson, Michelle C. Remaking Islam in African Portugal: Lisbon -Mecca - Bissau.

H-Luso-Africa, H-Net Reviews, 2021

Commissioned by Philip J. Havik (Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical (IHMT)) Since the last decades of the twentieth century, studies on diasporas, migration, and identities on the move have steadily grown in the humanities, focusing on modern globalization and technological enhancements in communication and transports. In African studies, many researchers have discussed identity ruptures, continuities, and cultural reconstructions in transoceanic settings. In the disciplinary field of history, debates on this subject have facilitated a better understanding of the historicity of culture, showing how historical, geographical, and social circumstances need to be addressed on a case-by-case basis. Such an approach unearths how African cultures retain their core elements within the diasporas and how circumstantial needs have contributed to reinventions in personal and collective ways of life. Perspectives on the exclusivity of cultural continuities or ruptures have created a platform for comprehending the extent to which diasporic cultures are contradictory.[1] The historicity of cultures of peoples in contact zones is a theme that has also garnered anthropologists' attention. Regarding migration and

Africa and the African Diaspora: New Directions of Study

The Journal of African History, 2003

RECENT studies addressing the ‘African diaspora’ have sought to provide global context for the experience of people of African descent. The two books under review – each a major contribution to studies of the African diaspora – provide an opportunity to take stock of the emerging genre of historical and cultural studies of which they are a part. The perspective of the African diaspora has the advantage of locating movements and connections of Africans around the world, and in so doing has the power to inform and sometimes surprise. From such a perspective, for instance, Alberto da Costa e Silva notes that during the 1860s a French bookseller in Rio de Janeiro sold a hundred copies of the Qur'an each year, mainly as clandestine sales to slaves and ex-slaves. This evidence confirms the continuing significance of Islam in Brazil, and raises the possibility that the religious practice was sustained through continuing contacts with West Africa. Over a century later, novelist Alice Wa...

Maintaining Network Boundaries: Islamic Law and Commerce from Sahara to Guinea Shores

One of the intriguing questions concerning the trans-Atlantic slave trade was why theWest African interior did not supply more slaves to the slave trade than it did when, theoretically, the region had the capacity to fulfil the entire new world demand for enslaved labour. There have been numerous explanations put forth to explain this paradox. Using specific case studies, we argue that the combination of the policies ofMuslim governments, Islamic commercial law and the workings of commercial diasporas limited the trade in enslaved individuals from the interior to the coast.