The Impact of India and South Africa on the Development of Islam in Southern Africa
Felix J. Phiri
Tangaza University College (Nairobi)
In the world map of the Muslim world, the region covering Southern African is strikingly void of the Islamic green colour. Notwithstanding the relative numerical inferiority of the Muslim population in the region, Islam has proved to be as increasingly dynamic as elsewhere in the world in terms of Islamic infrastructures, social engagement and religious vitality.
Looking at how Islam was introduce in most parts of the region – initially by Arab Coastal Traders, aided by indigenous trade-partner tribes such as the Yao from around Lake Malawi, and later by Asian Muslims mostly from Gujarat in India and from Indonesia, gaining some local converts over the years – local Asian communities have come to play a determinant role in the development of Islam in the region. Although the Arab Muslim Middle-East generally exerts the greatest influence on the contemporary issues related to Islam – political Islam, militant Islam, patronage of worldwide da‘wah, etc. – a critical scrutiny of the development of Islam in Southern Africa within the past few decades, interestingly reveals the unique role played by the Asian communities, particularly the Indians. What could be the underlying factors underpinning the singular contribution of the Indian community to the Islamic resurgence in Southern Africa? Could this be an indirect expression of the economic growth of India, one of the BRICS countries?
Within the regional context, the Muslim community of South Africa, another member of the BRICS, seems to have made giant steps not only in terms of the consolidation of the Islamic imprint on South Africa, but has also become a regional reference for the training of Islamic scholars, the media, elaboration of Islamic institutions, etc. Here too, the Asian community, particularly Indians, seems to be in the forefront.
This paper would like to argue that rather than it being the economic status of the cited states to have had the said influence on the development of Islam in the Southern part of Africa, it is the mercantile nature of the Asians of the region which has found coincidence with the trade aspect of Islam that has in fact contributed so singularly to the said Islamic resurgence in the region. This affirmation follows the line of thought of Jean Ensminger’s conversion theory expounded in his article entitled, “Transaction cost and Islam; explaining conversion in Africa” in which he argues that: “the economic issues in the African context explain many of the cases of conversion or lack of conversion, the timing of conversion, and the tendency for specific groups or classes of people within society to convert.”[1] The theory has the interest of not only investing the phenomenon of religious conversion per se but also brings into play the economic factor, thus opening up various avenues of the exploration of possible explanations of the development of Islam in Southern Africa.
The economic prowess of the Indians of Southern Africa would be exceptional if their country of origin remained underdeveloped. The economic growth that has rendered India a member of the BRICS has some fallouts not only for the Indians within the Subcontinent but for those in the diaspora. Transposed into the realm of Islam, the dynamism of mercantile Indian communities in diaspora immediately becomes a formidable catalyst, capable not only of conjugating various local opportunities but also tapping into transnational economic and Islamic networks, astutely blending Islamic da‘wah with organizational skills.
The Indian intervention and contribution to the development of Islam in Southern Africa has been mostly on the level of structural elaboration in terms of institutions as well as on the level of Islamic social engagement, thereby rendering Islam attractive and relevant to modern society.
To substantiate the claims made above, the study will be focused firstly on the Muslim Indian communities of Zambia, demonstrating how most of the recent Islamic developments in the country evolve around the mercantile Indian community which has succeeded in establishing ties even with Arab countries in the endeavour to promote the Islamic cause. The second focus will be on South Africa where the Asian community in general and the Indian community in particular have also distinguished themselves in projecting Islam into the higher spheres of post-apartheid South Africa. Here too, it is the South African economic standing in the region that has buttressed the Islamic institutional and structural ‘sophistication’.
The envisaged conclusion is that the economic prosperity of India and South Africa have incidentally contributed to the development of Islam in Southern Africa through the Asian local community which in itself is economically dynamic and reflects the link between trade and Islamic development.
[1] Jean Ensminger, “Transaction cost and Islam; explaining conversion in Africa,” in Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Vol. 153/1 (1997), p. 4.
