The aim of the panel is to study various issues relating to the colonial administration of Africa and the relationship between this and the religious autochthonous elite and other local elite groups: in particular, the way in which African structures were integrated into the European administrations and the changing interaction between external and local powers.
The aim of the panel is to study various issues relating to the colonial administration of Africa and the relationship between this and the religious autochthonous elite and other local elite groups. The period under consideration embraces the entire duration of colonialism, from the Scramble to independence. The subject comes within the field of history. The relationship between the European administration and local elites changes according to the specific circumstances of each given case and the historical moment in time, in particular there is a notable change in the degree of collaboration and resistance.
Colonial/political domination meant economic exploitation, but historians and anthropologists have increasingly underlined the effects of administrative action as one of the main causes of social transformation in colonized countries. While the role played by local elites in transferring European systems of knowledge and power changes according to the periods, in general colonial powers made extensive use of indigenous authorities in local administration. Religious elites are of particular importance in analysing the history of institutional transplant and culture contact between Europe and Africa. They in fact acted as mediators of new values and practices; they also helped to preserve or reconfigure traditional collective representations.
A study of the way religious structures were integrated into the modern administration helps to identify the ambiguities between principles, forms and realities of colonial organisation. The mediation operated by Muslim Orders reveals, more than in the case of other indigenous institutions, the gap that existed in colonial action between official features and actual political practices.
Given the vast scope of the subject, additional papers other than the three below are welcome, based on other case studies (of countries) but also from other conceptual (and theoretical) points of view.
The British Colonial Office had an ambivalent attitude toward Islam in West Africa and colonial policy changed dramatically during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Also, there were substantially different conditions with respect to the organisation, extent and power of Muslim communities in the three territories. Muslim leaders responded to and adapted to the imposition of colonial administration in a variety of ways, and, in turn, British policy evolved to meet the challenge of Islam in a process of attempting to increase the efficiency of administration. The overall result of this process was the strengthening of Islamic institutions and Muslim leadership by the time of political independence.
During the First World War German officials made the attempt to assure the loyalty of the African soldiers, who were predominantly Muslims, by issuing a decree of a Holy War against the Allied forces. Although this step was owed to the needs of war, it can be described as a logical consequence of Germany’s colonial politics towards its Muslim intermediaries. The paper therefore, depicts also the prewar time.
The citizenship laws passed in 1915-16 confirmed the coexistence of two legal systems in the Communes. Colonial government pursued a double strategy in the Senegalese urban areas, based on one hand on an instrumental extension of the administrative boundaries of the Communes; and on the other, on an attempt to improve the collaboration of the emergent charismatic religious leaders.
Colonial conquest and colonization involved the use of armies, armaments, strategies, resources, administrators; enacting laws, supervising and executing them. This paper would demonstrate that the colonial conquest and administration of Kano (1903-1960) was made practicably possible by the support and cooperation of the Emirs, District and Village Heads amongst others.
This paper focuses on Italian ‘practice’ towards Islam in Eritrea between 1885 and the 1900s. The Italian conquest of the territory that would become the colony of Eritrea required a swift and prompt strategy for establishing authority over Muslim societies inhabiting the region. Following the success of the Mahdist revolt in the Sudan, these societies were increasingly caught in between pro- and anti-Mahdist loyalties. The paper explores the ways by which Italian colonial officials responded to this challenge by developing a relationship with the anti-Mahdist Khatmiyya Sufi order to the detriment of the ‘Ad Shaykh holy family who was believed to take an active pro-Mahdist stance. Italian officials developed a rhetoric that perceived the Khatmiyya as representing a more ‘authentic,’ ‘genuine’ and therefore ‘legitimate’ form of Islam. In contrast, officials denigrated and discredited the spiritual and political legitimacy of the ‘Ad Shaykh and developed policies that undermined their authority.
The coming of colonialism brought a new element to bear in the complex network of relationships among the different strands of Somali Islam. The paper intends to analyse the links between European administration and policy on the one hand and Muslim confraternity and hierarchy on the other, during colonisation and decolonisation, particularly in the context of the Italian Trusteeship (1950-1960).
In XIX and XX centuries, sultans, trader-warlords, brotherhoods, and Anglo-Egyptian authorities have opposed each other and, at the same time, made reciprocal use of each other in their quest to wield power in Darfur. Meanwhile, the internal and regional situation increasingly changed with the growing influence of European imperialism and the conflicting ideological viewpoints prevalent in the XX century. The history of Darfur has been one characterised by war, not only because of internal struggles but also as a result of external intervention.
The kadhis' navigation between their roles of upholders of Islamic traditions and norms within their society on the one hand, and representatives of the colonial government - thereby enforcing rules contrary to their religion - on the other, informed the evolution of their ambiguous relationships with the colonial administration as well as their fellow Zanzibaris up to the revolution in 1964. Through the Islamic courts, which represent a(n informal) traditional as well as colonial institution, this paper will look into the differing as well as changing roles of the kadhis as mediators and filters between the colonial government and the Zanzibari population.