The elusive access to education for Muslim women in Kenya from the late nineteenth century to the “Winds of Change” in Africa (1890s to 1960s)

Abstract

This article discusses the denial of access to education to Ismaili Muslim women in colonial Kenya during the 1890s and the 1960s. The Ismailis were part of the “Asians” in Africa, a working class, religious, Muslim immigrant group from India, circumscribed by poverty and a traditional culture, the orthodox elements of which, with regard to their women, did not resonate with the spirit of the Islamic faith. Most of their women came from an Indian Muslim culture in which their experiences ranged from a required submissive role for women that embodied a narrow interpretation of their faith, to political strife and racial segregation in Africa, to family destitution. Hence, these women’s lives were fraught with difficulties of dependency, subservience, and harsh struggles for basic subsistence needs. Historically, the women’s cause for equity has been a bitter struggle globally; the Ismaili women’s gendering experience was no exception in the late nineteenth century, which was detrimental to their development. This article chronicles the Ismaili women’s arduous journey through decades of political and socio‐cultural barriers that prevented them from accessing quality secular education, until their eventual participation through the consistent efforts and guidance of their Imams, the Aga Khans.

Keywords:

• Ismaili Muslim women
• poverty
• education
• development
• Aga Khans
• Kenya
• socio‐cultural conditions
• Islamic faith
• missionaries
• Christian schools
• colonialism
• indirect rule
• segregation

Notes

¹This distinction is important because of the schisms in Ismailis’ history rendering different splinter Ismaili groups, discussion of which is beyond the scope of this paper.

²This is a definition from the Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1983 ed., Oxford University Press, New York.

³Aga Khan IV, Zanzibar, 1997; Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Ideals and Realities of Islam (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966). According to Nasr there is only one Muslim people, no matter how scattered and far removed its members may be. Only the complete ummah comprises that circle which is Islam, and no segment of the Muslim community has a right to claim to be the ummah any more than a segment of a circle could claim circularity.

⁴That is, the Shahada or unity of God and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) as his last Messenger; Salah or prayer; Zakat or alms/religious tax; Hajj or pilgrimage; and Sawm or fasting.

⁵“Peace be upon him”. This respectful invocation, though used once, is intended throughout this discussion when the Prophet’s name is mentioned. However, its omission hereafter in no way implies any disrespect.

⁶Sunna – literally meaning the way of living and acting of the Prophet of Islam, which has become the traditional ideal according to which Muslims seek to mould their own lives, Nasr, ibid., 181.

⁷This legal methodology prescribes a resort to the Qur’an as the primary source of inspiration, coupled with the sunna, the tradition of the Prophet, followed by ijma, the consensus of the scholars, and qiyas which is analogical reasoning, in order to arrive at fiqh, or jurisprudence, to guide Muslims in their daily interactions.

⁸Valentine Moghadam, ed., Identity Politics and Women: Cultural Reassertions and Feminisms in International Perspective (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999); Marieme Helie‐Lucas, “The preferential symbol for Islamic identity: Women in Muslim Personal Laws,” in Identity Politics and Women: Cultural Reassertions and Feminisms in International Perspective, ed. Valentine Moghadam (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 391–407; Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).

⁹Aga Khan IV, Constitution of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims (London: Islamic Publications Limited, 1986); Farhad Daftary, A Short History of the Ismailis (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998); Aziz Esmail and Azim Nanji, “The Ismailis in History,” in Ismaili Contributions to Islamic Culture, ed. Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Tehran, Iran: Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1977), 225–65; Nasr, Ideals and Realities, 1966.

¹⁰Noel Coulson, A History of Islamic Law (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1964).

¹¹Amina Wadud‐Muhsin, Qur’an and Women (Kuala Lumpur: Fajar Bakti, 1992); Barbara Stowasser, Women in the Qur’an, Traditions and Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Nasr, Ideals and Realities, ibid.; Aga Khan III, The Memoirs of the Aga Khan (London: Cassell, 1954).

¹²The persuasion of Islam the Ismailis profess. There are other Shia Muslims who have had their own imams, discussion of which is beyond the scope of this paper.

¹³The Ismaili Imams of the Time during the period of this discussion were the two Aga Khans – Aga Khan III, Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan (1877–1957), and Aga Khan IV, His Highness Prince Karim al‐Hussaini Aga Khan (1957–present), who are the 48th and 49th hereditary Imams of the Shia Ismaili Muslims in direct lineal descent from the Prophet Muhammad, through his daughter, Fatima and her husband Ali, the first Imam.

¹⁴Daftary, A Short History, ibid.; Nasr, Ideals and Realities, ibid.; Aga Khan Development Network, “Ismaili Imamat – Shia Islam: Historical Origins,” http://www.akdn.org/about_imamat.asp (accessed August 16, 2009).

¹⁵This is substantiated in the Preamble to the Constitution of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims which explicitly states that, “The Imam’s teaching lights the follower’s path to spiritual enlightenment and vision; in temporal matters, the Imam guides the followers and motivates them to develop their potential,” Aga Khan IV, ibid.

¹⁶Daftary, A Short History, ibid.; Nasr, Ideal and Realities, ibid.; Aga Khan III, The Memoirs, ibid.

¹⁷Dharam Ghai, Portrait of a Minority: Asians in East Africa (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1965); George Delf, Asians in East Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1963); Agehananda Bharati, “A Social Survey,” in Portrait of a Minority, ed. Dharam Ghai (London: Oxford University Press, 1965).

¹⁸Rashida Keshavjee, “The Redefined Role of the Ismaili Muslim Woman Through Higher Education and the Professions” (doctoral thesis, OISE/University of Toronto, n.d.); Ghai, ibid.; Bharati, ibid.

¹⁹Debates on which are beyond the scope of this paper; however, gender inequities are implicit, and intersect all the barriers that the Ismaili women have had to face be they social, political, economic or cultural.

²⁰Haideh Moghissi, Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Postmodern Analysis (London: Zed Books, 1999); Mahnaz Afkhami, ed., Faith & Freedom (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995); Deniz Kandiyoti, “Reflections on the Politics of Gender in Muslim Societies: From Nairobi to Beijing,” in Faith & Freedom, ibid., 1995; Ahmed, ibid.; Joanna de Groot, “‘Sex and Race’: The Construction of Language and Image in the Nineteenth Century,” in Sexuality and Subordination, ed. Susan Mendus and Jane Rendall (New York: Routledge, 1989), 89–128; Fatima Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s rights in Islam, trans. Mary Jo Lakehead (Reading, MA: Addison‐Wesley, 1987); Rashida Keshavjee, “Educational Change in Kenya: The Impact of Secular Education on the Lives of Ismaili Women” (master’s thesis, McGill University, n.d.). Nawal El Saadawi, The Nawal El Saadawi Reader (London: Zed Books, 1979).

²¹Which elicited responses from various communities, including the Ismaili Muslims.

²²Andrew Cohen (Sir), British Policy in Changing Africa (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959).

²³Daniel A. Wagner, “Islamic Education: Traditional Pedagogy and contemporary aspects,” in International Encyclopedia of Education: Research and Studies, ed. Torsten Husen and T. Neville Postlethwaite (New York: Pergamon Press, 1985), 5.

²⁴Pierre Bourdieu, “Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction,” in Knowledge, Education and Social Change, ed. R. Brown (London: Tavistock, 1973); Dale F. Eickelman, “The Art of Memory: Islamic Education and its Social Reproduction,” Comparative Studies in Sociology and History 20 (1978): 485–516.

²⁵John Dewey, My Pedagogic Creed (New York: E.L. Kellog, 1897).

²⁶Elsa Abreu, The Role of Self‐help in the Development of Education in Kenya (Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau, 1982).

²⁷Qura’nic schools established in the Muslim world in the Middle Ages.

²⁸Dodge Bayard, Muslim Education in Medieval Times (Washington, DC: Middle East Institute, 1962).

²⁹Nabil Nofal, “Al‐Ghazali (AD 1058–1111; AH 450–505)” Prospects: The Quarterly Review of Comparative Education 23, nos. 3/4 (1993): 519–42. http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/ghazalie.pdf (accessed May 26, 2008); Daniel A. Wagner and Abdelhamid Lotfi, “Traditional Islamic Education in Morocco: Sociohistorical and Psychological Perspectives,” Comparative Education Review 2, no. 1 (1980): 238–51.

³⁰Fazlur Rahman, Islam (New York: Doubleday, 1968); M.E. Faheem, “Islamization of Education and Knowledge” (paper presented at the Comparative and International Education Society, 30^th Anniversary Meeting, Toronto, Canada, March, 1986). Byron Massialas and Samir Ahmad Jarrar, Education in the Arab World (New York: Praeger, 1983).

³¹Abreu, ibid.; Robert Makonde Mambo, “Challenges of Western Education in the Coast Province of Kenya, 1890–1963” (doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, n.d.); Philip G. Altbach and Gail P. Kelly, Education and Colonialism (New York: Longman, 1978).

³²Arnold J. Temu, British Protestant Missions (London: Longman, 1972); Roland Oliver and G. Matthew, eds, History of East Africa, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).

³³Rosalind W. Mutua, Development of Education in Kenya: Some Administrative Aspects, 1846–1963 (Nairobi: Easter African Literature Bureau, 1975); Oliver and Matthew, ibid.; Roland Oliver, The Missionary Factor in East Africa (London: Longmans, Green, 1952).

³⁴Mutua, ibid.; Oliver, ibid.

³⁵James R. Sheffield, Education in Kenya: An Historical Study (New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1973).

³⁶Daniel N. Sifuna, Short Essays on Education in Kenya (Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau, 1980); Oliver, ibid.

³⁷Abreu, ibid.; Sifuna, ibid.; Altbach and Kelly, ibid.

³⁸Sifuna, ibid., 5; Mutua, ibid.; Oliver, ibid.

³⁹Who had their own governance structures.

⁴⁰Such a structure helped mitigate administrative responsibility; retained economic monopoly in the hands of the English merchants who feared the rising economic activities of the Indians; and it appeased the South African settler community in Kenya, which operated according to its South African apartheid racist ideology.

⁴¹Abreu, ibid., 188.

⁴²Colonial appropriation of traditional African land and the demarcation of native reserves began between the years 1900 and 1902. The Master/Servant ordinance (based on the South African model) forcefully recruited labour on a contract basis. This ensured a fixed supply of labour, the breach of which resulted in penalty of imprisonment or payment in kind –Abreu, ibid.; Richard D. Heyman, Robert F. Lawson and Robert M. Stamp, Studies in Educational Change (Montreal: Holt, Rinehart & Winston of Canada, 1972); Bethwell A. Ogot and J. Allan Kieran, Zamani: A Survey of East African History (Nairobi: Longmans of Kenya, 1968). A steady supply of labour was virtually secured by 1918 when the Hut Tax and the Coffee Plantation Registration ordinance were both in place. The Coffee Plantation Registration ordinance required every grower to pay 30 shillings per year. From 1925 onwards, Africans were forbidden to grow coffee. Prior to the tax laws, the Africans worked on a barter system. The enactment of taxes meant participation in the cash economy through the only means left open to them – menial labour.

⁴³Who had served in the British colony of India.

⁴⁴Republic of Kenya, Kenya Education Commission Report – Part I, The Ominde Report (Nairobi: Government Printers, 1964).

⁴⁵Mutua, ibid., 131; Altbach and Kelly, ibid.; Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, Education Department Annual Report (Nairobi: East African Standard, 1925).

⁴⁶Sifuna, ibid.; Altbach and Kelly, ibid.

⁴⁷Altbach and Kelly, ibid.; N.A. Othieno‐Ochieng, Education and Culture Change in Kenya, 1844–1925 (Nairobi: Equatorial Publishers, 1965).

⁴⁸Ibid.

⁴⁹Altbach and Kelly, ibid., 15; Robert William Strayer, “The Making of Mission Schools in Kenya: A Microcosmic Perspective,” Comparative Education Review 17 (1973): 313–30.

⁵⁰Ghai, ibid.; Bharati, ibid.; Albach and Kelly, ibid.; Mawani, ibid.; Esmail, ibid.; Keshavjee, “Educational Change in Kenya,” ibid.

⁵¹Aziz Esmail, “Some Aspects of the History of the Ismailis in East Africa” (paper presented at the Historical Association of Kenya Annual Conference, Nairobi, 1972); Ghai, ibid; Bharati, ibid.

⁵²Zulfikar Mawani, “Problems of Early Ismaili Rural Schools in Kenya,” Africa Ismaili, 8 (1980): 46–54; Esmail, ibid; Keshavjee, “Educational Change in Kenya,” ibid.

⁵³Mawani, ibid.

⁵⁴Mawani, ibid.; Esmail, ibid.

⁵⁵Aga Khan III till 1957, and thereafter, Aga Khan IV.

⁵⁶Esmail, ibid.; Mawani, ibid.; Keshavjee, “Educational Change,” ibid.; East African High Commission, Report by the Fact Finding Mission to Study Muslim Education in East Africa (Nairobi: Government Printers, 1957).

⁵⁸Aga Khan III, Message to his community in Zanzibar on January 27, 1937.

⁵⁷Abreu, ibid.; Bharati, ibid.; Ghai, ibid.; Esmail Ibid.; Mawani, ibid.; Keshavjee, “Educational Change,” ibid.

⁵⁹Daniel N. Sifuna, “Some Factors Underlying Christian Missionary Educational Activities in Kenya 1844–1900” (paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Historical Association of Kenya, Nairobi, August, 1978).

⁶⁰East African High Commission, Report by the Fact Finding Mission to Study Muslim Education in East Africa (Nairobi: Government Printers, 1957), 2.

⁶¹Aga Khan III in his message to his followers in Mombasa on June 17, 1945.

⁶²Rashida Keshavjee, doctoral fieldwork interviews in 2000 with professional Ismaili women describing why their mothers did not pursue a secular education.

⁶³Ibid. – doctoral fieldwork interviews in which women expressed the fact that there were very few exceptions to this behaviour – some isolated cases, where the odd woman from a wealthy family would have a parent send her to university.

⁶⁴The Aga Khan III explicitly advised the women of the community to wear “colonial dress” and not Hollywood fashions.

⁶⁵Aga Khan IV in his message to his followers in Zanzibar in 1997; such messages were sent to the Ismaili followers steadily from the 1890s right up to the 1950s and beyond, and reiterated by the present Imam (Aga Khan IV) to his followers to the present day.

⁶⁸Aga Khan III, Message to the World of Islam (Karachi: Aga Khan Ismailia Association, 1953). However, education for women was a message for the women of his community all over the world, and is in keeping with the discussion of the relationship of the Ismaili Imam with his followers, and he repeated this advice to the women of larger Islam.

⁶⁶Aga Khan IV, Constitution of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims (London: Islamic Publications Limited, 1986).

⁶⁷Aga Khan III.

⁶⁹Ghai, ibid.; Bharati, ibid.; Keshavjee, “The Redefined Role,” ibid.

⁷⁰Ghai, ibid.; Mawani, ibid.; Esmail, ibid.; Keshavjee, “Educational Change in Kenya,” ibid.

⁷¹Ibid.

⁷²With external Cambridge Board Examinations for “O” and “A” level exams established with Cambridge University in England.

⁷³Mawani, ibid.; Esmail, ibid.; Keshavjee, “Educational Change in Kenya,” ibid.

⁷⁴Rashida Keshavjee, personal interview in 2002 with the first Ismaili woman student, among several male students, to receive an Aga Khan Scholarship to pursue her “A” levels, and a career in teaching in England.

⁷⁵Meaning community.

⁷⁶Aga Khan IV – Message to his followers in Bombay on November, 9 1967.

⁷⁷Keshavjee, “The Redefined Role,” ibid.