Muslim Religious Leadership in Post-Colonial Mozambique

ABSTRACT

Based on archival and fieldwork research, this paper outlines in its first part the history of the formation of various types of Muslim religious leaderships during pre-colonial and colonial periods. Islam in Mozambique, especially in the northern part of the country, existed among Africans long before the arrival of the Portuguese in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was linked to the World of Swahili, i.e. the East African coast and the Comoros, from the time of its formation. However, European colonial expansion drove the immigration of Indian Muslims from the Portuguese territories of Gujarat, India and later from British East Africa. How the resulting social, ideological, and racial differences among this leadership have been reflected and played out in relation to the state, the competing Muslim religious groups, and the international Islamic organisations in the post-colonial Mozambique, is the focus of the second part of this article.

Keywords:

• Islam
• Mozambique
• politics