A Cloud of Semitic Mohammedanism

Abstract

This essay explores anti-Islamic sentiment in black Africa, specifically in the period of decolonization and national independence. The primary rhetorical strategy of the anti-Islamism in question was to couple Islam as a religion with the ‘Arab race’ for the purpose of portraying the religion as a foreign and colonial one. While there was conflict and antagonism between Muslim and non-Muslim Africans prior to European colonialism, these civilizational conflicts were retooled as racial categories and conflicts, a development that reflected the impact of European colonialism and its epistemologies. In response, many African novelists have used fiction as an instrument to revisit and explore Islam's presence in black Africa, to revalidate its formative and historical importance, and to observe its autonomy from any race or ethnicity.