Islam and Politics in Kenya

Abstract

Arye Oded. Islam and Politics in Kenya. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000. ix + 236 pp. Map. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $49.95. Cloth. According to Arye Oded, Kenya's five million Muslims constitute a key minority group in a Christian country. Oded examines the global complexities that have contributed to the emergence of militant Islam in in the 1990s, against the backdrop of an historical overview of the role of Islam in contemporary Kenyan politics and society and the influence of the Arab countries and Iran on the geopolitical role of Kenya's Muslim community. The Muslim minority, constituting 20 percent of Kenya's population, is concentrated in economically and strategically crucial regions (such as Mombasa, Nairobi, Kisumu, and Nakuru) and receives economic and moral support from the Arab-Muslim world. However, significant religious and political cleavages among the Muslim communities weaken their political position in Kenya. The historical division between black African Muslims and Muslims of Arab origin presents a major obstacle to united action; indeed, coastal and Somali Muslims have agitated to from independent Kenya (174). Despite these ethnic and racial divisions, Kenyan Muslims often unite when they feel their religion is denigrated by the local Christians or foreigners. Oded's book contains fifteen core chapters and a brief conclusion detailing historical and political factors that have led to the formation of the contemporary Muslim minority in Kenya. The historical details illuminate how the Arab community on the coast of East Africa, from Somalia to Mozambique, came into being before the advent of Islam. While the interaction between the local Arabs and the Bantu-speaking Africans gave birth to the Swahili language, the trade routes became the means through which Islam was disseminated, with the Muslim craftsmen who found employment in the trade centers contributing to the diffusion of Islam throughout East Africa. Islam's ability to adapt to the local customs was an important factor in the Islamization of groups such as the Baganda of Uganda. Oded argues that Islam lost its ascendancy in when the coastal strip was annexed to the protectorate of by Great Britain. Once Nairobi became the capital of Kenya's colonial government, the coastal Muslims found it difficult to retain their religious and political superiority. After independence, the postcolonial state launched rigorous campaigns against the Muslim Somali tribes in Northeastern Province, which had attempted to secede from and join Somalia. …