Muslim Encounters With the Colonial State: The Making of ÔQadis and not Quite QadisÕ in Colonial Nairobi Ca. 1945

Abstract

This essay examines the bureaucratization and institutionalization of qadis in colonial Nairobi from two view points. First, that qadis, their authority, position, social status, the exactness of their jurisdiction, the metamorphosis and evolution of the courts was influenced by the peculiarities of colonial history. Second, its discourse was produced through a prism of social, ethnic and racialized ideological structures in the community of its existence. Qadis were ulama who appropriated moral authority to settle disputes, reconcile parties, and institute religious morality. The ideal prerequisites for qualifying for qadiship appears to be knowledge (ilm), but an appointment in which the population was involved came to be based on the candidates meeting various categories of reputations regardless of scholarly or legal training. This interplay of social historical chronology of the appointment of Onot quite qadiO and the establishment of qadi courts in Nairobi is brought forth through a review of demands for their institutionalization and the ensuing conflicting interest involving a cross section of Muslims of Nairobi. The essay points to the difficulties encountered resulting from colonial practice aimed at consolidating the authority of local Muslim interlocutors of power, the significance of such officials in colonial schemes of controlling the populations, and its contradictions with the demands of an already existing ethno-Islamic ethos. While the essay is situated on the activities of colonial Kenya it equally points to the dilemma faced by the post colonial state in attempts to consolidate gains of independence through improvisation with religiously defined legal and court structures.