• 1  Both colonial and post-colonial literatures on Islam in Mozambique have tended to uphold monolithi (...)
• 2  See A. Bang, “Islamic Reform in East Africa, ca. 1870-1925: The Alawi Case”, Paper presented at th (...)
• 3  D.F. Eickelman & J. Piscatori, Muslim Politics, Princeton (NJ), Princeton University Press, 1996: (...)

1In contemporary Mozambique, as elsewhere, the conceptions of Islam are diverse. This diversity is often expressed by internal Muslim debate about the nature of Islamic authority and the definition of “orthodoxy”, in particular with regard to religious rituals. Individual Muslims acknowledge those people as holding a legitimate Islamic authority whose claims and views are perceived to be in line with an Islamic “orthodoxy”1 “Orthodoxy”, i.e. perceived “truthfulness” and “correctness” of doctrine and rituals, however, is in “the eyes of beholder”2, and in Mozambique, as elsewhere, it is not something clearly established but rather a point of contention between different groups, each of whom claims authority over its definitions. Islam in Mozambique is centred on the politics of ‘sacred authority’ involving “competition and contest over interpretation of the symbols and the control of the institutions”3.

• 4  The religious controversies exposed, however, especially those involving Sufi versus Islamist divi (...)
• 5  The boundaries between these groups appear sometimes to be fuzzy, especially in the case of “Afric (...)

2This paper focuses on the diversity of the conceptions of Islam among African Sunni Muslims4, and is based on fieldwork in Angoche, Mozambique Island and Maputo city, as well as on archival and various other primary and secondary sources. During fieldwork, roughly three groups could be discerned, each representing a particular conception of Islam. First one included people following regional historical Swahili conception of Islam; second group consisted of the members of Shadhiliyya Yashrutiyya and Qadiriyya Sufi Orders (t/dikiri in local vernacular; Ar., sing., tariqa, and pl. turuq); and the third group was comprised of ‘modernist’ Islamists, also known as the Wahhabi5.

• 6  R. Launay, Beyond the Stream: Islam and Society in a West African Town, Berkeley, University of Ca (...)

3Similar to Robert Launay’s approach to the Koko community of Côte d’Ivoire6, this paper focuses on how different conceptions of Islam emerged and confronted one another within specific historical contexts. The paper addresses changes with respect to religious authority and ritual following the appearance of each of the conceptions, when Muslims set upon redefining what constituted locally the centre and the margin of Islam. As Rosander points out,

• 8  R. Launay, Beyond the Stream..., op. cit.

4But the old conceptions and rituals were not eliminated completely despite attempts to marginalize them. In fact, they have persisted up today, each representing a layer of changes, transformations and confrontation in Mozambican Muslim history. As with Launay, this essay does not intend to write a historical account in conventional chronological order, but rather explores “the themes of change and of confrontation between different conceptions of Islam”8.

• 9  J.G. Prestholdt, “As Artistry Permits and Custom May Ordain: The Social Fabric of Material Consump (...)
• 10  R.L. Pouwels, Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam in East African Coast, 800- (...)
• 11  See, L.J.K. Bonate, “Matriliny, Islam and Gender in Northern Mozambique”, Journal of Religion in A (...)

5On their arrival in the 16th century, the Portuguese noted that northern and central Mozambican coastal regions shared Swahili identity and culture with their neigbours to the north and were firmly established within Swahili economic networks9. Islam thus was conceived along regional Swahili tradition, which incorporated African coastal culture and the influences of the Western Indian Ocean regions, such as of Hadramawt. They were constructed in ways as to maintain the legitimacy of the Swahili clans over the coastal territory against possible encroachments of the foreigners. For instance, to Arab claims over Islamic authority and “orthodoxy”, coastal Africans juxtaposed their own Arab and Persian descent of the Shirazi10. In contrast to other Swahili following patrilineal descent, however, the Shirazis in Mozambique retained matriliny11.

• 12  N.J. Hafkin, “Trade, Society and Politics in Northern Mozambique, 1853-1910”, Ph.D. thesis, Boston (...)

6On the other hand, the Shirazi identities were also constructed in opposition to Africans of the hinterland portrayed as pagans and uncivilized people of the bush. The Shirazis believed that they had exclusive claims over Islamic identity and authority, and that the coastal soil itself was blessed by Islamic faith and Muslim ancestors12.

• 13  M. Newitt, “The Early History of the Sultanate of Angoche”, Journal of African History (Cambridge, (...)
• 14  F. Elton, Travels and Researches among the Lakes and Mountains of Eastern and Central Africa, Edit (...)
• 15  E.C. Lupi, Angoche…, op. cit.: 121-128, 173; P.M. Amorim, Relatório…, op. cit.: 55; N.J. Hafkin, “ (...)

7Local oral traditions maintain that when the Portuguese occupied in the sixteenth century important Swahili towns of Quelimane, Sofala and Mozambique Island, among others, many Shirazis had abandoned the old settlements and founded new ones along the coast, which remained independent from the Portuguese until the beginning of the 20th century. These settlements were then incorporated into the sphere of influence of Angoche Sultanate, the only important Swahili enclave that escaped Portuguese ravages13. Angoche also took over the traditional Swahili trade and established political and economic dominance among the Swahili settlements14. However, the continuous migration towards the coast of the Marundi and the Zimba or Marave, followed by the Mpamella and Marrevoni, and finally, the Nguni expansions forced the coastal people to reassess their attitudes toward the mainlanders15. The migrants approached the seashore at the time when the international slave trade reached its height at the second half of the nineteenth-century. Both the advent of the new-comers and the slave trade precipitated a significant expansion of Islam into the mainland.

• 16  In 1815, the Vienna Treaty between Portugal and Great Britain on the gradual abolition of slave tr (...)
• 17  E.C. Lupi, Angoche..., op. cit.: 174, 182-198; E.C. Lupi, Escola de Mousinho. Episódios de Serviço (...)
• 18  J. de Azevedo Coutinho, Memórias de um velho marinheiro e soldado de África, Lisbon, Livraria Bert (...)
• 19  J. d’Almeida Cunha, Estudo..., op. cit.: 43, 46; E.C. Lupi, Angoche..., op. cit.: 70, 106, 178-179 (...)

8The growing demand for slaves had offered an exceptional and relatively quick chance to accrue wealth for ports such as Angoche, whose chances increased considerably due to the European anti -slave trade abolitionist movement16. By the mid-nineteenth century, some of the Shirazi ruling elite of Angoche, the Anhapakho clan, took steps to seize the opportunity of capturing and selling slaves themselves under the leadership of Musa Mohammad Sahib Quanto (d. 1879)17. They decided to bring the mainland under the aegis of Angoche. Musa pursued successful military operations, as well as built up a web of allies through kinship relations with important mainland chiefs that facilitated peaceful passage of caravans from the interior to the coast18. The web of these paramount chiefs and their subordinates made up the bulk of slave raiders, who established the limits between themselves (the Maca, Muslims and “civilized”) and those to be enslaved (the Makhwa and Lomwe, derogatory terms, meaning savagery, i.e., “non-Muslims” and “uncivilized”), and their respective territories19.

• 20  According to Portuguese sources, Musa had traveled and learned extensively during his teens while (...)
• 21  E.C. Lupi, Angoche…, op. cit.: 129, 134; P.M. Amorim, Relatório…, op. cit.: 22-23; A Manual of Por (...)

9Musa Quanto’s own upbringing and religious outlook might have added some strength for the spread of Islam, because apparently he had a solid Islamic education and knowledge through his association with a zealously religious sharif uncle and his travels around the most important Islamic centres of the East African coast20. However, Musa’s main objective was to gain control over the slave trade by creating networks throughout the region, and his projects impacted on the “ethnic” and territorial transformations already underway21.

• 22  E.C. Lupi, Angoche…, op. cit.: 129; F. Elton, Travels…, op. cit.: 216.
• 23  E.J. de Vilhena, Companhia..., op. cit.: 56; J. d’Almeida Cunha, Estudo..., op. cit.: 47; F. A. da (...)

10Nevertheless, Musa’s conquests fundamentally altered local perceptions of Islamic identity, because they allowed mainland Africans to adopt Islam too. The mainlanders were given an option of conversion in order to escape enslavement. As a result, Islam was not anymore associated only with the coastal Shirazi Swahili clans, but became an inclusive and broader faith of all Muslims identified as Maca. However, the Islamic authority remained attached to ruling elites, such as Shirazis at the coast and the chiefs of the mainland, whose power and legitimacy rested above all on the premise that they were the lords of the lands (the muyini/mwene/monhé) and Muslim rulers, the washehe (Sw., pl., sing., shehe, from Ar. shaykh)22. Because the mainland chiefs remained the lords of the lands with matrilineal heritage, the conversion to Islam did not alter matrilineal ideology among them23.

• 24  R.L. Pouwels, Horn and Crescent…, op. cit.: 95.
• 25  Neves, Informações..., op. cit.: 13-18; P.M. Amorim, Relatório..., op. cit.: 94-95, 98, 101-102; M (...)
• 26  J.M. de Albuquerque, A Campanha contra os Namarrais. Relatórios, Lisbon, Imprensa Nacional, 1897: (...)
• 27  Neves, Informações..., op. cit.: 14-15; P.M. Amorim, Relatório..., op. cit.: 94-102; M. Branquinho(...)

11Nevertheless, Islam continued to be conceived in line with the regional Swahili tradition. For example, because of the link between the chiefly lineage and the spiritual world of land and ancestors, Islam became, as Randall L. Pouwelss puts it, a “walimu style of Islam”24. This meant that on the conversion to Islam, the healers (mkulukwana) of the mainland chiefs turned into mwalimo in the fashion of the Swahili at the coast. They continued to fulfill functions of the mkulukwana, such as of the guardians of spiritual and ritual knowledge, and experts in local genealogical histories and physical environment, whose main purpose was to deal with the spiritual world and provide for protection and prosperity of the people and the land25. But the mwalimo also gained access to the one derived from the kitabu (“the book” in local vernacular, i.e., the Qur’an) in addition to the old local African magic26. With these changes, Islam strengthened the power and authority of the chiefs, because not only it opened the gates to the wealth derived from the slave trade, but also introduced new type of mighty magic derived from the Qur’an27.

• 28  J. d’Almeida Cunha, Estudo..., op. cit.: 48; E.A. Alpers, “Towards a History...”, op. cit.: 185, 1 (...)
• 29  Neves, Informações, op. cit.: 10, 11, 13-14; P.M. Amorim, Relatório..., op. cit.: 113, 125.
• 30 J. de Azevedo Coutinho, Memórias..., op. cit.: 67; Neves, Informações..., op. cit.: 17.
• 31  J. d’Almeida Cunha, Estudo..., op. cit.: 48; D. Grove, “O Macua. África Oriental Portuguesa”, Bole (...)

12Besides functions of the mkulukwana, associated with the chiefly authority, the mwalimo also served as clerks and scribes for local rulers, and as accountants in commercial dealings, especially while accompanying trade caravans28. The Portuguese conquerors reported that the mwalimo led mosque prayers, and rituals related to farming and Islamic calendar dates as well as life cycle ceremonies such as birth, marriage, and death29. The mwalimo was also responsible for Islamic education30. By the second half of the nineteenth century, literacy in Arabic was widespread among the chiefly elites and even women, who were corresponding with each other in Swahili or in local languages using Arabic script31.

• 32  Neves, Informações..., op. cit.: 10; F. Elton, Travels..., op. cit.: 297; J. d’Almeida Cunha, Estu (...)
• 33  E.C. Lupi, Angoche..., op. cit.: 106-107, mentions the abundance of dance societies both at the co (...)

13According to Portuguese sources, all Muslim religious rituals were accompanied by collective dancing, feasting and drumming. It was also common to beat and dance drums and feast on funerals, and if a deceased was a chief, then the feast also took place on the third, eighth or tenth, and the fortieth day after funeral32. Because of the importance of dancing and drumming in local Muslim life, numerous dance societies existed both at the coast and the mainland33. One of the ‘dance societies’ was the Rifa’iyya Sufi Order, which is called in Mozambique Molidi, Mawlid, or Mawlid Naquira (from Emakhwa, “the dancing mawlid”), as well as Mawlid Rifa’i.

• 34  In 1901, J. and M. Lazarus had depicted in a photo album a group of the Mafalala Muslim men dresse (...)
• 35 Hafkin and Mbwiliza hypothesizing about the pre-eminence of the Qadiriyya and the Shadhiliyya Sufi (...)
• 36  ? J.S. Trimingham, Islam in East Africa, Oxford Clarenton Press, 1964: 101; A. Nimtz Jr., Islam an (...)
• 37  J. de Azevedo Coutinho, Memórias..., op. cit.: 67.
• 38  A. Enes, “De Lisboa a Moçambique”, Serões, (Lisbon, Administração e Officinas), 1902, 2, chap. VII (...)
• 39  E.C. Lupi, Angoche..., op. cit.: 108. Interviews with Hasan Bashir, the ruling Nhapakho, May 14, 2 (...)

14Very little is known about the Rifa’iyya in Mozambique34. Nancy J. Hafkin, Frederic Mbwiliza and Edwards A. Alpers do not mention it. Local Muslims during fieldwork indicated that the Rifa’iyya had existed before the arrival of the Shadhiliyya and the Qadiriyya35. In the Comoro and Zanzibar, the Rifa’iyya had also preceded the advent of the Shadhiliyya and the Qadiriyya36. As the northern Mozambique had close ties with these regions, we can assume that the Rifa’iyya had expanded to Mozambique at approximately the same period as in these regions. In 1887, João de Azevedo Coutinho had witnessed a drumming festival near Fernão Velozo or Mogincual, which was performed during “special occasions of the lunar calendar” (i.e., most likely the mawlid)37. His description matches a Rifa’i dhikr. Later, António Enes, who was in Mozambique in 1891-92 and 1895, recounted the Rifa’i dhikr performed for him in Mossuril, which he called “drumming dance with knifes”, referring to the use of dabbus (Ar., needle) in the Rifa’i dhikr38. Although Eduardo do Couto Lupi did not find any evidence attesting to the existence of the Rifa’i ‘dance’in Angoche, fieldwork informants believed that Rifa’iyya came first to Angoche and expanded from there to the rest of Mozambique39.

• 40  A. Nimtz Jr., Ibid.
• 41  J.K. Bonate, “The Ascendance of Angoche...”, op. cit.: 130.

15August Nimtz Jr points out that by the second half of the nineteenth century, the Rifa’iyya was present not only on the coast but also in the mainland of Tanzania40. In Mozambique it seems that the Rifa’iyya dhikr was practiced by Muslim chiefs, involved in long distance slave trading networks, as well as by the sepoys (slave armies) under their command organized into caravans41.

• 42  S. Trimingham, Islam in…, op. cit.: 101; A. Nimtz Jr., Islam and Politics..., op. cit.: 62.
• 43  E.E. Rosander, “Introduction: The Islamization…”, op. cit.: 19; the importance of mawlid was confi (...)
• 44  The Mozambican Tufo is derived from Swahili Dufu, associated with is a large diameter frame drum, (...)
• 45  J.S. Trimingham, Islam in…, op. cit.: 92, 101; C.C. Kim, “Supernaturalism…”, op. cit.: 88-89, 90-n (...)

16An interesting feature of the Rifa’iyya in Mozambique is that it is called Mawlid (Molidi) which also demonstrates how close northern Mozambique was to other Swahili societies in terms of culture, because for example, the Rifa’iyya in Zanzibar, is called maulidi ya hom42. Currently, the mawlid ceremony in Mozambique is known as “the Brazanji”, which is associated with the Shadhiliyya Yashrutiyya and the Qadiriyya Sufi Orders. Probably prior to the arrival of these two Orders, the mawlid celebration was dominated by the flamboyant and noisy dhikr of the Rifa’iyya, and for that reason it retained the name of mawlid. If it was the case, then the Rifa’iyya dhikr had probably once constituted the mawlid, “the centre” of Islam in Mozambique, in Eva E. Rosander’s terms, because mawlid ceremonies were and still are central to the lives of Muslims in northern Mozambique43. The ritual dances related to mawlid were probably also the precursors of the modern day Tufo dance, which Lutero and Pereira maintain was performed during the celebrations of the mawlid44. Mozambican ‘Tufo’ performance resembles somehow the molidi ya hom of Zanzibar45.

• 46  Especially, following the 1884-85 Berlin Conference and 1890 Salisbury proposal on the creation of (...)
• 47  M. Branquinho, “Relatório...”, op. cit.: 352-353, 358; A.P. de Carvalho, “Notas para a história da (...)
• 48  M. Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam: Religion and Society in the Modern Arab World, New York, Pantheon (...)

17Up to the early twentieth century, the attempts to consolidate the Portuguese sovereignty in this region were futile. At the turn of the century, the Portuguese conducted systematic and well-organized operations of “effective occupation” of its African territories due to the pressure and threat from the British and Germans46. This caused a general socio-political and economic crisis in northern Mozambique, in particular among Swahili and Muslim chiefs, who saw not only the end of their economic prosperity derived primarily from slave trade, but also a complete loss of their political independence after Portuguese military conquests and the imposition of the colonial administrative and political systems. The crisis caused a rupture of the previously existing structures and created a sense of personal and collective uncertainties. It was into this environment that the Shadhiliyya and the Qadiriyya Sufi Orders had arrived in 1896 and 1905 respectively47. Thus, in Mozambique, as elsewhere, the crisis of power aggravated by economic and social crisis impacted on the emergence of charisma and of the new Sufi Orders48.

• 49  J.S. Trimingham, Islam in…, op. cit.: 98; B.G. Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods in Nineteenth Century A (...)
• 50  M. Branquinho, “Relatório…”, op. cit.: 358; A.P. de Carvalho, “Notas para…”, op. cit.: 61.
• 51  M. Branquinho, “Relatório…”, op. cit.: 353-54; B.G. Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods…, op. cit.: 157-15 (...)

18These Sufi Orders were brought to Mozambique Island following traditional Swahili links, at approximately the same time as in other parts of the East African coast and practically by the same people. First came ShadhiliyyaYashrutiyya in 1897 when Sayyid Muhammad Ma’rouf bin Shaykh Ahmad ibn Abu Bakr (1853-1905) of the Comoro Islands, the founder of the Order in East Africa, visited Mozambique Island49. The Qadiriyya was reportedly brought also first to Mozambique Island in 1905 by a certain shaykh ‘Isa bin Ahmad, originally from the Comoros who lived most of his life in Zanzibar50. It is possible that this ‘Isa bin Ahmad and the one mentioned by B. G. Martin and Nimtz are the same person, namely ‘Isa bin Ahmad al-Ngaziji (also, al-Msujini), who was a khalifa (Ar., sing., deputy, delegate; pl., khulafah) of shaykh ‘Umar Uways bin Muhammad al-Barawi (1847-1909), the leader of the Qadiriyya in East Africa51.

• 52  A. Lobato, “Ilha de Moçambique: Noticia Histórica”, Arquivo, (Maputo, Arquivo Histórico de Moçambi (...)

19The Orders first arrived at Mozambique Island probably because the rest of northern Mozambique continued to resist Portuguese colonialism at least until 1918, and thus remained politically unstable. Although the whole of the contemporary Mozambican territory was under the colonial pressure, Mozambique Island was undergoing particularly hard times. It had been in decline since the mid-nineteenth century because it was impeded by the abolitionists to partake in the international slave trade. Its situation aggravated further when it ceased its role as a colonial capital in 1896, when the Portuguese settlement of Lourenço Marques in the south was proclaimed a capital of Mozambique. At the same time, the Island stopped benefiting from the international trade because Portuguese colonial economic interests were redirected towards South African networks52. On top of all that, Portuguese administration had moved out from the Island and the control of the settling of the mainlanders was no longer restricted.

• 53  M. Branquinho, “Relatório…”, op. cit.: 353-358; A.P. de Carvalho, “Notas para…”, op. cit.: 61-63.

20At the end of the nineteenth century, Swahili conceptions of Islam with regard religious authority remained unchallenged. When the Shadhiliyya Yashrutiyya came to the Island in 1897, its first converts were local Swahili and Muslim chiefs of Mossuril, Angoche and Mozambique Island, occupying the position of the chief khalifa (sajada khadima) of the Order in their respective territories. Thus, the Order’s khalifa-ship came to foment the religious authority of Muslim chiefs further. On the departure of shaykh Ma’arouf, however, supreme leadership of the Order was hotly disputed by local khulafah and a new-comer to the Island, ‘Amir bin Jimba of Comoros53. Sayyid Ma’arouf’s brother, ‘Ali and other Comorian khulafah were dispatched to Mozambique Island to settle the disputes, but ‘Amur bin Jimba was accepted as the chief khalifa of the Order only after residing on the Islands for approximately ten years, marrying into local Swahili family of the Comorian/Hadrami descent and bearing four offspring. In general, the leadership of the Yashrutiyya remained in the hands of the Muslim chiefly elites until 1936.

• 54  I am using here the pre-colonial Portuguese term “Moors”, applied to Muslims in general, but speci (...)
• 55  Interview with Shaykh Abdurrahman Amuri bin Jimba, Mozambique Island, November 2, 1999.

21This was not the case with the Qadiriyya, which though arrived along the traditional Swahili routes and links, in fact had its first converts among the “Moors” of the Cabaceira Pequena (the mainland of Mozambique Island)54. According to Shaykh Abdurrahman ‘Amuri, the only surviving son of ‘Amur bin Jimba at the time of fieldwork, when Shaykh ‘Isa came to the Island in 1905, he was informed about the existence of the Yashrutiyya, but ‘Amur bin Jimba was performing hajj55. Shaykh ‘Isa did not launch the Qadiriyya on the Island at once but decided to wait for ‘Amur bin Jimba’s return out of respect. Instead he traveled to Cabaceira Pequena, where he initiated the Order’s first adepts, who turned out to be mostly “Moors”. This fact had paved the way for the ensuing competition over the leadership of the Order between “Moors” and African Muslim chiefly clans.

• 56  A. Bang, “Islamic Reform…”, op. cit.: 18-20, 28-29, 32.
• 57  M. Branquinho, “Relatório...”, op. cit.: 354; Shaykh Ba Hasan is listed in Zanzibar among the impo (...)
• 58  M. Branquinho, “Relatório...”, op. cit.: 356.

23Despite that the first converts of the new Orders were Muslim chiefs, Sufi doctrinal conception of authority clashed with the old Islamic authority linked to the chiefly power of the lords of lands associated with matriliny. The Orders established the authority of learning, centred on written Islamic sources and written ijaza (Ar., a document that situates the Order within a chain of transmission, silsila/isnad, proving the authenticity of the Order and legitimacy of its khalifas), which posed serious challenges to the old conception of Islam56. The search and obtaining of a stronger, and therefore, more legitimate silsila from the ‘centres’ of Islam abroad became one of the means to overcome rivalry and competition over authority. One of the important examples with this regard is the reversion of the Qadiriyya leadership from the “Moors” to the local chiefly clans, in particular to Sayyid Abahasan Abdurrahman, a descendant of the Swahili rulers of the Sancul Shaykhdom in Mossuril, whose father was a Comorian Hadrami sharif. He became the Qadiri chief khalifa upon the death of Momade Arune in 1929. In order to contravene the “Moorish” claims to the Order’s leadership, Sayyid Abahasan obtained a silsila from Sayyid ‘Umar ibn al-Qullatain of Zanzibar, the leader of the Qadiriyya in East Africa at that time. The silsila was read at a ziyara gathering at the Central mosque of the Mozambique Island57. Though Sayyid Abahasan was accepted as the chief khalifa of the Qadiriyya, his visit to Cabaceira Pequena in the following year (1930) stirred up such a controversy among Muslims that the Portuguese had to dispatch a military regiment and arrested twenty six people, while more than a hundred were called for depositions during the following trial58.

• 59  B.B. João, Abdul Kamal e a História de Chiúre nos séculos xix e xx: um estudo sobre as chefaturas (...)

24Among African Muslims themselves, the contest between the old conceptions of Islamic authority and Sufi doctrine continued. As a consequence, many Muslims from prominent families came to see chiefly and Islamic authorities to be incompatible and opted to renounce the Orders’ khalifa-ship on taking up the position of a lineage chief. Such was the case, for example, of Abdul Kamal Megama59.

• 60  In Mozambique, the reforms were not specifically against the daff/dufu, but against the use of dru (...)
• 61  Interviews with Shaykh Muhammad Sandique, November 1, 1999, Shaykh Shaban Muzé, November 2, 1999, (...)

25Sufi Orders brought new religious books and new qasaid (pl., from Ar., qasida, devotional poetry), the Brazanji collection, all in Arabic, and the madrassas that focused on actual reading and memorizing the Qur’an had multiplied. Dhikr (locally d/tikiri), ziyara and the Brazanji mawlid became central religious rituals replacing the old mawlid accompanied by drumming and dancing. Sufis in Mozambique, similar to other parts of the Swahili world waged a “dufu war”60. Most of the new Orders’ efforts seem to have been directed against the Rifa’iyya and other ritual dances accompanied by drums. As a consequence of the new Orders’ claims, both the Rifa’iyya and the Tufo became relegated to the realm of non-respectable, thus marginal in Rosander’s terms. They were not eliminated completely but became a refuge for former slaves and newcomer mainlanders who through these practices could affirm their Islamic identities and secure their masters’ patronage61.

• 62  P.M. Amorim, Relatório..., op. cit.: 142.
• 63  Neves, Informações..., op. cit.: 13.
• 64  P.M. Amorim, Relatório..., op. cit.: 142.

26 One of the long-standing debates that originated at this time was dispute over the “correct” performance of Islamic funeral rites. This debate was an extension of the “dufu war”, becase drumming during funeral was a common practice before the arrival of the new Sufi Orders62. For example, one of the Portuguese colonial officials named Neves mentions that the Shirazi of Angoche at the end of the nineteenth century had great drumming feasts called maffufuni on the fortieth day after the death of the Sultan63. With the arrival of the Orders, the funeral drumming was replaced by the performance of dhikr/tiquiri64.

• 65  A. Thorold, “Metamorphoses of the Yao Muslims”, in L. Brenner, ed., Muslim Identities and Social C (...)
• 66  E.A. Alpers “East Central Africa...”, op. cit.: 313.
• 67  F.A. Monteiro, “Sobre a Actuação da corrente ‘Wahhabita’ no Islão Moçambicano: algumas notas relat (...)
• 68  E.A. Alpers, “East Central Africa...”, op. cit.: 303-327.

27 The funeral dispute was called sukuti vs dikiri (from Ar. sukut, silent, and dhikr, the Sufi chanting) in Mozambique Island and among the Yao and, sukuti vs nashidi in Angoche (from Ar., nashid, clapping hands, being active, or in motion). Alan Thorold points out that the sukuti/sikiri debate was taking place in the Jalasi chiefdom of the Yao in Nyassa region as early as 193765. This dispute was so strong that in 1949 the British colonial government invited Sharif Abdul Hasan b. Ahmed Jamali Laili, a respected scholar from Zanzibar, to arbitrate66. He held meetings attended by thousands of Mangoshi Yao, but was unable to make them to resolve their differences. Disagreements among Muslims in northern Mozambique were also very acute and required the intervention of the various regional ‘ulama, holding the position of a mufti (Ar., an Islamic jurisconsult). In one instance, in 1968, Shaykh Momade Sayde Mujabo of Mozambique Island issued a fatwa determining that the funerals should be celebrated “in a normal voice” as opposed to either shouting or silence67. In another case, in 1972, the Portuguese brought Sayyid Omar b. Abu Bakr b. Sumait al-Alawi, the most important Islamic authority of the Comoros at the time, the former the qadi of Zanzibar, whose fatwa favoured the t/dikiri68.

• 69  Administração do Concelho de Lourenço Marques, “Respostas ao questionário a que se refere a nota n (...)

28First Islamists became known as the Deobandis, when in 1951 Muhammad Cassimo Mahomed Tayob, a “Moor” from southern Mozambique returned after completing his studies in Dar ul-Ulum Seminary in Deoband, India69. Overwhelimingly the Deobandis were Dar ul-Ulum graduates, but their influence was felt only in southern Mozambique and they did not engage in direct confrontations with either Swahili or Sufi leaders in northern Mozambique. The Deobandis did not have nation-wide claims for authority and power as the following generations of the Islamists, such as the Wahhabis, had.

• 70  Administração do Concelho de Lourenço Marques, “Resposta ao questionário a que se refere a nota n° (...)
• 71  F.A. Monteiro, “Sobre a actuação...”, op. cit.: 91-95, 104-105; F.A. Monteiro, O Islão, o poder... (...)

29The Wahhabi group began emerging from 1960, when Momad Yussuf, a grandson of the prominent Qadiriyya Sadat khalifa at Mozambique Island, Haji Ahmad Haji Yussufo, returned from his studies in Mecca70. In 1964, he joined another recent Saudi graduate, Abdulbacar Musa Ismael “Mangira”, who completed a course at the Shari’a Department of the Medina University71. Abubacar “Mangira” became an organizing and motivating force for the Deobandi and Saudi graduates, who challenged the old Islamic establishment of northern Mozambique.

• 72  L. Brenner, “Muslim Representation of Unity and Difference in the African Discourse”, Introduction (...)
• 73  E.E. Rosander, “Introduction: The Islamization…”, op. cit.: 4-12; D.F. Eickelman & J. Piscatori, M (...)

30What makes Islamism radically different from other conceptions of Islam is in the first place their doctrinal outlook. As elsewhere, Islamism in Mozambique is marked by puritanical scripturalism and tendencies to rationalize religious practices72. Islamists, conceive of Islam as an ideology, a total way of life, and demand a literal interpretation of the Islamic sources (the Qur’an and the Hadith) and ubiquitous application of the Shari’a (Islamic legal principles), besides denouncing a “blind” imitation of the Western lifestyles by Muslims73. Their primary targets in Mozambique, as elsewhere, have been Sufi Orders, with whom they associate such activities as saint veneration and tomb visitation, spirit-possession cults, Islamic medicines and magic, and celebrations of the Prophets’ birthday (mawlid), all categorized as jahiliyya (Ar., ignorance), shirk (Ar., polytheism) and bid’a (Ar., abominable religious innovation).

• 74  F.A. Monteiro, “Sobre a actuação...”, op. cit.

31The conflict between Sufi Muslims and the Wahhabis soon escalated into direct confrontations. Following the visit of two eminent Sufi shaykhs from Mozambique Island, Sayyid Mujabo and Sayyid Bakr to Anuaril Islamo mosque in Lourenço Marques, Muslims complained to Portuguese provincial government against Abubacar “Mangira” on December 10, 197174. He had ridiculed the two influential Sufi shaykhs in front of 800-people strong congregation, calling them “ignorants” and proponents of bid’a.

• 75  F.A. Monteiro, « As comunidades islâmicas de Moçambique : mecanismos de comunicação », Africana (P (...)
• 76  F.A. Monteiro, “Sobre a actuação,” op. cit.: 89- 94; F.A. Monteiro, O Islão, o poder..., op. cit.:(...)
• 77  F.A. Monteiro, “Sobre a actuação”, op. cit.: 89, 90.

32Finally, in August 15, 1971, Sayyid Bakr, the leader of the most widespread tariqa, Qadiriyya Sadat, declared to the Portuguese that he was fed up with the emotional climate in which Muslims were living in due to the controversies surrounding notions of bid’a75. He threatened to take action against the Wahhabis, or otherwise orchestrate a simultaneous violent uprising in three Districts of northern Mozambique. The Portuguese took him very seriously, and forced to face a choice between Sufis, consisting mostly of northern Mozambican African leadership and the southern “Moor” Wahhabis, they chose to support Sufis. As the independence war was already underway in northern Mozambique, and Portuguese Secret Services identified Sufi Orders and Sufi shaykhs as holding a significant authority and power in northern Mozambique, they saw this to be the best choice possible76. The Portuguese were determined to coopt northern Sufi leadership politically and gain its alliance against the liberation movements. They considered Wahhabis as upholding a globalist and universalist view of Islam with pan-Islamic solidarity, and thus difficult to compromise by an European rule77.

• 78  Ibid.: 93.
• 79  Ibid.: 93-95.
• 80  F.A. Monteiro, O Islão, o poder..., op. cit.: 411.

33But “Mangira” sought a recognition and collaboration from the colonial state. He contrasted himself with the “ignorantC Sufis and portrayed himself as well-trained, more modern and therefore better suited to be a nation-wide Islamic authority associated with the Portuguese rule. He suggested to the Portuguese to organize a “round- table” with Sufi shaykhs, in which once and for all it could be logically and manifestly proved who was wrong and who was right78. As Monteiro points out, “Mangira” “insinuated that the leaders of the turuq were incompetent”, and were not “prepared or capacitated to make just and correct decisions in the field of Islamic religion”79. To “correct” this alleged situation and knowing that the Portuguese were thinking of sponsoring the Qur’anic education in Portuguese, he suggested opening a “new Islamic college for girls and boys in separate blocks,” where Portuguese language and Islamic doctrine in Arabic would be taught”80. But to no avail. During the last years of colonialism the Portuguese showed public support to Sufis as opposed to the Islamists, such as Abubacar “Mangira”. Despite this seemingly apparent collaboration with the colonial rule, Muslim chiefs and Sufi shaykhs in northern Mozambique played important roles in the liberation movements and the war for the independence.

• 81  Letter by Dr. M. I. Momoniat, Muslim World League to the President of Mozambique, Mr. Samora Mache (...)
• 82  É. Morier-Genoud, “L’islam au Mozambique...”, op. cit.: 132-33.

34Mozambique gained its independence in 1975 under the leadership of the Frelimo, which was secularist and redefining itself as a Marxist-Leninist political party by 1977. A short period of religious persecutions and banning of the ‘traditional structures’ followed. However, after two meetings with delegations of the Muslim World League (Rabitat al-Alami al-Islamiyya with headquarter in Saudi Arabia), in 1980 and 1981, the Frelimo reconsidered its positions towards Muslims and decided to create a national Muslim organization81. The Islamic Council was established without the participation of the northerners, in a meeting between the government and a group of Maputo imams in January 1981, who elected Abubacar Ismael “Mangira” as the co-coordinator of the Council, later its first national Secretary82.

• 83 Syntheses of the meeting with the Islamic Congress of Mozambique, Maputo, September 9, 1984, DAR.
• 84  Ibid.

35The government’s acceptance of “Mangira” as a head of a national Islamic organization created a sense of unease among Sufis and ‘African traditionalist’ Muslims, who saw it as denial of their Islamic identity by the government. The northern Mozambican Muslims felt that Frelimo unduly ignored their long-standing Islamic tradition and their sheer numerical advantage over the southern Muslim, when choosing a head of a national Islamic organization. The northerners also viewed unenthusiastically an appointment of a “Moor” for the highest post. However, in 1982, the President Samora Machel recommended confessional groups to be organized into national organizations. With this official permission, Muslims discordant with Islamists created their own national organization in 1983, called the Islamic Congress83. Most of the pre-colonial associations and confraternities, including Sufi Orders, became affiliated to the Congress84.

• 85  Letter from Abubacar “Mangira” dated May 31, 1986, DAR.
• 86  Ref N° 356/DAR/MJ/83, DAR.
• 87  Report N° 03/84, dated May 16, 1984, DAR.

36 The Islamic Council denounced confraternities and associations as incompatible with the spirit of Islam, linking them to the colonial power and ‘traditional authority’85. It opted to operate through local mosques and Provincial and District delegations86. By 1984, the Council established delegations and sub-delegations in almost all of Nampula province, including Mozambique Island, Angoche, Nampula City, Nacala, Memba, Mogincuale, Netia, Monapo and Morrupula87.

• 88 Refs. 123/SG/84; 142/SG/86; 522/DAR/MJ/1985; 80/SG/1985; 66/SG/1986, DAR.

37 The Council also established relationships with Africa Muslims Agency of Kuwait, Jamiyya al-Da’wa al-Islamiyya of Lybia, and al-Merkaz of the Sudan, Islamic Development Bank, and received scholarships to the universities of Al-Azhar and Madina, as well as of the Sudan, Libya and Algeria88. In particular, religious training at the universities abroad, to which Mozambicans gained access through international Islamic NGOs, has augmented the ranks of the Islamists. Ironically, even when the Congress members accessed scholarships through the World Muslim League or the Africa Muslims Agency, both of which tried to maintain equal relationships with the Congress and the Council, the graduates came back as Islamists and frequently joined the Council instead of the Congress on their return.

• 89  Interviews with Shaykh Mamade Abdallah, May 11, 2000; Shaykh Mussa Ibrahimo Siraj, May 13, 2000; S (...)

40When a crisis within the Islamic Council erupted in 1998 in northern Mozambique, it reflected these perceptions as well as divergent political orientations of the Council’s northern members and its southern “Moor” leaders. Twenty four younger affiliates abandoned the organization and created an alternative one called Ansar al-Sunna or Ahl al-Sunna89. The schism allegedly resulted from racial discrimination of the Council’s leadership towards Africans, because as stated above, Shaykh Abubacr “Mangira” and Shaykh Aminuddin Mohamad Ibrahimo were of mixed-race Indian-African descent, corresponding to the historical group of “Moors” in the north. The new generation of Islamists was mostly comprised of Africans, who felt that despite having a sound religious training from Islamic universities abroad, they were allowed to occupy only subordinate and inferior positions both within the structures of the Council itself and in the institutions it controlled, such as mosques and madrassas. Among other reasons for their withdrawal from the Islamic Council was the Council leaders’ alleged closeness to the Frelimo, which was viewed negatively in Nampula Province, where the following of the opposition party, the Renamo is quite strong, especially in Muslim regions.

• 90  É. Morier-Genoud, “The 1996 ‘Muslim Holidays’ Affair: Religious Competition and State Mediation in (...)

41 This crisis also ensued after the older generation Islamists’ failed to legitimize important Muslim holidays. In their desperate attempt to gain wider popular legitimacy among Muslims, the older Council leadership helped Muslim parliamentarians to stage up the 1996 “Muslim Holidays’ Affair” which proposed a law turning two Muslim festive dates, Id ul-Fitr (the end of the Ramadan) and Id al-Adha (the end of Hajj and of ritual sacrifice, the qurban), into public holidays90. This prompted a strong reaction from some Christians, though Christmas is a national holiday despite that it has a secular name, a Family Day, a mere façade for religious celebrations. Nevertheless, some opposition parties and jurists insisted that the proposal infringed upon the secular character of the Mozambican state and constitution. In March 1996, the majority of deputies at the Assembly voted in favor of the proposed law. When, after almost a year of debates, the Supreme Council declared it unconstitutional, this became a watershed for the decline of the old Council leadership’s authority both in the eyes of the ordinary Muslims and of the Frelimo party.

• 91 Mohamad, Shaykh Aminuddin, Os Pilares da Fé, Maputo, Conselho Islâmico de Mozambique, 1991.
• 92  See, L.J.K. Bonate, “Dispute over Islamic Funeral Rites in Mozambique: A Demolidora dos Prazeres b (...)

43One of the older generation Islamists, also of African-Indian descent and a graduate of the Medina University, Shaykh Aminuddin Mohamad Ibrahimo, took over the presidency of the Islamic Council as well as of the Mozambican ‘Ulama Council (Conselho dos Alimos de Moçambique, created in 1988) on the death of “Mangira” in 2000. Shaykh Aminuddin Mohamad holds a considerable authority despite objections from the north because of his warm, conciliatory and apparent politically aloof personality, and also because he has delegated powers to the younger African Islamists within the Islamic Council. But most importantly, because as a true ‘alim and unlike the majority of Muslim leaders in Mozambique, he writes books and articles on Islam. Through his writings it is possible to establish his views on religious authority and ritual in Mozambique. In his 1991 brochure entitled Os Pilares da Fé (“The Pillars of the Faith”), Shaykh Aminuddin91 refers to Sufis as munafique (Ar., hypocrites, p. 28-30), and from page 17 to 36 he criticizes various Sufi and African “traditional” Islamic practices, including mawlid (p. 34-36) characterizing it as shirk (Ar., polytheism, p. 23-27), kufr (Ar., unbelievers, p. 28-31), and bid’a (p. 32-36). In another book, published in 1993, called A Demolidora dos Prazeres (“The Demolisher of the Pleasures”, referring to death), the Shaykh dedicates a whole chapter to what he calls the “traditional” ziyyara (p. 209-46), besides pages on the ziyyara al-qubr (p. 141-165)92. He points out that asking for the intercession from the deceased is shirk, while having feasts near the tombs is bid’a (p. 142-43). With regard the sukuti/dikiri dispute, he maintains that “reciting loudly [thus, performing dhikr] on funerals is bid’a” (p. 101, 246). In other passages, Shaykh Aminuddin criticizes belief in magical powers of the Qur’an (p. 102) and stresses that the purpose of the Qur’an is rather rational and practical (p. 246). He also condemns in strong words the Swahili ritual of katama or khitima (Ar., Khatm al-Qur’an, “the sealing or closure of the Qur’an”), still a widespread practice in Mozambique, and points out that every Muslim should strive to read Qur’an on his own (p. 209-10, 220-24).

• 93  DAR, Offício n° 014.CUM/DAR/89.

44Fieldwork informants revealed that in the late 1980s, the clashes between Islamists and Sufi or ‘Swahili’-oriented Muslims sometimes became violent to such an extent that local mosques were divided between belligerent groups. Also, people avoided praying in the mosques of the opposing groups or going to their funerals. Some such cases were recorded by the Archives of the Department for Religious Affairs (DAR) of the Ministry of Justice. For example, in April 18, 1989, a Muslim association called Confraria Islâmica da Matola, complained to DAR about Idrisse Juma who was performing additional prayers at the mosque following usual prayers by the imam93. This was a Sufi ritual. Confronted by Shaykh Abubacar “Mangira”, Idrisse Juma explained that he had books (Sw., vitabu, pl. sing., kitabu) proving that this ritual was religiously ‘orthodox’ and legitimate. When the confrontations became heated, Idrisse pointed out that he would not recognize the superiority of “Mangira’s” religious authority because he himself was an ‘alim.

• 94  DAR, Letter from the President of the Associação Afro-Maometana, dated May 31, 1987, exposing what (...)

45In another case, imam of the Associação Afro-Maometana mosque in Maputo, Cassamo Capatia and the mosque congregation got involved in mutual battering and some were arrested by the police94. Capatia declared his unwillingness to take part in mawlid ceremonies on the Islamic calendar, stating that mawlid was not as obligatory as five daily prayers. He alleged that five daily prayers and other basic pillars of the Islamic faith were being ignored by the congregation who did not dare to miss a mawlid.