Zanzibari Muslim Moderns is a historical study of Zanzibar during the interwar years. This was a period marked by rapid intellectual and social change in the Muslim world, when ideas of Islamic progress and development were hotly debated. How did this process play out in Zanzibar? Based on a wide range of sources--Islamic and colonial, private and public--Anne K. Bang examines how these concepts were received and promoted on the island, arguing that a new ideal emerged in its intellectual arena: the Muslim modern. Tracing the influences that shaped the outlook of this new figure, Bang draws lines to Islamic modernists in the Middle East, to local Sufi teachings, and to the recently founded state of Saudi Arabia. She presents the activities of the Muslim modern in the colonial employment system, as a contributor to international debates, as an activist in the community, and more. She also explores the formation of numerous faith-based associations during this period, as well as the
Anne Bang focuses on the ways in which a particular Islamic brotherhood, or 'tariqa', the tariqa Alawiyya, spread, maintained and propagated their particular brand of the Islamic faith. Originating in
In the period c. 1880-1940, Sufism in East Africa was the vehicle both for conversion to Islam and for reform of Islamic practice. In this book, Sufi expansion is traced and situated within the wider
