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"We swallow the sweet and spit out the bitter,” explained the head teacher of Zanzibar’s largest Islamic school, speaking of his time at the Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia. His school had been founded within an Indian Ocean Sufi order, whose communal prayer and veneration of ancestors paralleled East African cultural practices. In Medina, he and other scholarship recipients learn that such practices make one a polytheist and apostate from Islam. They bring home conservative Salafi textbooks of a curriculum authored specifically for Africans—an entire year of which derides the use of amulets, divination, and magic, considered stereotypical practices within “African Islam.” The school’s teachers speak against polytheism in class, and then host a massive Sufi celebration of the Prophet’s birthday—a practice Salafis deemed the height of polytheism. This paper analyzes the Arabic curriculum of Saudi’s program of Islamic propagation in Africa, alongside the Swahili teacher-talk that transforms it in the classroom. In contrast to the narratives of “blanket radicalization” from study in Saudi Arabia that present African Muslims as passive recipients of the new orthodoxy, East African teachers engage in a creative adaptation that “sweetens” Salafism for integration within communal Sufi ethical formations.
Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
The head teacher of Zanzibar’s largest Islamic school described his experience at the Islamic University of Medina: “We swallow the sweet and spit out the bitter,” Founded within an Indian Ocean Sufi order, his school mirrored East African cultural customs such as communal prayer and ancestor reverence. However, in Medina, he was taught that these practices were polytheistic and apostate in Islam. He returned home with conservative Salafi textbooks authored specifically for Africans which derided amulets, divination, and magic, considered stereotypical practices within “African Islam.” This paper analyzes the Arabic curriculum of Saudi’s program of Islamic propagation in Africa, alongside the Swahili teacher-talk that transforms it in the classroom. In contrast to narratives of “blanket radicalization” from study in Saudi Arabia that present African Muslims as passive recipients of the new orthodoxy, East African teachers engage in creative adaptations that “sweetens” Salafism for integration within communal Sufi ethical formations.