The Khōjā Of Tanzania

Discontinuities of a Postcolonial Religious Identity
Approx. 212 Pp., Index Auflage
ISBN: 978-90-04-27474-7
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 43, 226 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 241 mm, Gewicht: 522 g

Reihe: Studies of Religion in Africa

The Khoja of Tanzania, Discontinuities of a Postcolonial Religious Identity attempts to reconstruct the development of Khoja religious identity from their arrival to the Swahili coast in the late 18th century until the turn of the 21st century. This multidisciplinary study incorporates Gujarati, Kacchi, Swahili, and Arabic sources to examine the formation of an Afro-Asian Islamic identity (jamati) from their initial Indic caste identity (jnati) towards an emergent Near Eastern imaged Islamic nation (ummati) through four disciplinary approaches: historiography, politics, linguistics, and ethnology. These rapid transitions have produced the profound tensions which have resulted from the willful amnesia of their pre-Islamic Indic civilizational past for an ideological and politicized 'Islamic' present. This study aims to document, theorize, and engage this theological transformation of modern Khoja religious identities as expressed through dimensions of power, language, space, and the body.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Akhtar, Iqbal

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Islam: Einzelne Gruppen
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religiöse Intoleranz, Verfolgung, Religionskonflikte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Postkoloniale Geschichte, Nationale Befreiung und Unabhängigkeit
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Dialog & Beziehungen zwischen Religionen
• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Islam und Weltreligionen, Weltethos

Über Autor(innen)

Iqbal Akhtar, Ph.D. (2013), Florida International University, is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and research director of the western Indian Ocean studies programme. He has published articles on American Muslim identity and East African Khoja historiography, including the article Negotiating the racial boundaries of Khoja caste membership in late 19th century colonial Zanzibar (1878-1899) in the Journal of Africana Religions. Currently, he is professeur invité at l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales (IISMM) in Paris.