Muslim family law in sub-Saharan Africa: colonial legacies and post-colonial challenges

389 Pages·2010·2.63 MB·English

by  Shamil Jeppie

Muslim Family Law in Sub-Saharan Africa: Colonial Legacies and Post- M MUSLIM FAMILY LAW
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Colonial Challenges offers comparative historical, anthropological L
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M IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
and legal perspectives on the ways in which French and British 
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colonial administrations interacted with the diversity of Islamic
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legal schools, scholars, and practices in Africa. The authors examine 
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how the colonial impress marks Islamic legal practices in Africa and
POST-COLONIAL CHALLENGES


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its impact on the post-colonial and contemporary periods. Several

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chapters document the experiences of Muslim citizens in some B
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African states in their bid to have Islamic law, particularly family A Shamil Jeppie, Ebrahim Moosa
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& Richard Roberts (eds.)
law, recognized. A substantial introduction sets the individual R
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essays in a comparative framework of Islamic legal scholarship in 
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an era of colonialism by contrasting and comparing vital questions
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as they occur in the African context.
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ISIMSERIESONCONTEMPORARYMUSLIMSOCIETIES
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Shamil Jeppie is associate professor in the ISBN 978 90 8964 172 4
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Department of Historical Studies, University R
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of Cape Town. Ebrahim Moosa is associate

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professor in the Department of Religion, Duke D
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University. Richard Roberts is professor in the .
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Department of History, Stanford University.
WWW.AUP.NL
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Muslim Family Law in Sub-Saharan Africa
AUP-ISIM-IS-BW-Jeppie-DEF-24:BW 02-03-2010 13:36 Pagina 2
isim series on contemporary muslim societies
TheISIMSeriesonContemporaryMuslimSocietiesisajointinitiativeof
AmsterdamUniversityPress(AUP)andtheInternationalInstitutefortheStudy
ofIslamintheModernWorld(ISIM).TheSeriesseekstopresentinnovative
scholarshiponIslamandMuslimsocietiesindifferentpartsoftheglobe.
ISIMwasestablishedin1998bytheUniversityofAmsterdam,Leiden
University,RadboudUniversityNijmegen,andUtrechtUniversity.Theinstitute
conductsandpromotesinterdisciplinaryresearchonsocial,political,cultural,
andintellectualtrendsandmovementsincontemporaryMuslimsocietiesand
communities.
Editors
AnneliesMoors,ISIM/UniversityofAmsterdam
MathijsPelkmans,ISIM/UniversityCollegeUtrecht
AbdulkaderTayob,UniversityofCapeTown
EditorialBoard
Nadjeal-Ali,UniversityofExeter
KamranAsdarAli,UniversityofTexasatAustin
JohnBowen,WashingtonUniversityinSt.Louis
LéonBuskens,LeidenUniversity
ShamilJeppie,UniversityofCapeTown
DenizKandiyoti,SOAS,UniversityofLondon
MuhammadKhalidMasud,CouncilofIslamicIdeology,Pakistan
WernerSchiffauer,Europa-UniversitätViadrianaFrankfurt(Oder)
SeteneyShami,SocialScienceResearchCouncil
Previouslypublished
LynnWelchman:WomenandMuslimFamilyLawsinArabStates.
AComparativeOverviewofTextualDevelopmentandAdvocacy,2007
(isbn9789053569740)
FarishA.Noor,YoginderSikand&MartinvanBruinessen(eds.):
TheMadrasainAsia.PoliticalActivismandTransnationalLinkages,2008
(isbn9789053567104)
AsefBayat:LifeasPolitics.HowOrdinaryPeopleChangetheMiddleEast,2010
(isbn9789053569115)
AUP-ISIM-IS-BW-Jeppie-DEF-24:BW 02-03-2010 13:36 Pagina 3
MusliM FaMily law
in sub-saharan aFrica
Colonial legaCies and
Post-Colonial Challenges
Shamil Jeppie, Ebrahim Moosa
& Richard Roberts (eds.)
ISIM SERIES ON CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM SOCIETIES
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Coverphotograph:HassanMwakimako,15March2009,TheKadhiofMombassa
Coverdesignandlay-out:DeKreeft,Amsterdam
isbn 9789089641724
e-isbn 9789048511327
nur 828
©isim /AmsterdamUniversityPress,Amsterdam2010
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copy-
rightreservedabove,nopartofthisbookmaybereproduced,
storedinorintroducedintoaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,
in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photo-
copying, recording or otherwise) without the written permis-
sionofboththecopyrightownerandtheauthorofthebook.
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table of Contents
List of Maps and Figures 7
Preface 9
Introduction: Muslim Family Law in Sub-Saharan Africa:
Colonial Legacies and Post-Colonial Challenges 13
ShamilJeppie,EbrahimMoosa,andRichardRoberts
Part i – Colonizing Muslim Family Law in Africa
1.A Legal and Historical Excursus of Muslim Personal Law in
the Colonial Cape, South Africa, Eighteenth to Twentieth Century 63
ShouketAllie
2.Custom and Muslim Family Law in the Native Courts
of the French Soudan, 1905-1912 85
RichardRoberts
3.Conflicts and Tensions in the Appointment of Chief Kadhi
in Colonial Kenya 1898-1960s 109
HassanMwakimako
4.Obtaining Freedom at the Muslims’ Tribunal: Colonial Kadijustiz
and Women’s Divorce Litigation in Ndar (Senegal) 135
GhislaineLydon
5.The Making and Unmaking of Colonial Shariªa in the Sudan 165
ShamilJeppie
6.Injudicious Intrusions: Chiefly Authority and Islamic Judicial
Practice in Maradi, Niger 183
BarbaraM.Cooper
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Part ii – Muslim Family Law, the Postcolonial State,
and Constitutionalism in Africa
7.Coping with Conflicts: Colonial Policy towards Muslim Personal Law
in Kenya and Post-Colonial Court Practice 221
Abdulkadir Hashim
8.Persistence and Transformation in the Politics of Shariªa, Nigeria,
1947-2003: In Search of an Explanatory Framework 247
AllanChristelow
9.The Secular State and the State of Islamic Law in Tanzania 273
RobertV. Makaramba
10.State Intervention in Muslim Family Law in Kenya and Tanzania:
Applications of the Gender Concept 305
SusanF.Hirsch
11.Muslim Family Law in South Africa: Paradoxes and Ironies 331
EbrahimMoosa
Notes on the Contributors 355
Consolidated Bibliography 359
Index 377
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list of Maps and Figures
Maps
1.Africa map showing chapters 12
2. West Africa 23
3.East Africa 32
4.South Africa 43
Figures
1.Religious identity of litigants, Segu, Oct-Dec 1905, n = 41 97
2.Types of cases, Muslim litigants, Segu, Oct-Dec 1905, n = 15 98
3.Litigants claiming customary status, types of cases, Segu,
Oct-Dec 1905, n = 20 98
7
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Preface
This volume brings together twelve essays that in various ways explore the
histories of Islamic law in Africa. All these essays share a concern with the
encounter between Islamic law and the colonial or post-colonial state. Just
astherewasnosingle‘Islamic’lawinAfrica,therewasalsonosingularen-
counter. Instead, there were a variety of encounters and changes in the na-
ture of these engagements over time. Most of these encounters led to nar-
rowing the practice of shariªa to issues relating to personal status or family
law, as we describe it. The legacy of these engagements remains deeply em-
bedded in post-colonial legal systems, political mobilization, and identity
politics. Thus, to understand the issues surrounding contemporary claims
by millions of Muslims for ‘full shariªa’ in Nigeria and Sudan, we must un-
derstand the historical contexts producing these claims. The essays in this
volume bring together historians, legal and constitutional scholars, anthro-
pologists, and religious studies experts in a conversation that enriches the
study of Islamic law in Africa.
This volume is the result of the convergence of different scholarly, legal,
and political projects. Each editor brought to the volume different interests
and training. Based at the University of Cape Town, Shamil Jeppie was en-
gaged in research on the Arabic Study Circle in Durban, writing a nine-
teenth-century history of the Sudan, and directing the Tombouctou Manu-
scriptProject.BasedoriginallyattheUniversityofCapeTown,thenmoving
to Stanford University in Stanford, California, and from there to Duke Uni-
versity,Durham,NorthCarolina,EbrahimMoosaworkedonwritingabook
on the twelfth-century Persian scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazfilfl and as a
CarnegieScholar,heresearchedmadrasasinthesouthAsia.WhileinSouth
Africa, Moosa was deeply involved in discussions surrounding the status of
MuslimfamilylawinthenewSouthAfricanconstitution.BasedatStanford
University in California, Richard Roberts has for many years focused on is-
sues of law and colonialism in Africa, and directs a series of biannual work-
shops on different aspects of law and colonialism in Africa. It was at Stan-
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