Objective
The proposed project examines recordings of Swahili-language Muslim sermons from Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. Muslims form significant minorities in these countries; their relations to Christians and government have become tenser due to the rise of reformist and political Islam. Recorded sermons reflect a great variety of opinions on reformism and on Muslim history, politics and social life. They offer a unique inside view into a non-elite constituency of modern East African history; a record of Muslim congregations ‘thinking through’ their history, the reasons for their marginality to post-colonial states, and tentative solutions. They also form a record of the absorption and accommodation of doctrinal innovations from abroad into bounded, place-specific Muslim congregations. Sermon recordings have become widespread across Muslim countries since the 1980s; so far they have been studied predominantly in Arabic- and Farsi-speaking contexts. The present study will provide ground-breaking comparisons with a part of the Muslim world beyond the Middle East.
The principal investigator is fluent in Swahili, has extensive contacts in East Africa and has already acquired the required collection of sermon recordings on audiotapes and DVDs. Funding is sought for assistance with the transcription, typing and part-translation of sermon recordings, for library, archival and oral research (interviews with sermon performers, purveyors and listeners) in East Africa and relevant European institutions, for the organisation of workshops to discuss findings with researchers in both African and Islamic studies, and for building a web repository making sermon translations available for further research. Besides this web repository, the project is expected to result in a monograph, journal articles and edited collections.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG
See other projects for this call
Coordinator
9000 Gent
Belgium