Islamic Sufi Networks in the Western Indian Ocean (c.1880-1940)

In the period c. 1880-1940, organized Sufism spread rapidly in the western Indian Ocean. New communities turned to Islam, and Muslim communities turned to new texts, practices and religious leaders. On the East African coast, the orders were both a vehicle for conversion to Islam and for reform of Islamic practice. The impact of Sufism on local communities is here traced geographically as a ripple reaching beyond the Swahili cultural zone southwards to Mozambique, Madagascar and Cape Town. Through an investigation of the texts, ritual practices and scholarly networks that went alongside Sufi expansion, this book places religious change in the western Indian Ocean within the wider framework of Islamic reform.

Anne K. Bang, Ph.D. (2000) is a Senior Researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway. She has published widely on the Islamic history of East Africa, including the monograph Sufis and Scholars of the Sea (Routledge, 2003).

'In fact, the volume is impressive. It impresses through its sheer quantity of facts, be that information concerning persons, or the detailed description of the written and oral sources (interviews) in the appendix. [...] ....a very well-investigated presentation loaded with an abundance of details, which by means of the index can serve as a kind of reference work for experts, but also as informative reading for anyone interested in the history of Islam in Africa.' - Angelika Brodersen, in: Entangled Religions, 2 (2015)