Islam and Politics in Kenya

Arye Oded. Islam and Politics in Kenya. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000. ix + 236 pp. Map. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $49.95. Cloth.

According to Arye Oded, Kenya's five million Muslims constitute a key minority group in a Christian country. Oded examines the global complexities that have contributed to the emergence of militant Islam in Kenya in the 1990s, against the backdrop of an historical overview of the role of Islam in contemporary Kenyan politics and society and the influence of the Arab countries and Iran on the geopolitical role of Kenya's Muslim community.

The Muslim minority, constituting 20 percent of Kenya's population, is concentrated in economically and strategically crucial regions (such as Mombasa, Nairobi, Kisumu, and Nakuru) and receives economic and moral support from the Arab-Muslim world. However, significant religious and political cleavages among the Muslim communities weaken their political position in Kenya. The historical division between black African Muslims and Muslims of Arab origin presents a major obstacle to united action; indeed, coastal and Somali Muslims have agitated to "secede from independent Kenya" (174). Despite these ethnic and racial divisions, Kenyan Muslims often unite when they feel their religion is "denigrated" by the local Christians or foreigners.

Oded's book contains fifteen core chapters and a brief conclusion detailing historical and political factors that have led to the formation of the contemporary Muslim minority in Kenya. The historical details illuminate how the Arab community on the coast of East Africa, from Somalia to Mozambique, came into being before the advent of Islam. While the interaction between the local Arabs and the Bantu-speaking Africans gave birth to the Swahili language, the trade routes became the means through which Islam was disseminated, with the Muslim craftsmen who found employment in the trade centers contributing to the diffusion of Islam throughout East Africa. Islam's ability to adapt to the local customs was an important factor in the Islamization of groups such as the Baganda of Uganda.

Oded argues that Islam lost its ascendancy in Kenya when the coastal strip was annexed to the protectorate of Kenya by Great Britain. Once Nairobi became the capital of Kenya's colonial government, the coastal Muslims found it difficult to retain their religious and political superiority. After independence, the postcolonial state launched rigorous campaigns against the Muslim Somali tribes in Northeastern Province, which had attempted to secede from Kenya and join Somalia. This movement heightened the Kenyan government's distrust of the Muslims, a distrust that, Oded maintains, weakens the position of the Muslim minority in Kenya to this day.

This historical backdrop frames Oded's discussion of contemporary issues such as the activities of radical Arab Muslims in Kenya and their influence on local Muslim communities. Thus chapters 11 and 12 unravel Iranian operations in Kenya and examine the attitude of Kenyan Muslims toward Israel and the Middle East conflict, noting Israel's "special relationship" with "Kenya's president and its Christian leaders." According to Oded, Israel has been making relentless efforts to establish good relations with the Muslim community in Kenya. He shows, for example, how "Israel encouraged the establishment of the African Muslim-Jewish Education Fund (AMJEF), whose purpose was to provide scholarships to Muslim students" (127) and which the Muslim leaders refused. Chapter 15 compares the relationship between Islam and politics in Kenya to the situation in two other neighboring countries, namely, Uganda and Tanzania, and explores the increasingly radical Islamic political activism in the three East African nations.

This book is a vital contribution to the field of African studies in that it situates the contemporary Muslim minority communities of East Africa within the larger global context. I must point out, however, that Oded does not maintain the "strictly objective viewpoint" (7) he claims. In my opinion, he does not look at Kenya's Muslims as ordinary Kenyans whose actions, like those of all other Kenyans from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, are at some point dictated by their search for democracy and good governance, not simply by "violence," "radicalism," "extremism," and "hostility." The book privileges Israel's relationship with Kenya over the solidarity of Kenyan Muslims with Arab and other Middle Eastern countries. The good relationship that exists between Kenya's postcolonial Christian leaders and Israel began in the 1960s, yet the Muslims of Kenya have had over a thousand years of ties with the Arab world. The major problem of this book is that the author's research and analysis are informed by his loyalty to Israel and by his unconscious bias regarding the security concerns of Israel in relation to the Muslims and the Arab world. Thus, he is unable to detach himself from the Arab-Israeli conflict in order to offer a more objective analysis of Islam and politics in Kenya.