The Khoja of Tanzania : : discontinuities of a postcolonial religious identity / / by Iqbal Akhtar.

• Superior document: Studies of Religion in Africa, Volume 43
• VerfasserIn: Akhtar, Iqbal, 1981-
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, Netherlands ;, Boston, [Massachusetts] : : Brill,, 2016.; ©2016
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Studies on religion in Africa ; Volume 43.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (244 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

The Khōjā of Tanzania, Discontinuities of a Postcolonial Religious Identity attempts to reconstruct the development of Khōjā 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, Kacchī, Swahili, and Arabic sources to examine the formation of an Afro-Asian Islamic identity (jamatī) from their initial Indic caste identity (jñāti) towards an emergent Near Eastern imaged Islamic nation (ummatī) through four disciplinary approaches: historiography, politics, linguistics, and ethnology. Over the past two centuries, rapid transitions and discontinuities 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 Khōjā religious identities as expressed through dimensions of power, language, space, and the body.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- 1 Geneaology: The Origins of the Khōjā -- 2 The African Khōjā: From the Colonial Period to the Present -- 3 The Evolution of Khōjā Political Power: Religious Citizenship -- 4 The Khōjā Language: Quranic Gujarati -- 5 Khōjā Religious Texts: The Dōʾāōnō Majmūʾō -- 6 Ritual Space: Khōjā Shrines -- 7 The Body: The Khōjā Adoption of the Veil -- Conclusion -- Lexicon -- Bibliography -- Index.