ABSTRACT
National liberation movements achieved independence from colonial powers, beginning immediately after the Second World War and continuing up to the end of apartheid in 1994. Within this new political context, three dominant preoccupations and expressions may be identifi ed in Muslim publics. I will call the fi rst a ‘politics of identity’ that captured the desire of Muslims to give shape and expression to national public life. This ranged from North African countries where Islam became a state religion, to countries such as Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania where Muslims formed a signifi cant percentage of the population. In these latter societies, Islamic identity politics dominated public life in competition with Christian groups. The second public manifestation of Islam was a continuing preoccupation with defi ning orthodoxy and orthopraxis for Muslim social life. In the postcolonial contexts, such concerns included the formation of ulama bodies, the proliferation of schools and mosques, and the adoption of public practices derived from the normative, textual sources of Islam. A small but widely dispersed critical discourse on Islamic law was a third expression of public Islam. Critical discourse fi rst appeared in national politics, as Muslims throughout Africa participated in liberation movements and post-independence reconstructive programmes. These have ranged from the elaborate political philosophy of Mahmud Muhammad Taha (executed 1983) to activism against apartheid in the 1980s (Mahmoud 2000; Jack 1959; Esack 1988). This progressive trend has recently taken a legal shape when more liberal political changes were inaugurated in a number of African countries, and Islamic law introduced in national debates and legislatures. Critical debates and movements have emerged against an uncritical application of Islamic law. Relatively marginal and much smaller in number, a critical discourse over Islamic law is an equally prominent expression in African public spheres. Each of these expressions is directly related to a particular political context in which they have emerged and thrived, but there are some similarities across regions, and across the continent.
