ABSTRACT
In the concluding remarks to his Islam in Tropical Africa (1966) Ioan Myrddin Lewis anticipated that Islam, as both a comprehensive universal ideology and an active political power, would eventually vanish from the African discourse. He acknowledged the demographic force of Islam during the colonial period, but expressed his belief that ‘secular aims and politics are more important in the modern world than common religious beliefs’.1 Two years later, Spencer J. Trimingham wrote in the concluding paragraph of his The Influence of Islam upon Africa:
There are those in Africa to whom Islam as a spiritual and moral force is becoming irrelevant to life, who at the same time retain full loyalty to Islam as the cultural environment to which they belong. Islamic culture like Western culture is being gradually weaned from its religious roots, and the gulf between the spiritual and secular spheres of life is widening. Islam, whilst continuing to influence deeply individual life, will gradually cease to have the profound effect it formerly exercised over the vast ranges of people.2
