ABSTRACT
Zanzibar and Somalia are the two most thoroughly Islamized countries in tropical Africa. Somalis believe that they were among the first non-Arab people converted to Islam, but in reality it appears that the total conversion of the Somali people took about 700 years. For the more marginalized people of Somalia and the rest of East Africa, Islam was a way to transcend non-noble lineage, but as much as people wanted to improve their status they still needed to define themselves ethnically. The recurring image of dance in the stories about Sheekh Uways show the constant contradiction in Islamic East African society between dance for enjoyment and dance for religion. The colonialists in East Africa knew that there was some organized anti-colonial force, but were never able to concretely prove it was the Uwaysiyya. Sheekh Sufi's discrimination against Sheekh Uways' background was punished by God.
