Journal for Islamic Studies

Mediated and Mediatisation of Religious Knowledge in Africa

Hassan Ndzovu — 2023-12-31

Editorial

Muslim Media Use, the Production of Islamic Gender Norms, and Media Stars in Ghana

Fulera Issaka-Toure — 2023-12-31

This article speaks to two issues on media personalities. I call media voices with reference to the production of Islamic norms about gender on the one hand and the emergence of media stars/celebrities on the other. This is in connection with their mediation on issues at both the community level as well as on the national level, either on behalf of Islam or Muslims in Ghana. The data is drawn from audio and visual media platforms as well as alternative media, including social media handles and online media platforms. The analysis is based on what is termed discourse analysis in media studies. It argues concerning Islamic norms on gender that the discourses are linked to the idea of mapping or ordering gendered practices on the one hand. On the other hand, the use of media-by-media voices has resulted in the production of media stars/celebrities. In the end, the article will present the idea that gendered norms are contested by the values of the broader society regarding the ways in which Muslim consumers contest or mediatise the discourses of media voices as well as raising some questions about how Muslim media stars contribute to ideas of Islamic diversity and the framing of authority.

The Madrassa System and the Islamic-Integrated Schools: Competing Spaces for Learning and the Ambivalent Relations with Secular Education in Kenya

Hassan Ndzovu — 2023-12-31

Islamic traditions place prominence on the production of knowledge, its attainment, and the transmission of such knowledge to the community. In Kenya, Islamic education is widely spread among various sections of the Muslim community. Many Muslim children are sent to the basic Qur’an schools (simple shelters in private houses) and madrasas (large institutions) to receive religious instruction. Despite this trend, there is a feeling among Kenyan Muslims that they are educationally disadvantaged in relation to secular education. These sentiments have increased the urgency for secular education for economic competitiveness, but without disregarding the value of religious education culminating in the establishment of Islamic-integrated schools. This shows a significant transformation of Islamic education in Kenya, revealing the abundance of Islamic traditions of learning across the country. Therefore, this article seeks to explore two educational institutions responsible for the mediation of Islamic religious education in Kenya—the madrasa system and the Islamic-integrated schools. In both institutions, the learners are educated on Islam's basic precepts and practices, memorise and recite the Qur’an, and are taught how to read and write the Arabic script. Though the two institutions could be described as Islamic learning spaces, the article will examine their seeming competition against each other and their ambivalent attitude toward secular education in Kenya. Some of the questions the article raises include: (a) How has the issue of standardisation of the religious education syllabus been addressed in both institutions? (b) To what extent have Islamic-integrated schools been successful in the production of religious authority?

Sheikh Mohamed Badamana and Radio-Based Fatwas (Legal Verdicts) as a Learning Tradition in Kenya

Mohamed Suleiman Mraja — 2023-12-31

In the 1980s, the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), and Radio Taifa (National Radio), hosted a 30-minute programme entitled Uliza Ujibiwe. The presenter was Mohamed Salim Badamana, an associate professor of Veterinary Medicine. In this radio programme, the Kenyan public (both Muslims and non-Muslims) would pose questions in writing on issues touching on Islam and the presenter would give a fatwa-sort of response. Given his academic background, this raises the question: Was his participation in a religious program challenging the conventional religious authority held by the traditional ‘ulama (Islamic scholars) in Kenya? Given its wider reach, the radio is an effective medium for knowledge production, interpretation and dissemination. Arguably, the use of electronic media can be a vehicle for blunt religious indoctrination and a means to disseminate positive universal human values across linguistic, racial, religious and social differences that in turn help in strengthening multicultural, multi-religious nations (Adnan 2010; Laura et al. 2019). Undoubtedly, Badamana’s radio programmes provided pertinent answers to a wide array of questions raised by the Kenyan public, both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. What purpose did Badamana’s radio sessions serve in the Kenyan context? What sort of issues were of great interest to the audience and why? Therefore, my study analyses the contribution of Badamana to Muslim knowledge creation and dissemination in Kenya, based on the findings of a discourse analysis of selected audio recordings of Uliza Ujibiwe. While the programme is defunct, Badamana, appropriated the national radio to give fatwas on a wide range of issues, an emerging vista, way beyond the hitherto common mosque-darsas (study sessions) and textual writing platforms of the local ‘ulama (Islamic scholars).

Mediatised Spirituality: Qaṣīdah and Nashīd for Alternative Narratives and Religious Economy in the East African Coast

Chembea S. Athuman — 2023-12-31

This article examines the dynamics in the production, mediatisation, commodification and dissemination of Islamic knowledge along the East African coast within the microcosm of Kenya. Traditional norms confined the production of religious knowledge to strict spiritual spaces like mosques, madrassas (formal Qur’an schools), duksi (informal Qur’an schools) and darsas (sw. yyuo, study circles) often by male ulama (clerics) Nonetheless, the place of media and artistic cultural performances like qaṣīdah (sw. kasida, poems) and nashīd (pl. anāshīd, hymns) in the religious knowledge processes have received little attention. Whereas qaṣīdah were produced and used for meditation and worship in Sufi rituals and mawlid (sw. maulidi, commemoration for the birth of Prophet Muhammad), the advancement of media technology in the 21st century enabled mediatisation of qaṣīdah and anāshīd in ways hitherto known to be possible. This article, therefore, explores: (a) how mediatisation of qaṣīdah and anāshīd departs from traditional norms in the production and dissemination of Islamic knowledge on the coast of Kenya, (b) how mediatised qaṣīdah and anāshīd themes contribute to the production and dissemination of religious knowledge, and (c) the extent at which mediatisation of qaṣīdah and anāshīd facilitated alternative narratives to counter extremist ideologies as well as generate income in the post 9/11 Muslim community in Kenya. Drawing from content analysis of mediatised qaṣīdah and anāshīd, the article enhances our nuanced understanding of the role of artistic performances for not only religious knowledge production and dissemination and religious economic processes, but also countering extremist ideologies in the Muslim world and the coast of Kenya in particular.