What Have Cassettes to do with Christianity? Instagram with Islam?

Perusing the Facebook group “United in Islam in South Africa” one finds a variety of posts that might catch one’s attention. From agriculturally informed exhortations, to charity, to the posting of events in Tshwane/Pretoria, to quotes of Ibn Taymiyyah and other sources the posts on the page are wide in range, source, and influence—some yielding likes and comments, others sitting silent on the page. 

One particularly popular post called for du’a (non-obligatory prayer) to be made for rain in the Gauteng province including Johannesburg. On several days a woman began by saying “Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem” (“in the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful”) expressing shukr (thanks) and calling for rakaats (units of prayer) in grateful response. The other most popular post on the page shows Syrian refugees seeking asylum in Europe. 

Here, on Facebook, in the digital borderlands, the global and local are meeting as South African Muslims interact with Muslims from across the globe and share media, meditations, and methods of piety online with “likes” and “comments” the affirmations in place of vocal takbirs (informal expressions of faith with the acclamation, “Allahu akbar” or “God is great”). The petitions and posts on the page are predicated by both global concerns and local conditions. As such, this short vignette and case can serve well as a piquing entrée into the digital and electronic media world, which is part of a large religious, social, economic, and political patchwork across Africa.

As intimated by the case above Africa’s religious media scene is rapidly evolving and constantly engaging. The book New Media and Religious Transformations in Africa seeks to cast a critical eye on this area of study and “focus on the diverse religious transformations being generated by the explosion of media technologies—both old and new—across Africa” (p. 5). It is the contention of this review that this text is a helpful primer on the historical and contemporary ways that media—old and new, print and digital—have shaped, are shaped by, and continue to shape religion in Africa.

Muslims, Mandela, & South Africa's anti-apartheid movement

Apartheid fell, and the 'rainbow nation' emerged, with the release of Nelson Mandela in February 1990 and the subsequent free, and open, democratic elections across South Africa in 1994; these elections followed multi-party negotiations between multiple political organizations that had recently been decriminalized. Muslims played key roles not only during the formative period of post-apartheid South Africa, but also in the struggle against the Apartheid regime. Even today, in the midst of South Africa's re-emergence onto the global scene and against the backdrop of transnational Islamic discourses, Muslims -- even as minorities -- continue to influence the shaping of South Africa.

This context provides the frame of reference for Goolam Vahed's Muslim Portraits: The Anti-Apartheid Struggle (Madiba Publishers, 2012), which compiles various narratives and stories of Islamic leaders in the struggle to assert non-racial politics in South Africa. Recently, I had the honor of publishing a review of the book for the Journal of Islamic Studies out of The University of Cape Town, South Africa (you can find the review HERE). I found the book enlightening, gripping, and relevant insofar as it illumines the political efforts of Muslims beyond the pale of jihad and mass uprisings we too often assume as the modus operandi of Muslim political efforts. 

One of the strengths of the book is its ability to humanize the anti-apartheid struggle and highlight the role that many Muslims played in toppling the racist regime. As I wrote in my review, in so doing, "the text provides a rich mosaic of various Muslim interlocutors involved in the struggle against Apartheid, including converts and immigrants, Sowetan doctors and ANC politicians, feminist activists and armed rebels, cricket players and chemists."

I encourage you to read more about the book, check out my quick review, and learn more about a) the many biographies of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and b) the wide variety of Muslim political action in the contemporary scene.