Conclusion

The book’s cover image, which was taken in 2019, shows a wall and fence enclosing acres of land meant for the construction of a modern Istiqaama high school on the outskirts of Mwanza. As of 2024, nearly five years later, the school has still not been built on “Ibadhi Street,” which is paved and marked with black lettering on a yellow street sign in anticipation of its establishment, like signs found in the city center. This deliberate naming of an Ibadhi space in a mainland town before the actual building of the school is a nod to past Ibadhi pioneers and settlers in the northwest and represents the community’s hopes for future development and role within Tanzanian society. However, these aspirations for the state-of-the-art school have been put on hold indefinitely as the community struggles with economic challenges caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic as well as, perhaps, a national climate wary of Gulf and Islamic organizations and institutions.

The chapters in this book show how nostalgia, or a longing for a virtuous Ibadhi past, influences Ibadhi revivalism and identity politics today. Grassroots expressions of Ibadhi identity, like the Istiqaama school, nationalist movements, and state-building projects, are discussed. Reclaiming a specific historical narrative helps unite the Omani diaspora community, giving them a sense of heritage and identity despite external pressures and historical traumas. The Ibadhi community in Tanzania seek to honor their past while dealing with current challenges, illustrating the complex and diverse nature of nostalgia, as explained by cultural theorist Svetlana Boym, in shaping identity.

At the same time, the existence of “Ibadhi Street” in Mwanza implies a more tolerant religious environment in Tanzania compared to Oman. While Oman valorizes religious tolerance and political neutrality, public declaration of sectarian identity is not permitted for mosques and schools, even if the majority of attendees may be Ibadhi. In contrast, the street sign and fence at the high school in Mwanza—along with the Istiqaama logos and plaques commonly found in Ibadhi mosques that provide information about their history, founding, and namesakes of religious authorities such as Imam Jabir ibn Zayd or Mufti al-Khalili—indicate that while it is not obligatory to be Ibadhi to attend the school, doing so implies accepting the moral and communal boundaries imposed by Ibadhism. These boundaries are being redefined in the postcolonial era through neoliberal reforms that have enabled the privatization of religious institutions in Tanzania since the 1980s and the renewal of ties between Tanzania and Oman.

Visible examples of Ibadhi-Omani influence in Tanzania also form part of a local initiative undertaken by Ibadhi actors in the country and other parts of East Africa, such as Uganda, Kenya, and the countries of Central Africa, where Omanis settled—not discussed in this book but important to keep in mind for future scholarship in this area. The aim of this initiative is to revitalize the religious practices of the Omani diaspora by establishing sustainable educational and economic institutions. These efforts are made possible through the resources and moral support provided by the transnational Istiqaama community. The Tanzanian branches of this community are dedicated to preserving various elements of Ibadhi tradition, achieved through the restoration and expansion of Ibadhi heritage.

Examples of these preservation efforts include the conservation and expansion of old Omani family mosques in Zanzibar and the mainland, along with the construction of new and larger Friday congregational mosques. Additionally, the development of the Istiqaama school system discussed in chapter 3 is an essential aspect of these endeavors. Both the Omani state and Istiqaama in Muscat and Tanzania collaborate on a global scale by combining public Islamic outreach (daʿwa) and reform through education, heritage conservation, and charitable initiatives within an Ibadhi framework.

Chapter 4 showed that through their engagement with Islamic reformism, the Ibadhi community in Tanzania seeks to assert their distinct identity within the larger Muslim community in Tanzania while also highlighting their unique connections to religious communities in Oman and Algeria. This reformism is not only a means of religious revitalization but also a way to assert their social and economic influence within Tanzania.

Furthermore, this reformism is not solely focused inward, but also outwards towards promoting religious tolerance and unity among Muslims in Tanzania. By emphasizing the principles of inclusivity and diversity within Islam, the Ibadhi community in Tanzania aspires to foster better interreligious relations which will also secure their own place as a religious minority within the country’s predominantly Christian and Sunni Muslim religious landscape.

Ibadhis are greatly influenced by both past and present Ibadhi and Omani national discourses on religious tolerance and unity among Muslims. The memory of the Islamic sultanate in Zanzibar, as well as the revolution, also plays a part in this. Additionally, these efforts are driven by a desire to maintain and strengthen the diplomatic relationships between Tanzania and Oman since the revolution in 1964.

Istiqaama works to address suspicions that it is promoting Omani neoimperialism and soft power in postcolonial and postrevolution Tanzania. They do this through two interconnected strategies. Istiqaama is a community of mainly Swahili and Arabic speakers who practice Ibadhism. They are a religious minority operating both within and outside the boundaries of the nation-state. They achieve this by using their extensive Afro-Arab diaspora networks in Tanzania and Oman. Istiqaama also connects Ibadhi religious communities on the so-called Swahili coast and the East African interior by establishing local branches of the association in major Omani settlements across the country. In the past, trade interests linked the Omani diasporas on the coast and the inland regions.

As chapter 5 showed, those living farther inland, like in Mwanza or Shinyanga, conducted their economic activities independently from the sultanate in Zanzibar. They relied more on the cooperation of local African authorities. This resulted in a less rigid religious authority structure within the mainland Ibadhi communities and they integrated better with the predominantly non-Muslim or Sunni African communities in the northwest. However, their isolation from the coastal region meant that the Ibadhi communities in the interior did not benefit as much from the patronage practices of the sultans and Arab ruling elite. This also led to the assumption that Ibadhi merchants in northwestern Tanzania practiced a more localized form of Islam and were not actively spreading their religious teachings beyond their own circles. Before this book, there was no comprehensive scholarship that showed how the different histories of colonialism, economic enterprise, and integration and/or segregation from non-Arab communities have influenced the current state of Ibadhi religious activity in various regions of Tanzania today.

This book opens possibilities for further research in several areas. For instance, future work could examine the nature of the state’s collaborations with Istiqaama in Oman Tanzania mainland, and Zanzibar. How have state actors perceived the increasing influence of diaspora religious networks and their role in revitalizing local economies and religious institutions through the introduction of new spaces for worship, congregation, and business across the country? What challenges do minority religious groups, which receive substantial internal and external funding, pose to Muslim authorities such as BAKWATA and the office of Zanzibar’s mufti, who represents Islam on behalf of the state?

Muslim diaspora organizations like Istiqaama provide a unique opportunity to understand the impact of distinct local politics and social history in Oman, mainland Tanzania, and Zanzibar on the role of Muslim women in the public sphere and grassroots organizations in each location. Moreover, examining the long-term sustainability of cultural conservation projects within Muslim communities in East Africa and the Gulf can help identify challenges and opportunities for preserving and redefining cultural heritage over time. Research into gendered strategies for ensuring the continuity of cultural traditions and practices can provide valuable guidance for the various cultural brokers involved in such conservation efforts.

In this book, I have examined the representation of Ibadhi religious practices in Tanzania, specifically focusing on Istiqaama and its educational and charitable institutions. This book makes an important contribution to the academic discussion on contemporary Muslim politics, emphasizing how Muslim individuals establish and convey religious authority through new and existing institutions. It illustrates how religious patronage, which may on the surface seem apolitical, actually holds important symbolic authority that can both ease and aggravate tensions between postcolonial states and former colonial powers. While this phenomenon has been extensively researched in relation to countries colonized by Western powers, little research has been done on how similar power dynamics play out in countries that were also under the imperial influence of non-Western powers. My analysis focuses on the role of religious authority and grassroots activism in this process. This book offers insights into the religious practices of the Omani and Ibadhi communities in postcolonial and postrevolution Tanzania, underscoring the rise of new forms of transnational knowledge exchange between the countries of East Africa and the Gulf, and East and Northwest Africa.