ZANZIBAR, Tanzania – Zanzibar’s mosques are fuller on Fridays, more women are wearing head scarves and more Muslim men are showing calluses created by frequently touching their foreheads to the ground in prayer. A growing number of Zanzibaris are turning toward a stricter form of Islam and possibly away from democracy ahead of this fall’s elections, expected to be a volatile affair.
**Multiparty politics “has brought nothing but tragedy,” said Abdallah Mohammed Suleiman, 42, who sells imported clothes. "The best solution (is) to uphold our religious values, that is Islamic values, or revert to single party rule.
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“After all, Islam is the sole unifying factor in Zanzibar.”
Fundamentalist clerics see an opportunity, offering Islamic law as an alternative to democracy, arguing that would bring discipline and moral values to political leadership.
“We clearly see a vacuum that could be filled by the Islamist system that could show people that democracy – which they hoped would enable them to elect leaders they want, people with integrity – has failed,” said Abdallah Said Ali, secretary of Society for Islamic Awareness and Preaching in Zanzibar.
The secular government of Tanzania, formed after Zanzibar united with the former Tanganyika, clearly is worried. It has quietly tightened restrictions for foreign Muslim missionaries. Tanzanian embassies must now certify six months in advance that the missionaries are from groups that do not threaten Tanzania’s security.
The trend is likely to affect the interpretation of Islam in continental Africa. Although Zanzibar is less influential now, it has a history of leading the way – the slave trade, Islam, Christianity, colonial rule and Kiswahili, Africa’s most widely spoken local language, were all introduced by these islands.
Islamists in Zanzibar can be forceful when enforcing their brand of the faith.
“These days you cannot see tourists who are half-naked walking on our streets,” Said Ali said, referring to attacks on women wearing short dresses in Zanzibar.
Early this year four Islamic clerics attacked a Zanzibari man who had reportedly planned a same-sex commitment ceremony similar to a wedding. The preachers were charged with abduction, a price they said they were willing to pay to show their commitment to their faith.
“They even insulted police officers investigating the abduction,” said Ameir Juma Ameir said, a regional police chief.
People seeing through the sham of democrohyocrisy and accepting the correct system for mankind secualrists in tanzania saying they are worried they should be their days are numbered.
to the muslims of zanzibar takbeer !