David Adeyanju AFST 283F Professor: Dr.

Moulay-Ali Bounani 4/30/2012

RESPONSE PAPER ON ISLAM IN SOUTHERN AFRICA I never actually knew that Islam existed in South Africa until I heard that Gandhi was actually a worker in South Africa before the Indian Crisis. Therefore I always thought that the people in South Africa were either Christians or Traditional worshippers. But the truth is that southern Africa has played host to a huge population of Muslims. There are over four million Muslims in Mozambique, constituting by far the largest Muslim community in southern Africa. They tend to be concentrated in the countrys northern and coastal provinces. Muslim Arab navigators and traders first made contact with the various local African communities along the Indian Ocean coastline, proselytizing among and converting significant numbers. In Malawi, the Muslim community is estimated at one million; the substantial majority being of the Lomwe and the Yao ethnic-linguistic groupings who also inhabit northern Mozambique. Zambia has a Muslim population of around 200,000, a substantial minority of whom are of Asian origin. In Zimbabwe, where the total Muslim population is around 150,000, Asian settlers account for an important minority - about one quarter. Muslim Africans of Malawian, Mozambican, Somali, Tanzanian and Zairean descent, whose forefathers settled in what was then Southern Rhodesia, account for the vast majority of the remainder. One of the largest communities is that of the South Africa, where Muslims number approximately 500,000.