Towards Jihad? Muslims and Politics in Postcolonial Mozambique

This book is an outstanding academic work that makes the somewhat distant and murky politics of tropical Africa feel fresh and readable to Anglophone readers. Undoubtedly, Towards Jihad? Muslims and Politics in Postcolonial Mozambique will fill out what otherwise might have been a severely incomplete picture of contemporary international affairs in east Africa.

Over the past decade, the republic of Mozambique in south-east Africa has faced a violent jihadi insurgency, prompting renewed scrutiny of the historical relationship between Islam and politics in the country. This book examines the origins of the insurrection within a broader, longue durée analysis of Muslim political engagement, asking whether Islamic politics in Mozambique has historically inclined towards jihad or whether the staunchly secular and Socialist regime poisoned communal relationships in the 1980s with their militant laicism. “This book is a historical investigation of the relations between Muslims and politics in Mozambique from independence in 1975 to 2022, five years after the jihadi insurgency began.” (p.3)