Islam in Africa 
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 Periodical article |
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| Title: | The Muslim Association Party: A Test of Religious Politics in Ghana |
| Author: | Ahmed-Rufai, Misbahudeen |
| Year: | 2002 |
| Periodical: | Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana (ISSN 0855-3246) |
| Issue: | 6 |
| Pages: | 99-114 |
| Language: | English |
| Notes: | biblio. refs. |
| Geographic terms: | Ghana West Africa |
| Subjects: | Islam Islamization political action political parties Politics and Government Religion and Witchcraft politics political science religion Muslim Association Party (Ghana) |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/41406671 |
| Abstract: | The creation of the Gold Coast Hausa Constabulary, the decline of the Salaga market and the activities of Muslim traders greatly bolstered Muslim communities on the Accra coast towards the end of the nineteenth century. The defeat of Ashanti by the British in 1874, and the Salaga civil war of 1892, resulted in an influx of Muslims into Accra. Muslims in Accra were ethnicized along foreign and indigenous lines. The Hausa, Yoruba, Wangara, Busanga, Gao, Mossi and Zabrama were considered foreign by the Ga, Dagomba, Gurushi, as well as other Muslims from northern Ghana. Since most Muslims chose not to be educated in the colonial educational system, due to suspicion of its Christianizing mission, Western illiteracy became one of the defining elements of Muslims in Ghanaian society. The ethnic divide between Muslims was manifested in the political associations that were formed in the community. Thus most members of the Muslim Association Party (MAP), originally a religious organization known as the Gold Coast Muslim Association until it turned political in 1954, were of Hausa-Yoruba origin. Party political affiliation was a source of intra Muslim conflicts, as were political differences between the youth and the older generation. Muslim political values and positions were shaped by political expediency rather than religio-ethnic solidarity. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
