Ambiguous accommodation: Cape Muslims and post-apartheid politics

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Periodical article

Title:	Ambiguous accommodation: Cape Muslims and post-apartheid politics
Authors:	Bangstad, Sindre Fataar, Aslam
Year:	2010
Periodical:	Journal of Southern African Studies (ISSN 1465-3893)
Volume:	36
Issue:	4
Pages:	817-831
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	Islam political attitudes middle class ulema
External link:	https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2010.527639
Abstract:	The authors explore how the elite among Muslim religious leaders in the Western Cape of South Africa, organized in the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC), have positioned themselves with regard to political power in the postapartheid era. They argue that the MJC's positioning may be characterized as premised on a 'loyalist-accommodationist' relation to power, in which the comforts and religious freedoms of a religious minority are seen as best ensured by accommodation with the party in power, the African National Congress (ANC). This strategy is closely linked to the interests of the middle-class elite, from which the elite among the 'ulama' is largely recruited. The authors demonstrate that this loyalist-accommodationist stance has survived the ideological and discursive shifts within the ANC over the course of the post-apartheid era, and explain why a politics of direct challenge to political power from the MJC is unlikely in the 'new South Africa', in spite of the 'ulama's' ambivalence with regard to societal secularization. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]