The Cross versus the Crescent: Religion and Politics in Tanzania from the 1880s to the 1990s
Lawrence E.Y. Mbogoni
Christianity was first brought to Tanzania in the sixteenth century by the Portuguese. By this time, Islam was already established along the coast. The Portuguese were hostile to Islam and had no qualms about massacring Muslims, in the belief that they were carrying out a crusade against infidels; and the East African coast, Mombasa, Kilwa and Zanzibar suffered untold brutalities at their hands. In the nineteenth century, the followers of Christianity and Islam clashed again, when the Muslims fought against the imposition of German colonial rule, and later against British rule. In the mid-1980s, and throughout the 1990s, there was an upsurge of both Christian and Islamic ‘fundamentalism’ and militant evangelism, which were characterised by hostile public preaching and rallies on both sides.

In 1998, confrontation ascended into what became known as the Mwembechai riots, people were shot dead, and property was destroyed. A Tanzanian Muslim, Hamza Njozi, wrote a book on the riots suggesting that they were the culmination of a conspiracy between the Church and the government, to marginalise and oppress Muslims. Mbogoni wrote this book, in part, in response to this unsatisfactory thesis and in the hope that a broader historical context might facilitate better understanding of relations between the two faiths in Tanzania.