Throughout history and in different societies, politicians and religious leaders have attempted to use religion to mobilize people for political purposes. At some points in time and in some places, such appeals have been rather effective. At other times and places, they have not. We have yet to understand very well (1) the variation in the decision to use appeals to religious identity in order to mobilize people for political action and (2) the differences in the effectiveness of such appeals.

In Muslims in Kenyan Politics: Political Involvement, Marginalization, and Minority Status, Hassan J. Ndzovu seeks to, among other things, deepen an understanding of why Kenya’s Muslim politicians and religious leaders have been more or less successful at mobilizing Muslims for political action. Ndzovu describes the place of Kenya’s Muslim minority in colonial and post-colonial eras, assesses how competitive electoral politics has affected the political importance of religious identity, traces the founding of various Muslim political organizations, and offers plausible explanations for why most, if not all of them failed to gain widespread support and lasting traction. According Ndzovu, attempts to mobilize Muslims on a national scale have failed partly because race, ethnicity, geography, and ideology have divided Kenya’s Muslims and partly because successive Kenyan governments have successfully thwarted Muslim attempts to organize. Nonetheless, Ndzovu claims that Muslim religious identity has become increasingly salient as, in the wake of terrorist attacks by groups like Al Qaeda and Al Shabaab, many Muslims perceive themselves to be victims of unfair discrimination. Thus, Ndzovu suggests that future attempts to mobilize Muslims as Muslims for political purposes are likely to meet with greater success. This, concludes Ndzovu, presents Kenya’s policymakers with an important choice: They may continue to refuse to allow Islamic political parties to legally register, thereby increasing the likelihood that they become increasingly radical or recognize Islamic political parties, therefore increasing the chances that such organizations provide a peaceful outlet for Kenya’s Muslims to participate in the mainstream of the country’s politics.

The book’s greatest strength is its rich description of Muslims in Kenya’s political history and the various organizations that Muslims have founded to protect their religious freedom and promote their political influence in a Christian-majority country. The book includes information that many students of religion and politics in Kenya and Sub-Saharan Africa more generally would find very useful. However, one cannot help but wish that the rich descriptions that Ndzovu provides were accompanied by greater analysis and that the claims he makes were backed up with empirical evidence. Ndzovu makes some assertions (e.g.: including the hypothetical claim that Kenya would be better off if its Constitution were to allow religious-based parties), which are not supported by the research presented in the book.

In order to understand the place of Muslims in Kenyan politics, it is crucially important to know something of Kenya’s religious demography and geography. While Muslims represent a minority in Kenya nationally, they form the majority of the population along Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastline and in the northeastern region of the country near the Somali border. Further, nearly every urban area in Kenya, particularly Nairobi, includes sizeable Muslim populations. Kenya’s Muslims are diverse and Ndzovu notes that race and ethnicity, in particular, have divided Muslims since at least the mid nineteenth century. Upon their arrival in the mid and late nineteenth century, the British simply solidified a racial hierarchy so that “Arab” Muslims continued to rule over African Muslims, such as the Mijikenda and the Swahili ethnic groups (pp. 21–33). Ndzovu vividly describes how the Muslim community was severely divided as Kenya’s independence neared. While Arab Muslims viewed with dread the coast’s incorporation into an independent Kenya dominated by Africans and Christians, the coast’s African Muslims viewed independence as an opportunity to be free of Arab domination. Ndzovu points to evidence that shows Kenya’s African Muslims preferred to be part of a greater Kenya, in which they would be members of racial majority even if that meant being in the religious minority (pp. 41–44).

One of the recurring themes of the book is the extent to which racial and ethnic identities have been more politically salient for Kenya’s Muslims than their religious identity. In fact, most of the Muslim organizations that Ndzovu describes were more like ethnic-based organizations than religious-based organizations. For example, the Coast Arab Association, founded in 1921, was clearly established by Arab Muslims and not intended to promote a Muslim-wide political agenda (p. 33). In response, a group of African Muslims formed the Afro-Asian Association (pp. 33–38). Ndzovu goes on to describe how Muslim organizations faired under successive post-independence African governments and how Kenya’s political leaders, particularly presidents Jomo Kenyatta (1963–1978) and Daniel Arap Moi (1978–2002), either ignored or sought to coopt and control the country’s Muslims though government-supported or approved Muslim organizations, such the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (p. 80). The interesting point that Ndzovu’s book drives home is that attempts to politically contain Muslims through the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims did not succeed as such efforts were exposed by Muslim religious leaders for what they really were, instruments of political control.

Although Ndzovu suggests that the Islamic Party of Kenya (IPK), founded when multiparty politics was restored in Kenya during the early 1990s, was a more non-racial, multi-ethnic, and trans-regional organization than previous organizations, he goes on to describe how even this big-tent grouping of Muslims gradually weakened. However, Ndzovu’s research leads him to suggest that the reasons for the weakening of the IPK are different than the reasons why other Muslim organizations declined. Ndzovu suggests that the IPK weakened not so much because of ethnic or racial conflicts between Muslims, but because of religious-ideological disagreements. In other words, some coastal Muslims wanted the IPK to promote an Islamist religious agenda, at least along the northern coast where Muslims form a majority of the population, while other Muslims desired that the organization be more of a mainstream political party (pp. 88–89).

There are important theoretical questions that the book raises but never fully or directly engages. For example, if racial and ethnic identities have been more politically salient than religious identities and, if religious identities have recently become more politically salient, why has this been the case? What are the plausible explanations for the variation in the political importance of religious identity in Kenya? Ndzovu suggests that the Kenyan government’s response to the bombing of the United States Embassy in Nairobi by Al Qaeda operatives in 1998, the debate over the place of Islamic courts in the run up to the referendum on Kenya’s new Constitution in 2010, and security measures the Kenyan government has implemented in the wake of deadly attacks mounted by Al Shabaab, have all served to increase the political salience of Muslim political identity. Ndzovu suggests that Muslims of all ethnic groups increasingly feel like they are under siege (pp. 118–124; 150). However, while it is altogether plausible that religious identity is becoming more politically salient for Muslims in Kenya, the book provides no hard evidence that in fact this is the case. One cannot help but desire some survey data that would clearly show whether in fact there has been a change in the political salience of religious identity among Kenya’s Muslims. In the absence of such data, it would seem that the author would have been better off refraining from claiming that there has been such an increase.

There can be no doubt that Ndzovu is an expert on Islam, Muslims, and politics in Kenya and that the book is a must read for anyone interested in learning more about the Kenyan case. However, the book must be appreciated for what is. Ndzovu describes the place of Muslims in Kenya’s political scene and how changes in Kenya’s political scene have prompted Muslims to form various organizations intended to further their interests. While raising plausible explanations for the changes in the political significance of Muslim religious identity, the book is not devoted to testing such explanations. While the book does not make a major theoretical contribution, it does further knowledge by providing detailed accounts of how members of a Muslim minority have struggled to organize themselves to further their interests within an African country that has recently been affected by violent Islamist extremism.