Everyday Islam in Kumasi: Devout Lay Men and Women in Daily Life

by Gracia Clark

Allabar Women's Islamic School

The wife of an Islamic teacher founded this school in their home, in one of Kumasi's oldest Muslim neighborhoods. A long front room holds beginning, intermediate and advanced groups. It offers Arabic, English, math and sciences classes, and she has hired Muslim and non-Muslim teachers to present the full public school curriculum, although the school gets no government support. The students are mostly married women, who attend part time in between their family and work responsibilities.

Bantama Women's Fellowship

Bantama mosque serves a central Kumasi neighborhood that historically contained a large proportion of Muslim families before colonial rule. On Fridays, a group of women gathers under the supervision of the local Imam, to study the Koran and learn basic Arabic. On two Fridays they heard an explanation of this website project and were invited to record interviews for posting on it. Interviews were held in the large women's side chamber of the mosque before prayers began.

Men

Allabar Women's Islamic School

The wife of an Islamic teacher founded this school in their home, in one of Kumasi's oldest Muslim neighborhoods. A long front room holds beginning, intermediate and advanced groups. It offers Arabic, English, math and sciences classes, and she has hired Muslim and non-Muslim teachers to present the full public school curriculum, although the school gets no government support. The students are mostly married women, who attend part time in between their family and work responsibilities.

Bantama Women's Fellowship

Bantama mosque serves a central Kumasi neighborhood that historically contained a large proportion of Muslim families before colonial rule. On Fridays, a group of women gathers under the supervision of the local Imam, to study the Koran and learn basic Arabic. On two Fridays they heard an explanation of this website project and were invited to record interviews for posting on it. Interviews were held in the large women's side chamber of the mosque before prayers began.

Tafo Women's Fellowship

Old Tafo lies along the main highway north from Kumasi, and was one of the earliest settlements for immigrant Northerners. As an old Muslim community it has several neighborhood mosques, and the imam of one founded a government-supported primary and middle school that offers instruction in the Koran and Arabic language along with the standard national curriculum. This group of women attends that mosque and meets on Fridays to learn Arabic and read the Koran. After hearing about the website project, those who agreed to record an interview for it met us in an empty classroom.

Men



Tafo Women's Fellowship

Old Tafo lies along the main highway north from Kumasi, and was one of the earliest settlements for immigrant Northerners. As an old Muslim community it has several neighborhood mosques, and the imam of one founded a government-supported primary and middle school that offers instruction in the Koran and Arabic language along with the standard national curriculum. This group of women attends that mosque and meets on Fridays to learn Arabic and read the Koran. After hearing about the website project, those who agreed to record an interview for it met us in an empty classroom.

Women

Allabar Women's Islamic School

The wife of an Islamic teacher founded this school in their home, in one of Kumasi's oldest Muslim neighborhoods. A long front room holds beginning, intermediate and advanced groups. It offers Arabic, English, math and sciences classes, and she has hired Muslim and non-Muslim teachers to present the full public school curriculum, although the school gets no government support. The students are mostly married women, who attend part time in between their family and work responsibilities.

Bantama Women's Fellowship

Bantama mosque serves a central Kumasi neighborhood that historically contained a large proportion of Muslim families before colonial rule. On Fridays, a group of women gathers under the supervision of the local Imam, to study the Koran and learn basic Arabic. On two Fridays they heard an explanation of this website project and were invited to record interviews for posting on it. Interviews were held in the large women's side chamber of the mosque before prayers began.

Tafo Women's Fellowship

Old Tafo lies along the main highway north from Kumasi, and was one of the earliest settlements for immigrant Northerners. As an old Muslim community it has several neighborhood mosques, and the imam of one founded a government-supported primary and middle school that offers instruction in the Koran and Arabic language along with the standard national curriculum. This group of women attends that mosque and meets on Fridays to learn Arabic and read the Koran. After hearing about the website project, those who agreed to record an interview for it met us in an empty classroom.

Women



Runaway Wife

Date: January 3, 1939
This wronged husband is appealing to the Asantehene because he feels the chief of his ethnic community in Kumasi has been unfair.

Palaver Held at the Central Market, Kumasi

Date: October 13, 1946
Muslim traders settled freely in Kumasi after British conquest in 1898, but they had to negotiate a place for themselves politically and economically as a minority. Each immigrant ethnic group acknowledged a Kumasi headman, who maintained constructive relations with the Asante chiefly hierarchy and the British colonial authorities to protect their trading activities and legal traditions. Although most of the translations for this case will be from oral interviews, the paramount chief's archives contain valuable English language documents from earlier decades, such as petitions and court cases. The following sample document shows high-ranking palace officials mediating a conflict between male traders from Gao (Mali) and Asante women traders. Their rivalry over access to truckloads of yams arriving in Kumasi Central Market sparked several violent clashes between 1938 and 1952.