William andrew kopwe the open university of tanzania

4.3.9 Christian-Muslim Intermarriage

Christian-Muslim mixed marriages are not novel in Tanzania. The married people may be either a husband is a Muslim and wife Christian or the vice versa. The former pair does not have problem with Sharī’a. The problem lies on the second one. Similarly, some Muslim parents allow their daughters to be married to no-Muslim husbands. These parents commonly say “women do not have religion. They acquire the religion of their husbands”. Such statement is more of a popular worldview than Islam because when Sharī’a forbids such marriages, it shows that even Muslim women have religion. Such worldview is a sign of denigrating and deprivation of women status in the society. This is against Human Rights and women dignity. Of course Islam is clear with such ideas. History of Islam shows that one of the things it did was to uplift the status of women in the society which was very low in pre-Islamic Arabia, when a woman was considered as a part of man’s wealth and could be inherited by relatives when the husband dies. Thus the Qur’ān says: “O ye who believe! Ye are forbidden to inherit women against their will” (Surah 4:19).
However, there are other parents who stick to Sharī’a by denying their children to be married to a non-Muslim husband. Yet this does not restrict them to get married to those people. But those disputes between the parents and their daughters are easily settled by the alternative provided by the Government. The Government provides a neutral ground where the marriage is not officiated in any religious grounds. This is commonly known as Civil Marriage. These kinds of marriages are solemnized by Government officials who are licensed to do so. Yet another issue is the religion of children born out of such marriages. At early stages the children follow the religion of the more influential among the parents. Though in most case parents put pressure to their children when the children grow up they follow religion of their choice.
Traditionally, in Tanzania when a Muslim woman marries a non-Muslim man the Muslim woman is considered to have detached from that family.¹³⁰ Family members are not allowed to have any relationship with this member. But still this does not work in most cases. Tanzanians are living following more of African traditional philosophy than Islamic and Christian philosophies. Blood ties are more powerful than religious ties. Under such background, sustainability of excommunication is difficult to abide by. Conversation with three women who come from different settings married to non-Muslims proved that they were first threatened of being excommunicated by their families if they marry non-Muslims. Truly they were excommunicated, but that took very short time before they were restored in their families. They are currently enjoying good relations with their family members.¹³¹
Parents who decided to restore their daughters who are married to non-Muslims gave several reasons for that. Two reasons appeared from almost all of the respondents. Firstly, due to the Tanzanian social-economical context parents depend upon their children for their support in the old age. Therefore, they invest a lot of money to educate them. After all the expenses incurred in educating them it is not easy to forsake them just because of their marriage. Excommunicating them meant two things; lost of the wealth they invested in their children and decrease of their assurance of security in their old age time.¹³² Another reason was that the parents did not see why destroying good relationship with their own daughters while they have good relationship with their non-Muslim relatives. The social-anthropological nature of Tanzanian extended families is that, most families have both Christians and Muslim members. Others have even African traditionalist members. They all live peacefully with good cooperation. If they can have good relations with people from the extended families who are non-Muslim, it is inconceivable for them to stay at odd with their own children of the nuclear family.
Sharī’a is here affected by the Government secularity whereby one is allowed to worship a religion of choice. With this reality Sharī’a cannot force any one to follow it. This implies that punishment enjoined in the Sharī’a for people who have converted to other religions cannot be applied. For instance, if a Muslim converts to another religion, it is known as murtaddi (backslider), the sin is rida (to deny Islam). Punishment of this sin, if one does not recant the new religion, is death (Mawdudi, 1994). A girl who marries to a non-Muslim is considered to have brought shame to the family. Therefore, Islam allows the father or brother of the woman to kill her under what is commonly known as honorable death. But with a secular Government of Tanzania such punishments are not applicable and considered crime because of the Human Rights Declaration and Constitution, which safeguard the right to follow religion of their choice and freedom to change their religion at will.
Another important thing to ponder as far as Sharī’a implementation is concerned, is the mixed life of people in Tanzania. For total Sharī’a implementation to take effect, the populace needs to be at least a Muslim majority, like in Northern Nigeria. It is difficult to have such an area in Tanzania today. The people are religious and ethnically mixed. In some areas, especially urban settings, Muslims and people of other religions, are living in the same house. And religion is understood as a private matter. This mixing life is a legacy of Nyerere and the ujamaa philosophy. Though the philosophy is understood by many as a failure economically, socially it was very successful in bringing people together. Its influence is prevalent today among people of different classes and backgrounds in the nation. Several things happen in such houses, such as women of other religions are not forced to wear hijab and they are free to live according to their own ethics or choice of life. Another significant example is the eating of pork meat. People of other religions may eat pork freely. Nobody denies this right, despite the presence of the Muslims.
Yet, I would like to stress here that not all non-Muslims who live with Muslims are rude. In most cases, they are very considerate, and when they eat pork they make sure that they do not offend their fellow Muslims by giving them the meat or food in that particular meal. The researcher grew up in such situation in Bagamoyo town, where sometimes Christians notify tell their Muslim neighbors at when they had pork at their meals. And sometimes, in order to create harmony, non-Muslims do not slaughter meat in order that their Muslim neighbors could feel free to eat when are invited. These are some of the things, which make ordinary citizens in Tanzania to live peacefully, in the same location or house, despite their differences in religions. This is a unique culture difficult to be understood by a non-Tanzania citizen from the West or even in African continent. It is a culture which came up of a peculiar post colonial Government. It is legacy by which Nyerere cultivated in the life of Tanzanians. He will be remembered for many decades to come because of this culture.