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A combination of three methods was used to gather information for the field research. These were interviews, group discussions, Television programs, tape records and participant observation methods.
Interviews
In-depth expert and non-expert interviews were done through open-ended-non-standardized technique. In this technique, the researcher asked questions in accordance with the topics relevant to the problem under study. The questions were asked randomly in respect to the response of the respondent. Also, he got chance to join the conversations for further probing of information. Three major phases of interview processes were done. The first one was on February 2007 to April 2007, whereby interviews with people were conducted from Tanga, Bagamoyo, and Dar-Es-salaam. The second phase was on September 2007 to December 2007, the researcher conducted interviews in Arusha, Dodoma, Bagamoyo and Dar-Es-salaam. The last phase was on September 2008, research was done in Moshi and Dodoma.
Participant Observation
Commenting on the effectiveness of participant observation, Bernard says that “More and more researchers these days, across the social sciences, have learned what a method powerful participant observation is at all stages of the research process”. This may be used independently, or, as a combination with other qualitative and quantitative. Being a person raised up in a religious mixed family with Muslims and Christians, the researcher has observed numerous Muslim activates.
Also during this research the researcher attended several Muslim functions in the areas of study. And in the process of writing the report of this study, the researcher has been working with interfaith departments of the North Eastern Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania and he is currently a Director of Interfaith in the Christian Council of Tanzania. Both experiences allowed the research to observe several instances of Muslim religious activities which has added up o the research and analysis of the study.
3.6.3 Data Analysis
Since the research followed qualitative research methodology, the researcher employed the qualitative data analysis method. In this method, both the selected documents and interviews were analyzed using thematic data analysis. Three methods were employed.
Textual Analysis
Citing Smith (1974, 1990) and Coffey (1997), Denzin (2005:8; 70) points out that “much of social life in modern society is mediated by written texts of different kinds”. So it was with this research. For the understanding of the historical development of Sharī’a implementation and the issues surrounding it, the researcher did a content analysis of the textual documents which are mentioned in part 3.6.1. Similarly, “From one point of view it is reasonable to call content analysis “a qualitative” technique, for the researcher does not make quantitative comparisons between two or more cases” (Simon, 2003:211). Therefore, each document was carefully read, interpreted and thematically coded. For non-English texts, coded themes were translated into English and finally analyzed.
Content Analysis
Content analysis of TV programs and cassettes were done by careful watching the video tapes and listening to the audio cassettes. The tapes were thematically coded and content analyzed. Also, for those programs which we could not manage to get tapes, notes were taken during the programs. The notes were also thematically coded and analyzed.
Interview Analysis
In interview were recorded using digital voice recorder and then the information was transcribed. Kiswahili transcriptions were translated into English. After that, the transcriptions were thematically coded. In analyzing the information, we used John Seide’s method of noticing, collecting and thinking about themes.9 Thereafter, similar themes and typologies were collected together and thought of for analysis. From the identified themes, outlines of the research presentation were created. However, in qualitative research methodology, data analysis is a continual process. Hence, the data analysis was done even during the interview process. We kept on analyzing data in one way or another right from the beginning of the research process. Every action and event that happened during the interviews was seriously taken into consideration in data analysis.
3.6.4 Notes
In this study the following things should be noted:
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Because of sensitivity of the research some interviewees’ anonymities are concealed by either using pseudonyms or their surnames only. Personal details of the interviewees are appended.
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Interviews are acknowledged using footnotes.
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Books and literature are acknowledged using “in-text citation” and “footnotes” in case of further explanations.
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Non-English terminologies used in statements are either literally translated in brackets after their use or elaborated in the footnotes.
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Meanings of uncommon terminologies used in the dissertation are given in the glossary of terms.
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Unless otherwise stated, all Qur’ān quotations are from Yusuph Ali’s English translation. And all Biblical quotations are from the Revised Standard Version.
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For the sake of better understanding transliterated words, an Arabic-English alphabet and their pronunciations table is provided.
3.6.5 Summary
This chapter presented the research philosophy and data collection techniques which were used to gather relevant information for answering the questions of the study. In this chapter the researcher justified the rationale for choosing qualitative data paradigm for the research. It further explained the sample selection, administration and analysis of the collected data. Finally it provided the information on the research process and important notes in the presentation of research findings. In the next chapter the research will present the empirical research findings complemented by some library research finding.
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