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This chapter describes the significance of the Sufi brotherhoods. It starts by addressing the arrival of the tarika in Southeast Tanzania. The tarika-shehe of the inter-war period, who are most clearly remembered in the coastal towns, were themselves fairly well travelled, well connected, and partly of patrician parentage. Ritual practices constitute a crucial unifying element for the tarika. Two tarika became influential in the late nineteenth century in Southeast Tanzania. The main characters of twentieth-century saints are summarized. The outlines of the shehes' lives and work already give a sense of the tensions they negotiated: between urbanites versed in Arabic script and immigrants to town versed in ngoma, between the ideology of patrician separateness and superiority, and the self-assertion of villagers struggling to make the colonial towns their home. The ritual expertise, colonial domination, and the reformulation of categories of social distinction are discussed. The spread of the tarika and their ritual practices along the Swahili coast illustrates the unity in diversity of this culture area at work.

Although the synchronicity of the rise of Muslim radicalism in East Africa with similar phenomena in many parts of the world gives that radicalism the appearance of an unstoppable ideological tide, it is intricately connected to recent political and economic changes in Tanzania. It is shown that while the Ansar of Southeast Tanzania formed part of a transregional reformist current, their confrontational style and inflammatory rhetoric were directed against the specific conjunction of the political and religious authority they faced at home. The reformist debates and Muslim discontent in East Africa after independence are explained. In addition to the above, this chapter elaborates on the crisis of the urban economy and of the tarika. The parallelism of political and trade liberalization has made commercial strength a potential basis for the pursuance of political aims. It is difficult to present a conclusive account of the Ansar in Southeast Tanzania, since their role is still unfolding. The attack on Muslim notables and their relations with government are illustrated. The proactive and calculated response of the authorities to the actions of the Ansar indicates that Tanzanian politicians take the provinces more seriously than is immediately apparent to the outside observer.