Religious Background

Ancestors of the Bantu in southeast Africa practiced indigenous ceremonies and beliefs prior to their abduction into slavery. Since Muslims are prohibited from owning Muslim slaves, some Bantu freed themselves from slavery by converting to Islam. Over time, many others also converted to Islam. A small number of Bantu who resided in the Dadaab refugee camps recently converted to Christianity. Many Bantu, whether Muslim or Christian, retain animist beliefs, including use of magic, curses, and possession dances.

Islamic influence among the escaped slaves in the Juba River valley gained momentum after the Bantu leader Nassib Bundo converted to Islam. Although the pre-Islamic traditions and ritual practices were not completely eliminated, most Bantu people in the Juba River valley had converted to Islam by the beginning of the 20th century. Unlike some politically motivated

Islamic groups, the Bantu people from the Juba River valley practice Islam for religious purposes and do not mix it with politics for personal or popular gain. It should be noted that the lower Juba Bantu with strong linguistic and cultural ties to southeast Africa place great value on belonging to a ritual group, known as mviko. Some traditional ceremonies performed by the group are known as mviko rituals. As Francesca Declich, an authority on Bantu culture, explains,

In the Gosha area, belonging to a dance society or other dance group is equivalent to belonging to a kin grouping: people share a network of relationships, incest rules (inter-marriage is closely controlled between members of the same dance group), and ancestors by dance group. The dances are closely related to initiation into adulthood and their performance is closely related to control and, therefore, political power.

Mviko and other Bantu ceremonies that include playing drums and dancing are not considered appropriate Islamic behavior and are forbidden by some local Muslim sheikhs. In pre-civil war Somalia, newly resettled nomads in the Juba River valley would often disrupt Bantu dance  performances. Some Bantu ceremonial dancing in the Dadaab refugee camps was also disrupted-sometimes violently through intimidation and stone throwing-by fundamentalist Muslim Somalis who objected to the perceived sexually provocative dancing. Although there is some conflict in mixing Islamic Sufi mysticism, which is acceptable to Muslim sheikhs, and the traditional Bantu ritual dances, both seem to coexist in Bantu religious life.

Sunni Islamic Sect

Conversion to Islam by the Bantu communities has served to somewhat reduce hostilities between them and the Somali pastoralists who live in the vicinity of the Juba River. The Bantu are members of the Sunni Islamic sect and members of the Ahmediya Sufi brotherhood and the Qaadiriya Sufi brotherhood, which was headed by the distinguished scholar Sheikh Awees Al-Barawi of Bantu origin. The brotherhoods are known to be the center for religious learning. At the same time, there are Bantu who are not attached to any brotherhood group and practice Islam on a daily basis.

With regard to religious practices, the Bantu are among the more liberal Muslims in Somali society. Evidence of this are the ceremonies performed by the Bantu and the roles that women are allowed to play in the community, such as being allowed to work in the fields and, although they dress modestly by American standards, not wearing the hijab, which some Muslim women wear to cover themselves while in public. There is no evidence to link the Bantu with any fundamentalist religious or extremist political group. In fact, some fundamentalists in Somalia dismiss the Bantu's religious saints (Sufis) and Islamic practices as unorthodox.

Religious Holidays

Like other Islamic groups, the Bantu people celebrate the two major religious occasions, Eid-al-Fitr, which comes at the end of the holy month of Ramadan, and Eid-al Adha, which coincides with the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

 

Christianity and Bantu Refugees

There appeared to be no Christians among the Bantu who first arrived in refuge camps in 1992. By 1996, however, a small number had converted to Christianity in the Ifo refugee camp, which was also home to several hundred Christian Ethiopians. The Christian Bantu stated that they didn't want to belong to a religion (Islam) that could allow atrocities to be perpetrated against them. A 2002 report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) notes the presence of a Bantu-constructed Christian church in the Ifo refugee camp.