Kenyan Muslims played a part in the push to repeal repressive political laws in the country in the early 1990s. But Muslims, who account for 11% of the population, have yet to enjoy the fruits of their activist labour.

This is because they remain divided. Their division – due both to internal and external factors – means they aren’t a political power bloc big enough for the elites who run the country to seek their support as a community. In Kenya, political and economic power rests with the large ethnic groups.

There have been attempts before to organise Kenya’s Muslims, but these have failed. One reason is opposition by the country’s political leadership to using religion as the basis for political mobilisation. Leaders fear that mobilisation along religious lines risks being abused by extremists who seek to impose an Islamic state governed by sharia.

Yet, Islam in Kenya has become increasingly politicised. As I have argued before, this process, beginning in the early 1990s, can be traced to the policies of post-independence regimes that have left the Muslim minority behind.

Muslims have felt increasingly marginalised economically and politically in Kenya. The majority of Muslims are jobless, low-income earners, and generally poor. This is not to suggest that Muslims are economically worse off than other minority groups in Kenya. But regions dominated by Muslims record a high percentage of the population in poverty and illiteracy.

Furthermore, in the global war on terror, Kenya’s pursuit of violent extremists has led to increasing human rights violations while intensifying historical frictions between the state and the Muslim community.

Unlike previous terrorist threats, such as the embassy bombing in 1998, attacks by the Somali terrorist group Al-Shabaab and its Kenyan supporters such as Jeshi Ayman have targeted the country’s institutions. The upshot is a backlash by the state against its Muslim population. There have been targeted kidnappings and extrajudicial killings. The backlash bolsters the narrative of government mistreatment of the community.

Read more: https://theconversation.com/kenyas-muslims-a-divided-community-with-little-political-clout-184436