Islamic Affiliations and Urban Adaptation: The Sisala Migrant in Accra, Ghana

Abstract

Opening ParagraphThis study sets out to explain the relatively high incidence of Islamic affiliation among traditionally non-Islamic Sisala migrants living in the migrant community of Mamobi in Accra, Ghana. In the course of the presentation, I intend to demonstrate that the migrants' relationship to Islam and the urban Islamic community is directly related to insecurities resulting from leaving one's native area and confronting an alien and often dangerous, urban environment, and that Islam provides the migrant with the instrumental means by which to facilitate his adjustment to urban life.