In this chapter I introduce and try to clarify the notion of contingency as a possible framework for mediating tensions between traditional understandings of Islam, on the one hand, and modern principles of constitutionalism, on the other.
This framework can contribute to facilitating the development of constitutionalism by enhancing its cultural and religious legitimacy in African Islamic societies. Here I am seeking to apply to African Islamic societies the same basic premise discussed earlier, namely, that the sustainable development of constitutionalism needs to come to terms with the indigenous values and institutions of those societies.
This is not to say that is only and exclusively in terms of Islam, but merely that there is an Islamic dimension to relevant values and institutions of predominantly Islamic societies in Africa. Moreover, such reconciliation cannot be assumed to exist or be readily available in any specific setting, nor should it be presumed to be impossible to promote through internal debate. These two chapters are therefore intended as a study in a proactive approach to the incremental success of constitutionalism in African societies whose cultural and institutional resources have a strong or clear Islamic dimension.Given the ambivalence and contingency of the relationship between Islam and constitutionalism, as explained in chapter 1 and further elaborated below, the basic question is whether it would be possible to develop deliberate strategies for promoting a positive relationship between the two. The rest of this chapter will be devoted to clarifying this notion of contingency in the role of Islam in politics, broadly defined. For our purposes here this means that the outcome of the interaction of Islam and constitutionalism can vary according to a variety of factors, rather than being permanently settled one way or the other. If this is true, it should be possible to influence this relationship by addressing the various factors that shape its outcome in any given context. To elaborate this thesis, I will begin with recalling some earlier theoretical reflections, and then outline the processes of the spread and adaptation of Islam in Africa in relation to the colonial and postcolonial stages, as the context in which the proposed contingency analysis is supposed to be applied. The chapter ends with a discussion of a proposed approach to reconciliation, to be further explored in the next chapter.