High Court of Tanzania: State Cannot Compel All Muslims to Join an “Umbrella Organization”

The decision is a message to these African countries that are considering adopting the Chinese model of forcing religions to become part of government-supervised bodies.

By Peter Rukundo

January 8, 2026

The building hosting the High Court of Tanzania. From X.

On 24 December 2025, the High Court of Tanzania issued a ruling, whose text has now been published, that reads like a polite but firm slap on the wrist to African countries that are trying to submit religion to state control by compelling spiritual organizations to join government-supervised “umbrella organizations” established for Christians, Muslims, and others.

For years, several African governments have been drifting toward a model of religious administration that looks suspiciously familiar to anyone who has studied China’s system of state-managed faith. The formula is simple: create one umbrella organization for each religion, ensure it is government-friendly, and then require all believers to join it. Beijing calls this “harmonization.” Critics call it what it is: a bureaucratic monopoly on the sacred. China has been exporting this model enthusiastically through seminars, conferences, and “capacity‑building” workshops for African officials. And some governments have been taking notes.

Tanzania’s bureaucracy, at least in the case of Muslim organizations, seemed to have taken more than notes. It had taken action. For years, the Registrar of Societies and the Administrator‑General insisted that Muslim organizations could not register unless they obtained a reference letter from BAKWATA, the Baraza Kuu la Waislam Tanzania. BAKWATA, created in 1968 under circumstances the Court would later describe with judicial delicacy, as suspicious, had been treated as the sole legitimate representative of all Muslims in the country. If you wanted to register a mosque, a charity, a school, or even update your trustees, you needed BAKWATA’s blessing. If you preferred to belong to another Muslim body, or to none at all, the state’s answer was simple: no letter, no registration.

The High Court examined this practice with the patience of a teacher marking an exam written in crayon. It read the Societies Act. It read the Trustees Incorporation Act. It read the Constitution. And then it announced that the entire system of compulsory BAKWATA endorsements had no legal basis whatsoever.

The Court then turned to the letters the Registrar and Administrator‑General had been sending to Muslim organizations ordering them to submit to BAKWATA. The Court noted, with a hint of disbelief, that neither letter cited any legal authority for these demands. And when the government representatives were asked in court to identify the statutory basis for this practice, they could not.

The judges also investigated BAKWATA itself. They traced its origins back to 1968, when the government dissolved the two major Muslim organizations then in existence—the East African Muslim Welfare Society and the Tanzania Council of East African Muslim Welfare Society—and transferred all their assets to BAKWATA. The reasons for the dissolution were not stated. The Court asked the government to produce BAKWATA’s original constitution and the list of its founding members. The government could not. Not the Registrar of Societies, not the Administrator‑General, not BAKWATA. All they could produce was a constitution from 1984, and even that was not the original. The Court concluded, with judicial understatement, that this “buttresses the suspicion that none of the Tanzanian Muslims founded BAKWATA.”

A rural mosque in Tanzania. Credits.

The Court then examined BAKWATA’s current constitution and discovered that leadership positions are restricted to Muslims who are Sunni‑Shafi’i. Article 83(e) states that a leader may be removed if he brings teachings contrary to the Sunni-Shafi’I doctrine. In other words, BAKWATA is not an umbrella for all Muslims. It is a denominational organization representing only one school of Sunni Islam. It excludes Shia Muslims, Hanafi Sunnis, Maliki Sunnis, Hanbali Sunnis, and any Muslim who does not accept its internal doctrines. The Court concluded, with admirable clarity, that BAKWATA “is not the legitimate supreme Muslim organisation/ the recognised umbrella organisation for all Muslims and Muslim organisations in Tanzania.”

This finding alone would have been enough to dismantle the government’s position. But the Court went further. It held that forcing Muslims to obtain reference letters from BAKWATA, or to designate BAKWATA as their “supreme authority,” violated Articles 19 and 20 of the Constitution, which guarantee freedom of religion, freedom of denomination, and freedom of association. The judges noted that compelling Muslims to join or recognize a religious body they do not belong to is tantamount to forcing them to adopt a denomination not of their choosing. The Court declared such conduct unconstitutional, null, and void.

The Registrar of Societies, the Administrator‑General, and the Attorney General were directed to “take all necessary measures” to ensure that no future registration procedures impose conditions that violate constitutional rights. The Court also clarified that while some of the petitioners’ challenges to older regulations were moot because the laws had been repealed, the core issue— the state’s attempt to impose a single religious authority—was not only alive but constitutionally indefensible.

What makes this decision remarkable is not only its legal precision but its broader significance. At a time when several African governments are considering a Chinese-style approach to religious management—one faith, one umbrella, one government-approved voice—Tanzania’s judiciary has drawn a clear constitutional line. It has reminded the state that religious bodies must arise from believers, not from bureaucratic convenience. It has reminded officials that neutrality and impartiality are not optional virtues but constitutional obligations. And it has reminded the continent that freedom of religion includes the freedom to choose one’s denomination, one’s leaders, and one’s institutional affiliations without state interference.

Source: bitterwinter.org