Hamza Mustafa Njozi Biography

Professor Hamza Mustafa Njozi is a Tanzanian Islamic academic, literary scholar, and former Vice Chancellor of the Muslim University of Morogoro in Tanzania. Born in 1374 AH / 1955 CE, he completed his higher education at the University of Dar es Salaam and pursued doctoral studies in literary criticism and Islamic studies, eventually becoming Professor of Literature at the University of Dar es Salaam before his appointment to the leadership of the Muslim University of Morogoro.

Njozi's scholarly work spans literary studies, Qur'anic studies, and the history of Islam in East Africa. His best-known internationally distributed work in English is The Sources of the Qur'an: A Critical Review of the Authorship Theories, a sustained scholarly response to twentieth-century orientalist and apologetic Christian arguments about the historical sources of the Qur'an. He has also authored substantial works on the history of Islamic da'wah in East Africa, on issues facing Muslim minorities in non-Muslim majority African states, and on the Mwembechai killings of 1998 — a study of religious violence in Tanzania that has become a key reference in East African Islamic historiography.

Njozi has played a substantial role in the development of Islamic higher education in Tanzania and East Africa, and has lectured internationally on Islamic studies and African Muslim history. His work fills an important niche at the intersection of African Islamic studies, Qur'anic apologetics, and the broader scholarly engagement between Muslim Tanzania and the wider English-speaking academic and Muslim world.