African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam (Book Review)

This book review from Dr. Alamin Mazrui can also be found at JSTOR. I reproduce it in full here because it speaks to the methodological issues that scholars of slavery and the African diaspora in the Indian Ocean must continue to wrestle with. 

The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam. JOHN HUNWICK and EVE TROUTT POWELL (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2002), 282 pp. Price PB £17.50. ISBN 1–558–76275–2.

In 1993, a major newspaper debate erupted in Kenya between two of the nation’s most prominent intellectuals, Ali Mazrui and Bethwel Ogot. It concerned whether the Arab-Muslim world should be held accountable for its role in African enslavement to the same degree as the West, and whether there were differences of scale and culpability between the two that should strategically make the West the initial focus for the African campaign for reparations. What was particularly noticeable is that the only general sources on African slaves in Arab-Muslim lands that the two scholars invoked in support of their different positions were those of Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) and Joseph Harris, The African Presence in Asia (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1971). These two, in fact, continue to be among the tiny handful of book-length studies of the issue available in the English language. In a real sense, then, the study of African enslavement in the Arab-Muslim world is still virtually in its infancy, and the publication of Hunwick’s and Powell’s The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam is a very welcome contribution to the scholarship on this important subject.

This book distinguishes itself from the others, however, in its documentary approach, essentially being a compilation of primary sources. The only interpretive portions are the two introductions by the authors. Hunwick’s introduction, ‘The Same but Different’, is an excellent overview of some of the factors that may have led to the dearth of research in this area, the interplay between race and enslavement, the roles that slaves played in the Arab-Muslim world, and the quality of experience—a rather mixed record—that enslaved Africans encountered. If there is an Arab literature on the inferiority of ‘blackness’, there is also a literature that speaks of its virtues, leading Hunwick to conclude that ‘there is a lack of consistent literature that theorizes the inferiority of black people. Islam did not have its Gobineau’ (p. xx). Powell’s introduction, ‘The Silence of the Slaves’, on the other hand, discusses not the absence of scholarly works on the subject, but the absence of the voices of the enslaved themselves, whether in fictional or non-fictional format. Among the rare exceptions, discussed by Powell, is the slave narrative of Sister Josephine Bakhita, an enslaved southern Sudanese woman who finally converted to Catholicism.

The rest of the book is divided into fifteen sections, each containing extracts of documents on a specific theme. The first four sections provide a conceptual frame of reference about slavery in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean region. Section I looks at what the canonical Islamic texts, the Quran and the Hadith, say about the institution of slavery. It concludes with al-Ghazali’s reading of the texts, that that ‘the rights of the one possessed are that he should share in the owner’s food and clothing and should not be assigned work above his capacity. [Nor should the owner] look at him/her with arrogance or disdain’ (p. 9). Section II, ‘Some Muslim Views on Slavery’, is a small sample of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Muslim responses, mostly apologetic, to Western association of slavery with Islam. But how did the above doctrines of Islam combine with the prevailing medieval culture of Islam to translate into actual law dealing with slaves? This question is the subject of Section III, though all the documentary material included here is from the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence. Section IV amplifies the scope of Section II, looking at perceptions of Africans in some Arabic and Turkish texts, some equating blackness with slavery and others rejecting such an equation. Even more provocative, however, are the ‘theories’ on the origins of blackness, ranging from versions of the Hamitic myth to environmental explanations (articulated particularly forcefully by Ibn Khaldun.

The next three sections give us a glimpse of the experience of Africans in the intervening period from the moment of capture (Section V), to the perilous journey especially across the Sahara Desert (Section VI), to the slave markets in the Arab-Muslim world (Section VII). Here we see how slave merchants went well beyond the provisions of Islam by capturing and enslaving individuals who could not be classified as war captives, the horrific cruelty that accompanied the transport of the enslaved, and the humiliation and abuse suffered at the slave market.

The book then proceeds to look at the actual master–slave relationships and the functions that enslaved Africans played. In Section VIII, on eunuchs and concubines, the authors make a compelling observation in their introductory remarks that, ‘It is a curious irony [of slavery in Arab-Muslim lands] that the best path to an easier life for male slaves was to be deprived of their sexuality, whereas for female slaves it was to have their sexuality exploited’ (p. 99). The aberration of castration, of course, was part of the Mediterranean culture of the time, but it acquired new proportions of frequency and cruelty in African enslavement, the increased authority that eunuchs later enjoyed in the houses of their masters notwithstanding. As for the concubines, they were there for the sexual enjoyment of the master at his will. Nonetheless, the documents indicate that many virtually acquired the status of additional wives, especially if they bore children: ‘A woman who bore such children could not thereafter legally be sold, and was automatically free on her master’s death’ (p. 99).

In addition to eunuchs (who were used to guard the harem) and concubines, the majority of enslaved Africans—especially women who, we are told, constituted about two-thirds of those who crossed the Sahara desert in the nineteenth century—are said to have provided other types of domestic service (Section IX). With regard to their treatment by their owners, the documents in this section indicate that these domestic slaves were far less fortunate than eunuchs and concubines. In addition, male slaves provided agricultural labour in North African oases, sometimes forced to carry out dangerous work like cleaning wells and underground irrigation systems (Section X) and military service in North African armies of the royal state (Section XI). In performing these various roles as slaves, most Africans eventually converted to Islam: in the process, their Islam sometimes became hybridized, combining practices of the faith they encountered in the new society with the spiritual beliefs from their original homeland (Section XII).

Islam made the freeing of slaves an act both of piety and atonement. Section XIII looks at the life of Diaspora Africans after such emancipation. The three case studies of the section demonstrate how post-enslavement life varied according to personal circumstances, the fortunes of the masters, and the pre- existing relationship between slave and master. It was not until the mid-1800s that some Arab governments moved decisively to abolish slavery in their countries; Section XIV considers the legacy of abolition in Tunisia and Egypt, sometimes in response to British appeals. The book concludes with a lengthy excerpt of the slave narrative of a certain Fulani slave, Griga, recorded in French by a French commandant, detailing his life from the moment of bondage to freedom. This narrative raises one fundamental limitation that cuts across the larger portion of this book. All the documents from Section VII onward are, in fact, based on records of European observers of one shade or another. The authors themselves acknowledge this problem, claiming that their reliance on this documentation is due to the dearth of other sources. While this kind of evidence cannot be wholly discounted, its Euro-Christian origin and its construction at a time of intense Muslim resistance to European colonial rule raises questions about the extent of its reliability.

The documents in this book offer an excellent opportunity for a comparative study of slave systems between the Atlantic world and that of the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. What was the place of race in the two slave systems and what kind of comparative space did they provide for the assimilation of subsequent generations of the enslaved? Can there be different scales of slavery, just as there are different scales of murder in law? If so, how do the two fare relative to each other? And should the campaign for reparations, therefore, begin with the first degree of African suffering? What was the balance between sexual exploitation and economic exploitation between the two paradigms of slavery? This landmark publication is likely to shed light on some of these burning questions in the history of African enslavement. In the meantime, however, readers should bear in mind Edward Alpers’ words of caution against imposing on the slavery system of the Arab- Muslim world ‘paradigms developed from the experience of Africans in the Diaspora of the Atlantic world, with its particular forms of Euro-American racism and concomitant black responses’ (‘Recollecting Africa: Diasporic Memory in the Indian Ocean World’, African Studies Review, 43.1 (2000), 83).

Alamin Mazrui
Ohio State Universtiy

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Consciousness, Motivation and Violence: Review of War of Words, War of Stones

Jonathon Glassman. War of Words, War of Stones: Racial Thought and Violence in Colonial Zanzibar. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011.

PART 1: Scholars of mass violence, ethnic cleansing and genocide frequently debate the precise nature of the links between popular violence and an elite propaganda. Mass violence, they increasingly argue, is not the product of primordial hatred activated in a Hobbesian environment of weak social inhibitions. Yet this thesis has come to have something of the air of a cliché; provoking an enormous literature that is essentially a reaction against the "uncontrollable passions" thesis. Such literature argues that such violence was really about "something else", such as control over resources or political power.
In his new ambitious new book on racial violence in colonial Zanzibar, Jonathon Glassman argues that neither approach adequately captures the complexity of violence in the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution and the events leading up to it. In 1964, a group of armed Africans overthrew the Sultan of Zanzibar and purged his supporters in the rival political party. They then embarked on the massacre and intimidation of Arabs; some figures cite as many as 5,000 Arabs were killed in the months following. As in other cases, reports of violence were immediately contested—revolutionaries naturally denied the massacres, while exiles painted a gruesome picture of anti-Arab (and anti-Indian) pogroms.
In Zanzibar, Glassman argues, violence was the product of dueling discourses of civilization and barbarism from groups of "Africans" and "Arabs." Each group shaped competing approaches to the island's history and identity. In his introduction, Glassman traces the development of these identities through the history of Zanzibar, beginning with the founding of the Zanzibar Sultanate in the mid-nineteenth century, when it fell under the rule of the Busaidi family from Muscat, Oman. The Busaidi sultans expanded Zanzibar's wealth through usage of Indian merchant credit and an intense plantation slavery system built around clove production. British-imposed abolition soon destroyed the productivity of this system, and slaves and masters had to re-negotiate relationships of labor through tenancy and squatting. British colonial administrators sought to control and rationalize these relations, and they steadily increased their influence in Zanzibar until the establishment of a formal protectorate in 1890. British administrators had seen Zanzibar as an "Arab state" before the protectorate, and afterwards they continued to rule with (and often for) the Arab sultan as if Arabs were the natural ruling elite of the island.
In the half-century leading up to Zanzibar's first common roll election in 1957, British administrators nurtured a secular intelligentsia of (mostly) elite Arabs, who they inculcated thoroughly with British notions of civilizational nationalism. These Arabs served important roles as middlemen in the colonial bureaucracy. Yet they were no parrots of their would-be teachers; these elites also drew on Islamic modernism and pan-Arabism to advocate (initially) for the Arabs as the natural rulers of Zanzibar, and to mobilize Arabs (and eventually all Zanzibari citizens) against colonialism. Their vision of Zanzibari nationalism was broad and inclusive, but rested on specific values (like allegiance to the sultan) and particular exclusions. All "true" citizens were welcome under the inclusive umbrella of ustaarabu, (a Kiswahili word meaning "civilization") but such logic often criminalized mainlanders and encouraged Arab cultural chauvinism. Politically, the National Party of the Sultan's Subjects (Hizbu or ZNP) represented this ideological position.
In N'gambo, the African neighborhood east of the elite streets of Zanzibar's Stone Town, a vibrant post-bellum African culture nurtured its own intellectual vision of Zanzibar's future. This nationalist vision relied heavily on metaphors of blood and race. Africans, it argued, had been victims of Arab imperialism, and it was only by uniting with each other on the basis of skin color and shared oppression that Africans could overcome Arab hegemony. This vision came to be represented by the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), an outgrowth of a fusion of member of the town's African and Shirazi associations. The ASP was a complex mixture of former slaves, mainland migrants, and the indigenous Shirazi who resented Arab political dominance. Despite their links, those self-identified as Shirazi often faced criticism from the "Africans" that they were futilely trying to be "Asiatic." Instead of adopting an Arabocentric identity, the ASP argued, Africans ought to rediscover and reclaim their "tribal" ancestry. The Arabs were just as colonial as the British, the ASP claimed, but at least the British had abolished slavery. The ASP in effect, "racialized" the memory of slavery. Where the ZNP saw a shifting relationship between patron and client, the ASP saw evidence of pernicious racial oppression. This issue between the two proved to be one of the most contentious points dividing the two parties in the period known as the "Time of Politics", 1957-1963.

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Kiswahili: a UN Working Language?

*Plans to elevate Kiswahili to UN working language status underway*

By HEZEKIEL GIKAMBI

Kiswahili might soon become a working language of the United Nations,
joining the league of six prominent languages in the world if a proposal by
Swahili scholars goes through.

The scholars met in Nairobi in December 2009 under the Afro-Arab Cultural
Institute (AACI), from Bamako, Mali in collaboration with the Ministry of
National Heritage and Culture of Kenya in a symposium aimed at charting the
future of the language.

Among the aims of the conference was to fight for the recognition of the
language by the UN.

"It is only a matter of time and East Africa will have found a bigger export
to the world than tea and coffee and that is Kiswahili," said Prof. Kimani
Njogu who chaired the conference.

Prof Njogu who heads a national Kiswahili association, Chama cha Kiswahili
cha Taifa-CHAKITA expressed optimism that the language stands a high chance
of being considered.

The language that made history by becoming the first African language to be
recognized as an official African Union language would give Africans and
more so East Africans reason to be proud of their region.

Spoken by close to 120 million people worldwide, Swahili is both a national
and official language in Tanzania.

In Kenya, the Committee of Experts, led by Nzamba Kitonga has proposed the
elevation of the language that is currently a national language to official
language status in their draft.

"If this proposal passes, it will be a step ahead of time in the century for
the language," said Information and Communication Permanent Secretary Dr
Bitange Ndemo who closed the conference.

He said if the new constitution is passed the way it is the government would
have 2-3 years to put every documents and its transactions in the internet
and later all governments documents in Kiswahili.

He promised to give two of the proposed Kiswahili-only digital channels to
the scholars to advance the language.

The official languages of UN are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian
and Spanish and presentations to the body are made through the said
languages.

If a participant doesn’t understand any of them, he carries with him a
translator who translates his statement to any of the six languages.

Permanent Secretary, Ministry of National Heritage and Culture Dr Jacob Ole
Miaron who opened the conference appreciated the proposed Draft Protocol for
the establishment of the East African Kiswahili Council, saying it would
assist in the growth of the language.

“This would play a major role in enhancing political, economic, social,
cultural, education, scientific and technological development in the
region,” he said.

Efforts to have Swahili as an AU and UN language began in 2005, when a
proposal was made by the scholars to AU ministers of culture, who met in
Nairobi.

The ministers accepted the proposal and forwarded it to the Heads of States
who adopted it in a summit held in Khartoum Sudan, under the chairmanship of
President Mwai Kibaki.

"It was welcomed passionately by former Mali President Alpha Oumar Konare,
who served as Chairperson of the African Union Commission from 2003 to
2008," recalls former Director of Culture, Anami Silverse.

Other institutions represented in the two-day conference included Academy of
African Languages (ACALAN), African Union, and the League of Arab States.

Apart from taking Kiswahili to UN working language status, the conference
that brought together scholars from 14 African countries and several Arab
states, also sought to document the history of the Afro-Arab relations in
the development of Kiswahili language.

"We also want to enhance the existing cultural relations and cooperation
between the Arabs and Africans in this century and beyond," said Prof Njogu.

Giving his presentation in Arabic, Prof Ayman Ibrahim Al A’sar of Al-Azhar
University in Oman, currently a Lecturer in Arab studies in the University
of Nairobi said the relationship between Arabic and Kiswahili, which has
lasted more than 2,000 years, have immense benefits to both people.

Prof Ibrahim Noor Sharif a Kiswahili Scholar from Oman recommended the
enhancement of institutional linkages by establishing exchange programmes
between Kenyan institutions and those in the Arab world.

"Cooperation can also be enhanced through visits, workshops and regional
discussions on cultural and education matters," he said.

Arab is to Kiswahili what Latin is to English, a major source of ‘loan’
words and original donor of its earliest alphabet.

Kiswahili being a Bantu language and more so, the most Arabicized Bantu
language contains a great diversity of expressions.

“This would rekindle the significance of cultural diversity amongst the
African and Arab communities," said Prof Alamin Mazrui, a Kenyan scholar.

“This will further cement the relationship and make the African continent
first and foremost to own up the language,” he added.

The University of Nairobi came under attack from Tanzanian Scholars for
lacking an independent Kiswahili department while universities in Japan,
Germany and other foreign countries have fully fledged Swahili departments.

Prof Njogu challenged local leaders to improve on their masterly of the
language and use it often so as to give it an international appeal.

Kiswahili is the most popular African language taught alongside African
studies in over 150 universities in the USA only.

Mr Malonga Pacifique a Kiswahili lecturer at a University in Kigali, Rwanda,
underscored the growing need to embrace Kiswahili as an international medium
of communication.

* *

*The writer is the Education Features Editor, *

*with **Taifa Leo, a Kiswahili publication *

*of the Nation Media Group- Nairobi Kenya.*

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