Sufis and Scholars of the Sea (book review)

by Rahma Bavelaar. Originally published in Islamica magazine, 2007. Used by permission of the author.

Anne Bang's objective in Sufis and Scholars of the Sea is to explore the history of Islam in the northwest Indian Ocean during the 19th and early 20th century, focusing on the scholarly exchange of ideas between Hadramawt, Yemen, and the East African Coast by looking at the life and works of Ahmed b. Abi Bakr b. Sumayt (1861-1925), the son of a Hadrami immigrant to the Swahili coast and respected scholar and Sufi in the Yemeni and East African intellectual traditions.
Through an empirical study of his travels to and from his ancestral Hadramawt, the family and scholarly links he fored and maintained and his work as a Shafi'i qadi in Zanzibar under the patronage of the British-Omani state, Bang seeks to elucidate several interrelated questions which have as yet received scarce attention in Western scholarship: why did members of the Hadrami tariqa 'Alawiyya become such important exponents of a new, more literate Islam in East Africa? What did they teach and what inspired their teachings? How did they maintain and expand their scholarly network across time and space? Did changes in these networks occur, and if so, why? How did the content of their teachings relate to simultaneous developments in the wider Islamic world? And what was their relationship to the British-Omani colonial authorities in Zanzibar?
The great strength of Scholars of the Sea lies in its convincing use of what are often considered purely "religious" documents, such as scholarly geneaologies (silsilas) and certificates (ijazas), as valuable historical sources that can help elucidate processes of religious change and revival.
Although the overall emphasis of the work is on change, Bang challenges the previously common perspective in Western academia that 19th-century 'neo-Sufism' represented a fundamental break with the classical, supposedly more quietist, mystical tradition of Islam. Her highly detailed description of the historical origins and teachings of the 'Alawiyya brotherhood--which closely follows the 'canonical' version taught within the tariqa itself--she emphasizes the continuity of its theological and spiritual tenets (vested in its members' dual geneaological and spiritual claim to descent from the Prophet), in spite of the far reaching institutionalization of its educational practices in the late 19th century. She also points out the continued centrality of classical mystical and legal writings to 'Alawi education in the Hadramawt and East Africa.
If institutional changes in educational practices were hardly revolutionary in Yemen, they certainly were in East Africa, Bang argues with reference to the 'Alawi scholarly class in Zanzibar, where the Hadrami's emphasis on scriptural Islam and Arabic literacy severely eroded the authority of the Swahili upper class (the Waungwana) and their monopoly, until then, on the primarily oral transmission of Islamic knowledge.
New religious practices, such as public dhikrs (rememembrance) and mawlids, (celebration of the Prophet's birth) which were introduced by the 'Alawis and other new Sufi brotherhoods, greatly widened the general population's opportunities for religious participation but seriously diminished the authority of the Waungwana who had previously monopolized popular religious practices. Bang persuasively argues that new ideas and practices may have radically divergent consequences according to the specific nature of the Muslim community in which they are introduced.
Along the same lines, Bang argues that the association of the 'orthodoxy' with 'Arabness' in the East African context needs to be reconsidered: what were considered highly 'orthodox' devotional practices by the 'Alawi scholars were obviously perceived as highly 'unorthodox' by the Waungwana, who had considered their own mawlid celebrations to be representative of 'proper' Islamic behavior.
Bang's argument for the relativity of such loaded concepts as tradition and reform is further elaborated in her exploration of the influence of modernist and Islamist thought on Hadramawt, and consequently East Africa. Ibn Sumayt's netowrk connected him with scholars in Hadramawt, its diasporas in Mecca, Indonesia and Istanbul, as well as prominent modernist thinkers such as Mohammed 'Abduh and Rashid Rida' in Egypt.
An analysis of the scholarly exchanges taking place through these contacts shows that although modernist thinkers and exponents of the tariqa 'Alawiyya shared a strong interest in social and educational activism (da'wah), their intellectual foundations were entirely different. The activism of the 'Alawiyya in Hadramawt and Zanzibar was primarily and internal development, deriving its inspiration from late 18th-century Hadrami revivalists. It was expressed in the institutionalization of religious education and an increased drive toward da'wah among non-'Alawis and in the countryside, but otherwise remained firmly within the parameters of 'Alawi Sufism. Modernist thought, on the other hand, as expounded by scholars like Mohammed 'Abduh and Rashid Rida--as embraced by a large group of 'Alawi scholars in Indonesia--had its roots in a much more thorough intellectual transformation, formulated in a context of colonial expansion and severely critical of the more esoteric aspects of Islam.
Pointing to examples of educational, agricultural and medical reforms proposed by Ibn Sumayt, challenges overtly static notions of reform, arguing that reform should not be understood as a mere theoretical ideal that is necessarily rooted in ideology (as with the Egyptian reformers) but is primarily about the will to change concrete aspects of society: action which may be rooted in social, political and personal circumstances without implying an intellectual shift. Ibn Sumayt may have shared certain reformist tendencies with modernist thinkers, but this does not mean that he shared their intellectual foundations.
Some critical footnotes may be placed here regarding the theoretical framework in which Bang places reform within the 'Alawiyya tradition which she defines, following previous scholarship, as a shift from the imposition of an external moral code to an internally motivated code for life conduct, i.e. a shift from doctrine to praxis, rather than a shift from apathy to activism. This change of emphasis may circumvent the problematic political implications of the term activism but does nothing to explain why this shift took place, apart from the tenuous implication that previous generations of Muslims did not 'internalize' or 'practice' Islam to the same extent. The well-traveled Hadrami sayyids were doubtlessly aware of the expanding influence of the Western world (an entire generation of Hadramis studied with Zayn ad-Din ad-Dahlan in Mecca, who taught subjects in European History and was a supporter of Ottoman pan-Islamism). Could it be, then, that the expansion of da'wah and popular education had more to do with external influences than Bang concedes to? Could the shift also reflect a new need for self-affirmation in the face of the rapid penetration of foreign and non-Islamic influences into the Muslim heartlands? The consolidation of Sufi tariqas was central to the spread of Islamic teachings among the 'masses' and in many places pursued highly political (often anti-colonial) objectives during the late 19th century, regardless of the non-political nature of their essential teachings.
Furthermore, Bang's conclusion that the shift that took place was not an intellectual one may be premature. The long-term effects of the expansion and institutionalization of education may not have been evident in the early 20th century, but they certainly are today. Unprecedented popular access to religious knowledge has today led to radical shifts in the distribution of religious authority and increasingly eclectic attitudes towards Islamic knowledge. Many other drastic changes on the local and global level have obviously played a role in the increasing 'democratization' of religious knowledge, but expanded access to Islamic education from the late 19th century, as exemplified by the ribats in Hadramawt, certainly formed part of the groundwork for future shifts of a more intellectual nature.
Nonetheless, Bang's research presents powerful illustrations of the complex and intricate dialectics of political social and intellectual developments.
The example of Ibn Sumayt, who was utterly steeped in Hadrami scholarly and Sufi tradition but did not hesitate to ask legal advice from Mohammed 'Abduh, promoted the translation of the Qur'an into Swahili and shared the judge's bench with Ibadhi scholars, shows the infinite complexity of the modes of intellectual evolution across space and time and poses a powerful rebuttal to those who would like to compartmentalize Islamic thought and practice according to sharply defined ideological categories.
Overall, the themes raised in Sufis and Scholars of the Sea offer many leads for future inquiry. In the 20th century the revolutionary expansion of modern communication technology and mass media have both empowered and fragmented religious discourse, generally undermining the traditional authority of scholarly classes such as the 'Alawis. Yet new technological tools also present entirely new avenues for the propagation of their 'brand' of Islam. In fact, the tariqa 'Alawiyya seems to have greatly expanded its global network since the early 20th c., growing branches into European and American Muslim communities as well as building a considerable presence in Islamic broadcasting and cyberspace. Many of the questions posed by Anne Bang can be newly asked about the continued role of the 'Alawiyya in the modern world: How have the networks described in Sufis and Scholars of the Sea evolved and changed since the early 20th century? What have been the effects of modern communication technology, mass media, and new global audiences on the content of 'Alawi teachings and the methods of its transmission (da'wah)? How is 'Alawi Sufism indigenized (as it once was in East Africa) in the Western world, where its discourse is now informing new Muslim identities, political opinions, and ideas about what constitutes normative Islamic 'tradition'?
To conclude, Sufis and Scholars of the Sea offers all that is expected from an historical study of intellectual history: profound knowledge of the classical canon of Islamic scholarship, highly relevant research questions, and thorough engagement with pertinent theoretical approaches to Sufism. It certainly deserves attention from scholars and laymen alike.

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Ustadh Mahmoud Mohamed Taha's Court Statement

We have brought your attention to Ustadh Mahmoud before; here is a video of his statement before the court while on trial for charges of apostasy, a trial that led to his execution and the suppression of his movement, the Republican Brothers.

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Contemporary Islamic Thinkers You Should Know: Abdullah an-Naim

From Wikipedia:
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law. His specialties include human rights in Islam and cross-cultural issues in human rights, and he is the director of the Religion and Human Rights Program at Emory. He is also a senior fellow of Emory's Center for the Study of Law and Religion. An-Naim was formerly the Executive Director of the African bureau of Human Rights Watch.
Born in 1950, An-Naim is originally from Sudan, where he was greatly influenced by the Islamic reform movement of Mahmoud Mohamed Taha. He is a naturalized American citizen, but retains Sudanese citizenship.

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Islam in Nineteenth-Century Wallo, Ethiopia (Book Review)

In this impressively published tome from Brill Press, Hussein Ahmed has taken on some of the original assumptions of scholars of Ethiopian Islam such as J.S. Trimingham and tested them against a detailed study of the highland region of Wallo, Ethiopia. Ahmed argues, among other things, that Trimingham's model of conversion, in which converts essentially adopt the outward signs of Islam without practicing it or comprehending its doctrine, is inadequate to account for the diversity of ways in which the Islamic message was propopagated in central Ethiopia. Ahmed also argues for a greater role for the ulama in spreading Islam, working in concert with traders and merchants.

Ahmed does a superb job handling some difficult material, and the book is well written, if at times aimed at the specialist rather than the general reader. Of special interest is Ahmed's biographies of the major Sufi sheikhs of Ethiopia. Accounting for Sufism's popularity and importance, Ahmed emphasizes the account of one of Sheikh Muhammad Taj al-Din, who observed:

"the tariqa teachers, while recognizing the importance of academic excellence, also emphasized the obligation of carrying out one's religious duties as laid down in the Qur'an and the Sunna. They argued that instead of studying exotic and prestigious subjects, a Muslim must recite the dhikr, read the Qur'an and perform the intercessory prayers. A believer must submit his entire body and mind to the rigours of intense reflection and meditation in order to demonstrate his submission to the will of God. They also instilled in the minds of the affiliates a profound sense of brotherhood and communal lifestyle...one of the factors for the success of the mystical orders was the tact and skill with which their local propagators were able to introduce and establish them, and their recognition of the deep roots and persistence of traditional values and customs."

Wallo is unique precisely because it stands at a geographical and political crossroads between faiths and peoples. Wallo became a center of Oromo migration in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. For the Oromo, According to Ahmed, Islam played an important role historically for the Oromo, helping them to shape their identity vis-a-vis Amharic nationalism. However, this point goes largely unexplored.
If I have one critique of the book I felt Dr. Ahmed missed a chance to compare and contrast the impact and development of Christianity and Islam and their attitudes toward each other in theoretical terms.There is some great material in Chapter Six on this point, but it is confined to a discussion of the mid-nineteenth century and the attempts by the Christian emperors Tewodoros II and Yohannes IV to subdue Wallo.

If you are interested in more contemporary issues of Islam in Ethiopia and Muslim Ethiopians, here is a website for Ethiopian Muslims in Europe. If you click through there is a biography of Shaykh Talha bin Ja'afar, one of the principal figures, who waged an armed struggle against the armies of emperor Yohannes and did much to propogate Islam in Wallo.

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Saba Mahmood interviews Talal Asad (excerpts)

full interview here.
Asad discusses modernity, religion, what agency is, Islamic reform, the difference between dependency theory and postcolonialism, and much much more. This is one of the best 'summations' of the various nature of Asad's intellectual pursuits and it maps out a great 'space' for scholars to follow up on his work in local contexts. Although its from 1996, over ten years ago, it is still a great read.

Talal Asad
modern power and the reconfiguration of religious traditions
Saba Mahmood

Contemporary politico-religious movements, such as Islamism, are often understood by social scientists as expressions of tradition hampering the progress of modernity. But given the recent intellectual challenges posed against dualistic and static conceptions of modernity/tradition, and calls for parochializing Western European experiences of modernity, do you think the religio-political movements (such as Islamism) force us to rethink our conceptions of modernity? If so, how?

Well, I think they should force us to rethink many things. There has been a certain amount of response from people in Western universities who are interested in analyzing these movements. But many of them still make assumptions that prevent them from questioning aspects of Western modernity. For example, they call these movements "reactionary" or "invented," making the assumption that Western modernity is not only the standard by which all contemporary developments must be judged, but also the only authentic trajectory for every tradition. One of the things the existence of such movements ought to bring into question is the old opposition between modernity and tradition, which is still fashionable. For example, many writers describe the movements in Iran and Egypt as only partly modern and suggest that its their mixing of tradition and modernity that accounts for their "pathological" character. This kind of description paints Islamic movements as being somehow inauthentically traditional on the assumption that "real tradition" is unchanging, repetitive, and non-rational. In this way, these movements cannot be understood on their own terms as being at once modern and traditional, both authentic and creative at the same time. The development of politico-religious movements ought to force people to rethink the uniquely Western model of secular modernity. One may want to challenge aspects of these movements, but this ought to be done on specific grounds. It won't do to measure everything by grand conceptions of authentic modernity. But that's precisely the kind of a priori thinking that many people indulge in when analyzing contemporary religious movements.

It has often been argued that the tradition of liberalism is based upon principles of pluralism and tolerance in ways that Islamic tradition is not, and that the concept of plurality remains foreign to Islam. How would you respond to that?

Well, I would say that it is certainly not a modern, liberal invention. The plurality of individual interests is what the liberal tradition has theorized best of all. On the other hand, the attempt to get some kind of representation for ethnic groups and minorities in Western countries has been difficult for liberalism to theorize. Liberalism has theories of tolerance by which spaces can be created for individuals to do what they wish, so long as they don't obstruct the ability of others to do likewise. But these aren't theories of pluralism in the sense we are beginning to understand the term today. Liberalism has theories of multiple "interests," interests which can be equalized, aggregated, and calculated through the electoral process and then negotiated in the process of formulating and applying governmental policies. But that is a very different kind of pluralism from the different ways of life which are (a) the preconditions and not the objects of individual interests, and which are, (b) in the final analysis, incommensurable.

Now the Islamic tradition, like many other non-liberal traditions, is based on the notion of plural social groupings and plural religious traditions--especially (but not only) of the Abrahamic traditions [ahl al-kitab]. And, of course, it has always accommodated a plurality of scriptural interpretations. There is a well- known dictum in the shari`a: ikhtilaf al-umma rahma [difference within the Islamic tradition is a blessing]. This is where the notions of ijtihad and ijm`a come in. As modes of developing and sustaining the Islamic tradition, they authorize the construction of coherent differences, not the imposition of homogeneity.

Of course there are always limits to difference if coherence is to be aimed at. If tolerance is not merely another name for indifference, there comes a point in every tradition beyond which difference cannot be tolerated. That simply means that there are differences which can't be accommodated within the tradition without threatening its very coherence. But there are, of course, many moments and conditions of such intolerance. One must not, therefore, equate intolerance with violence and cruelty.

On the whole, Muslim societies in the past have been much more accommodating of pluralism in the sense I have tried to outline than have European societies. It does not follow that they are therefore necessarily better. And I certainly don't wish to imply that Muslim rulers and populations were never prejudiced, that they never persecuted non-Muslims in their midst. My point is only that "the concept of plurality," as you put it, is not foreign to Islam.

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Political and Cultural Aspects of Qu'ranic Translation in East Africa Part 4: Conclusion

The final part in our special series on the translation of The Holy Qu'ran into Kiswahili

Part 4: Qurani Takatifu and the work of Sheikh Abdullah Farsy
Following the publication of Kurani Tukufu, Sheikh Abdullah Farsy of Zanzibar had published a tract, "Upotufu was Tafsiri ya Makadiani", which denounced the Ahmadiyya translation. This was followed by his own effort to translate the Qu'ran into Swahili, called Qurani Takatifu. Painstakingly, Farsy built on the work of his teacher Sheikh Mazrui and published his translation in installments in the Zanzibar weekly newspaper Mwongozi (The Guide). Finally, he published the complete translation in 1967. The work was sponsored in part by the Islamic Foundation of Nairobi, a group sympathetic to the anti-Ahmadiyya stance of the Jamaat-e-Islaami in Pakistan; in fact the introduction to the second edition (1974) of Qurani Takatifu is a Kiswahili translation of Maulana Abul Ala Maududi’s introduction to his Urdu commentary on the Qu’ran. Maududi at that time was the head of Jamaat-e-Islaami.

Farsy took aim at what he believed to be the Ahmadiyya’s deliberate mistranslation of Quran 33:41 (In Farsy’s version it is actually verse 40). We have already discussed how Kurani Tukufu rendered "Khataman Nabiyyin" (seal of the prophets) as “Muhuri wa Manabii.” But Farsy is more explicit; he translates the phrase “Khataman Nabiyyin” as “Mwisho wa Mitume,” adding, “The inversion of these words is a lie of the Ahmadiyya who claim for themselves ‘Muhuri wa Manabii.’ And they mention piles of names of university students and their books and SLANDER [this is in all capital letters in the original Swahili] the matter in the way they translate it.” Farsy then devotes four and a half pages to discussing this issue, finally concluding on a somewhat humorous note: “We rest our pen a little that we may entertain those thoughts another time. This thing is exhausting and we don’t want you to be bored.”

Sheikh Farsy was in a unique position to do a Kiswahili translation. On the one hand, his education by scholars like Sheikh Ahmed Muhammed el-Mlomry, Abdullah Bakathir, and Sheikh Mazrui prepared him to relate the Islamic message to a new generation of believers. On the other hand, his position first as chief qadi of Zanzibar (until 1964) and then chief qadi of Kenya, gave him the prominence and connections to ensure his translation would be read by a wide audience.

We saw earlier how the Ahmadiyya made a direct challenge to the dominance of Islamic discourse by a coastal elite with strong ties to the Arab world. Many members of this elite had well-ingrained notions of their own superiority vis-à-vis other Africans. Sheikh al-Amin bin Aly, another Qur’anic translator and teacher of Sheikh Abdullah Farsy, warned against two dangers: European cultural imperialism, and the “khatari nyeusi” (black danger) of non-Muslim African migration to the coast, and his warning was indicative of the breakdown of the earlier discussed older mode of Swahili acculturation via ustaarabu. This dynamic was upended in the colonial era, partly as a result of the banning of slavery and the slave trade which undermined the economic basis of the coastal elite. The inability of the elite to control the cultural and demographic terms of this migration led to a great deal of social dislocation and the emergence of new sets of leaders who challenged the prerogatives of this elite; Sheikh Ramiya of Bagamoyo and Habib Saleh of Lamu are two prominent examples of this challenge. These challenges were not only predicated on breaking down barriers to the kinds of knowledge those of slave descent could have access to, but also on reforming corrupt practices within Islam. The origins of Habib Saleh, and his successful attempt to implant a renaissance of Alawiyya scholars in Lamu, show that the social impulse of Arabism had a progressive side as well, in which “a bond of ‘common Islamness’” transcended sectarian and racial differences.

Despite the cultural chauvinism of one of his teachers, Sheikh Farsy framed his translation in terms of Islamic universalism. “Uislamu hautaki istiimari (Ukoloni) wa dini. Si lazima lugha ya Kiarabu.” said Farsy,” His view was part of a changing attitude on the part of a generation of Islamic reformers who viewed the Qu’ran not merely as a devotional text, but as a practical guide to life possessing many of the solutions for the cultural humiliation and degeneracy Muslims had endured under imperialism. Bang explains, “The shift may attributed to a generally changed outlook among Islamic scholars, starting towards the end of the nineteenth century and spearheaded by such figures as Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī, Muhammad ‘Abduh and Rashid Rida.” Al-Mazrui, Farsy’s teacher, agreed that learning the Qu’ran without its meaning was not meritorious, but he like other Islamic reformers of the Salafi bent, advocated learning Arabic as early as possible. This shift can be mapped in attitudes toward the Quranic translation; it became of paramount importance to be able to read and understand the meaning of the text in order that the believers might apply it to their daily condition.

Framing was all important, and especially framing in light of the experience of Muslims recently coming out from underneath colonial rule. Kiswahili was the language of coastal religion and culture, but it was also, to the leaders of the nationalist movement in Tanzania, an ‘African’ language with the potential to unite the country. Islamic reformers like Farsy recognized that in light of these new circumstances, it was more imperative than ever to relate the Arabic meanings in the Qu’ran through a language relevant to the masses. The task was made easier in that Kiswahili, like Persian and Urdu, had a wealth of words of Arabic origin to begin with.

Overall “the popularity of Qurani Takatifu as a work of Swahili religious literature and the number of reprints it has undergone reflect how favorably it has been received by Kiswahili-speaking people.” Nevertheless, for Farsy and other Salafi reformers relating Islam as a total system to the changing conditions of modern life demanded wide dissemination of Islamic ideas. Translations such as Qur’ani Takatifu were meant to present Islam in a culturally relevant way, and were therefore only a first step towards preparing hearts and minds for the real obligation of every Muslim: to learn Arabic.

Farsy’s translation should also be seen in light of the tremendous transformation in access to education all over Africa. Mass literacy and mass education had placed new opportunities for the dissemination of Islamic education, and the tracts, books, and pamphlets of Islamic Africa until now are being presented in a variety of African languages, Swahili included.

Through the process of translation from Arabic to Swahili, the Qur’anic message took on a special cultural relevance as a point of contention for the Muslims of East Africa. The processes of Christian missionizing, British reform in Islamic education in Zanzibar, and the language policy of the British in East Africa spurred a reaction which created new opportunities for reform. The first Swahili translation was a hostile attempt by a Christian missionary with very negative views of Islam, as well as racist views of African capabilities and culture. In response to Godfrey Dale’s missionary translation, the Ahmadiyya saw an opening for spreading their unique vision of Islam. They saw it as their obligation to counter the Christian missionary presence, which they viewed as a cultural onslaught against Islam. But because of their insistence on several unique doctrinal points, their translation was also not widely accepted. In turn, the Ahmadiyyas provoked a response rooted in the same sort of motivation: to counter what was deemed as their assault on the true Islam. Qurani Takatifu gained wider acceptance, but generated its own dynamic of opposition as well as support, generating new debates about the nature and basis for establishing authority and legitimacy within the East African Islamic community.

This process of linguistic translation and religious dissemination through Kiswahili and other African languages will continue, and even accelerate as Africa increasingly enters the digital age. As long as there are believers, there will be efforts to bridge the gap between Islam as an ‘Arabic revelation’ and Islam as a ‘universal religion.’

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