Write and Live Forever (inspiration from ancient Egypt)

from Ancient Egyptian Literature, edited by Miriam Lichtheim

"As to those learned scribes,
Of the time that came after the gods,
They who foretold the future,
Their names have become everlasting,
While they departed, having finished their lives,
And all their kin are forgotten.

They did not make themselves tombs of copper,
With stelae of metal from heaven.
They knew not how to leave heirs,
Children to pronounce their names;
They made heirs fro themselves of books,
Of Instructions they had composed.

They gave themselves [the scroll as lector]-priest
The writing-board as loving son.
Instructions are their tombs,
The reed pen is their child,
The stone-surface their wife.
People great and small
Are given them as children,
For the scribe, he is their leader.

Their portals and mansions have crumbled,
Their ka-servants are [gone];
Their tombstones are covered with soil,
Their graves are forgotten.
Their name is pronounced over their books,
Which they made while they had being;
Good is the memory of their makers,
It is for ever and all time!

Be a scribe, take it to heart,
That your name become as theirs.
Better is a book than a graven stela,
Than a solid tomb-enclosure.
They act as chapels and tombs
In the heart of him who speaks their name;
Surely useful in the graveyard
Is a name in people's mouth!

Man decays, his corpse is dust,
All his kin have perished;
But a book makes him remembered
Through the mouth of its reciter.
Better is a book than a well-built house,
Than tomb-chapels in the westl
Better than a solid mansion,
Than a stela in the temple!

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Zanjibar: Wa Akfān min Rahim al’alam (Book Review)

Laura Goffman is a Ph.D. student in Middle East and North African History at Georgetown University. She also holds an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies from New York University. Her research focuses on the cultural and social dynamics of militarization in twentieth-century Oman. Check her out on Academia.edu.

Al-Ghonaimi, Sheikha. Zanjibar: Wa Akfān min Rahim al’alam. Maktaba ḍāmirī lilnashar wa at-tawzī‘. Sultana Oman, 2012.

The cover of Sheikha Al Ghonaimi’s 2012 novel Zanjibar: Wa Akfān min Rahim al’alam (Zanzibar: Shrouds from the Womb of Pain) is an outline of the map of Zanzibar, splattered haphazardly with blood-red blotches of paint, spilling from the island into the surrounding Indian Ocean. We learn in Ghonaimi’s introduction that this blood represents the Omanis of Zanzibar who were slaughtered during the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution. This uprising led to the death and expulsion of thousands of Arabs and South Asians, including the Omani Sultan who had been placed at the head of a constitutional monarchy when the British Empire granted Zanzibar’s independence in 1963. He fled the island on his yacht—many others were not so fortunate.

While Ghonaimi’s narrative focus is on the social life and political events of Zanzibar, the orientation of her characters firmly remains in the Omani homeland. Ghonaimi structures her novel in the form of a letter written by her narrator, Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Harthy, to his older brother, whom he has not seen since he departed from Oman some 30 years earlier. Like many Omanis of the impoverished interior, the fictional Mohammed left Oman with his father in the early 1950s in search of greater prosperity in East Africa. Mohammed is only 8 years old when he and his father arrive in Zanzibar, and the first part of the novel is built around a child's nostalgia for an idealized home in Oman. The dramatic focus of this section is Mohammed's recollection of his mother's reluctance to agree to her youngest son's departure, and his father's persistence in convincing her that their son would benefit from learning the ways of trade. Guiltily, Mohammed describes his childish ignorance of the gravity and permanence of his departure, and his mother's rare display of tears as he left. His mother, we learn, has long since passed away, and he longs to have been able to tell her goodbye.

This melancholic nostalgia for his family colors Mohammed's depiction of life in Oman, which Ghonaimi describes, through the lens of his memories, as a pure and simple existence among an intimate circle. The predictable rhythm of trips to the mosque, agricultural work, and religious education structures Mohammed's early life. This Omani community emerges in his memory as majestic in its commitment to these daily rituals. For example, he describes his first trip to the mosque with his father, "I entered the mosque for the first time at dawn...there the men were as though they were illuminated...they were dressed in the Omani way, which reflected the purity of their hearts...it was beautiful to see human beings participating as angels in that atmosphere of spiritual purity" (17, quotations are my translations).

Some troubles do seep into Mohammed’s memories of this well-ordered world of Oman's interior: the father and the teacher both feel justified in beating mischievous children, who in turn harass Antoor, a homeless wanderer who lost his entire family in a fire that started while his wife was cooking. Also, clear hierarchies prevail, as girls cook and boys carry tools to work on the date farms, and Mohammed recalls his mother sadly reminding his aunt after she learns of Mohammed's approaching departure, "I had no say in the matter" (29). His aunt is horrified that her sister is forced to relinquish her youngest son, but the necessity of covering her face and retreating from view as the men arrive to take him away prevents her from expressing these feelings to Mohammed's father, so away they go, over the mountains with their caravan to catch a ship to Zanzibar.

The Omani community in Zanzibar is apparently close-knit and guards its communal privileges by maintaining a tight control over its network of families. Ghonaimi illustrates this protection of their own when Muhammad and his father arrive in Zanzibar as bedraggled immigrants, but are immediately taken up by Al Barwani, a prominent Omani merchant with an elegant home and a host of black servants. Mohammed and his father have no connection to Barwani except for their shared Arabic language and Omani heritage, but he becomes their willing patron and invites them to be his guests after Mohammed’s father asks him for help translating the Swahili spokenon the dock. Barwani supplies Mohammed with a black servant boy, Youssef, to teach him Swahili until he is proficient enough to enroll in the local school, and he helps Mohammed’s father to start a business.

Youssef becomes like family to Mohammad, yet he holds a separate status as a non-Arab “native”. For example, when Barwani first suggests that Mohammed learn Swahili from Youssef, his father worries about his son mixing with blacks.Barwani assures him, “Don’t worry, Youssef has been brought up in my house, and his manners and morals are excellent” (61). The implication here is that Youssef, despite his race, is an acceptable companion due to his cultivation in an Omani domestic setting. When violence erupts on the island in 1964, Youssef's family saves Mohammed, now 18, and his little brother, Ahmed. In an ultimate act of loyalty, Youssef decides to accompany Mohammed and Ahmed as they smuggle themselves off of the island in the storage cabin of a ship, and when Mohammed questions his willingness to leave his own family, Youssef asks him angrily, "How can you say that there is a price for friendship?" (127).

Friendship between a black former servant and an Omani immigrant may be priceless, but it does have its limitations: after they have reached Dar es Salaam, for example, Mohammed spots an older Omani woman on the docks, and switches from Swahili to Arabic. When Youssef protests that he does not understand, Mohammed replies that he is using Arabic because "I want her to feel that I am close to her" (156). Just as Barwani took in Mohammed and his father in Zanzibar, in Dar es Salaam Mohammed immediately forges a connection with an Omani he identifies by language and appearance. As Mohammed and his brother settle into another enclave of the Omani diaspora, only Youssef’s exceptional loyalty to Mohammed and his upbringing in Barwani’s household grant him entry to this community.

As Nate Mathews noted in another post on Coverage of East Africa in the Omani Media, nostalgia for Oman's East African "empire" has become widespread in Omani media today. Ghonaimi adopts the standard points of this narrative. Through the voice of a minor character (a man who helps Mohammed and his companions to escape Zanzibar during the uprising), Ghonaimi offers an elaborate account of the history of Omanis in Zanzibar. The crucial points here are the propagation of Islam in East Africa through Omani efforts, the primitive nature of Africans before the Arab arrival (even alluding to acts of cannibalism), and the gracious, cultivating influence of the Omanis (138-139). The legacy of slavery is hardly mentioned, and after this historical rendition, Mohammed asks indignantly, "Why do the Omanis deserve all this pain in a country they improved so much?" (141). The answer to this query is at the didactic heart of the novel, and Ghonaimi assures us that the horrors of 1964 came about due to officious British colonizers and demagogic mainlanders (in the final section of the book, Mohammed even lists the names and crimes of specific political leaders), whose combined influence, she suggests, tragically disturbed the harmonious and cosmopolitan balance of pre-1964 Zanzibar.

The most engaging parts of Zanzibar: Shrouds from the Womb of Pain are Ghonaimi’s vivid descriptions of family and community life in Oman and Zanzibar. Here, her enthusiasm for Omani history and her sensitivity to the textures of daily life make for fascinating and compelling reading. Ghonaimi’sinsistence on Omani benevolence and victimhood in East Africa is, however, somewhat one-sided due to her reliance on racial and cultural stereotypes of "Africans" and to her neglect of the historical reverberations of slavery and ethnic chauvinism. Ultimately, these shortcomings are detrimental to her innovative attempt to use the epistolary novel and the complex power of memory to make some sense of the horrific violence of the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution.

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Speak Swahili Dammit (Book Review)

James Penhaligon. Speak Swahili Dammit! Trevelyan Publishers. Falmouth, Cornwall, 2012.

James Penhaligon is a doctor who grew up on a remote gold mining town in colonial Tanganyika. The book is a memoir of childhood, told through a child's narration. The resulting narrative is rich in affect and Penhaligon exploits the hilarity of a child's point of view with great skill and relish. Penhaligon, whose father dies at the beginning of the book, grows up between two worlds--the white colonial world of the wazungus, whom he hates, and the African world of the watu.

Jim is gradually (and reluctantly) incorporated into wazungu society through his boarding school experience, though he hates every minute of it, and rebels by running away several times. He describes the sense of "double-consciousness" he feels as someone straddling both worlds, and how people around him call him a social chameleon. The book ends with the closing of the mine after Tanganyikan independence.

Penhaligon has a gift for vivid description, and succeeds in both skewering the provincial racism and insularity of the white colonials, while also showing some of its internal diversity--Germans, Italians, Greeks, Scots, and Austrian Jews, survivors of the Nazi death camps. He portrays a rich tapestry of life choices that bring people to Geita, the mining town. There are surprisingly perceptive observations on the elaborate internal social hierarchies that pervade the town.
The book is also rich with Swahili vocabulary, although it is obvious from the many oddly spelled Swahili words and strange grammatical constructions that the author is remembering a language he picked up orally and then likely stopped speaking for many years. As someone who learned Swahili in a formal setting, I cringed each time Penhaligon quoted people using the word kuja to command someone to come. (The imperative command for come in Swahili is, in fact, njoo; kuja is the infinitive form of the verb). But I am also not familiar with how Swahili was spoken in the 1950s around Lake Victoria; perhaps my "Kiunguja" snobbishness has got the better of me!

As a boy, Jim loves nothing more than running and playing in the bush, creating imaginary kingdoms with his best friend Lutoli, harassing the "night soil" man (who comes during the day and is called in Swahili, machula) and listening to war veterans from the first and second world wars recount their exploits.

As a historian, these stories were one of the most interesting parts of the book. I learned about General Paul Von Lettow Vorbek, the enterprising German general whose military genius during the first World War routed superior British forces time and time again, and who was only forced to surrender by the German declaration of surrender. I also learned about the local askaris, trained by Germans, who carried themselves with pride and dignity as members of an elite fighting force. Through Jim's inquisitiveness, we also learn snatches of the experience of the Africans who were brought to Burma to fight agains the Japanese, and the impact of this experience on their consciousness.

The other part of the book that particularly interested me was the author's recounting of the Zanzibar Revolution, through an Indian clerk who works with his mother at the store. Here is Amil Mistree, the Indian clerk's account, as described by Penhaligon:

"At Bagamoyo, Amil and his relatives are woken in the small hours by the distant sound of explosions and gunfire. Zanzibar is only four miles away. They're alarmed. Later that morning, towards noon, bodies began to float up onto the beach below his cousin's house. Many have chunks bitten off by sharks. Flies carpet the rest. Panic-stricken, Amil takes his wife and children and flees the coast. Three days later, exhausted, dusty and terrified,, he arrives back at the mine. His is the first news of the massacre to reach Geita. Until then all that's known is that the 'corrupt' sultan has been overthrown by 'valiant freedom forces' on Zanzibar."

The passage is remarkable. I do not believe that Bagamoyo and Unguja were close enough to actually hear gunfire from the island on the mainland. And certainly Unguja is further than four miles offshore from Zanzibar! This is the first account I have read of mainlanders actually seeing corpses from Zanzibar float to the mainland. Finally is the death toll, which Penhaligon quotes (without attribution) as 17,000, claiming this figure was only admitted to years later (by who, he does not say). This is almost double the traditionally cited figure of 10,000. (Although during field research in Muscat I heard people quote figures as high as 30,000). It made me wonder if perhaps there are other accounts that reproduce these stories, as a kind of rumor, expressing something of the bloody terror that overran Zanzibar in the wake of the revolution.
Overall, this is a great book to pass time with. I do not know how much pedagogical value it has, and I remain skeptical of some of the Swahili reconstructions, but it is filled with hilarious and poignant stories.

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The Essentials of Ibadi Islam (Book Review)

When I talk to my American Muslim friends about Oman, they often say, "Oh the Ibadis, aren't they Khawarij?" Beyond that (contested and somewhat innaccurate) opinion, their knowledge of Ibadis is virtually nil. The reasons for this are many, but at least one reason is the paucity of sources in English from which one might understand more about the Ibadis as a collective, including their beliefs, their ideals, their fiqh, and their historical identity. The new book by Valerie Hoffman, The Essentials of Ibadi Islam, aims to change that. It is essentially a translation of two Ibadi texts, one a theological primer called al-Aqeeda al-Wahbiyya by Nasir b. Salim al-Rawahi, and the other a section from Kitab Ma'alim al-Din on The Nature of God's Power, by Abd al-Aziz al-Thamani al-Mus'abi.

The two texts work well together, as the first text is unfinished, likely because of the author's death. Hoffman adds a valuable introduction giving historical perspective on the phases of Ibadi history, the rise and fall of the various permutations of the Imamate, and what Ibadis believe. This is a first rate work of scholarship by a serious scholar. Although the theological works will likely be of interest mainly to specialists, as they are highly technical, Hoffman's translation is clear (with in text renderings of Arabic phrasing and extensive footnotes), and the footnotes provide an excellent guide and explanation for those who might not be aware of what they are reading.

Muslims curious about Ibadism, scholars of Ibadism in Oman and North Africa, and scholars of Zanzibar will all be interested in this book. It exists in a virtual vacuum of clear English-language introductions to Ibadi beliefs and identity and as such will likely be a reference for years to come, as well as an encouragement to other scholars to expand the English-translated corpus of Ibadi theological, and poetic works.

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Excerpt from Race, Revolution and the Struggle for Human Rights on Zanzibar

This is a great book. Its basically two autobiographies of two major figures of the Zanzibar Revolution and Zanzibar postcolonial politics, pulled together with an introductory essay by G. Thomas Burgess (who also edited the book).
Below is an excerpt from the memoir of Ali Sultan Issa:

In the 1930s(and even now), however, Zanzibar Town was divided into two main areas, Stone Town and Ng’ambo.The well-to-do people lived in Stone Town, and the less well-offlived in Ng’ambo. Ng’ambo started as a poor man’s land on the other side of the creek from Stone Town.That is what Ng’ambomeans in Swahili,“the other side. ”Stone Town had stone buildings three and four stories high, but Ng’ambo mostly had ground-level buildings constructed of mud, cement, and thatch.The more prosperous had roofs made of corrugated iron. Mostly Arabs and Indians lived in Stone Town; very few Africans lived on that side of the creek; they would come for work in the day and return to Ng’ambo in the evenings. Ng’ambo was more ethnically mixed than Stone Town. There were Arabs and Comorians living near the creek, but the further you went into the interior,the more Africans you encountered.

I had to keep moving with my mum when she could not pay the rent. I lived in probably seven or eight different places in Stone Town and about five in Ng’ambo. My mother also remarried several times, so I had a number of stepfathers. These were short marriages: as soon as the husband tried to dominate her, she asked for a divorce. My mother married several men from the mainland, in Dar es Salaam, Tanga, and Mombasa, giving birth to four more children. My mother caned me for little things, and I feared her because she was huge and strong. Once she sent me to the shop three times to get different things for our dinner. After the third time,I said to her, “Why don’t you decide what you need first,so I can get everything in one trip?” She got mad and took a piece of firewood from the fire and hit me on the head, and I bled. She tore offmy shirt as a bandage, and she cried over the wound.I laughed and said,“You hit me,and now you cry.”

As a young boy, I was rather naughty. I would not be bullied,and despite my small size, I was often chosen as a leader. As children,we played ping-pong,cards,and dominoes. We also went swimming, but sometimes my mother would beat me because she thought I was going to drown.

At high tide,we would jump off the waterfront at Forodhani or in front of the old English Club. Cinema was also very popular in those days. We’d go to the Majestic Cinema, the Empire Cinema, and the Sultana Cinema. I saw Bogart, Sinatra, Dorothy Lamour, Ava Gardner, and Elizabeth Taylor. I liked Western films more than Indian films because I could not understand what was happening in the Indian pictures.

I spent most of my years attending primary school in the home of my grandmother in Ng’ambo. She was verystrict, tidy, and clean; she would sweep outside the house, and anyone who came, she would chase away. She had the cleanest toilet around, which everyone in the neighborhood knew about. Since she once lived in the sultan’s palace, I used to walk and play in the palace, but I also played with the local African boys. I had no established roots and no allegiance to one part of Zanzibar Town or any particular racial community. I was proud of myself and of my family, but not of my race. I did not belong to the school of thought that Arabs had achieved great things in Africa. What had they achieved? Nothing, except the accumulation of wealth for some and poverty for others. Whatever progress was achieved in Zanzibar was the product of historical accident.

Once when I was veryyoung,I dreamt my grandmother took me to Pemba and introduced me to old ladies standing in a vast clearing, all with their earlobes pulled down to their shoulders.This was at Giningi, a place famous in Pemba for where wachawi [witches] like to congregate. There, in front of that gathering of wachawi, she asked them to protect me from evil for the rest of my life. In the morning, I told her about my dream, and she said “Shhhhhh, don’t tell anyone.”I was very young, an innocent boy less than seven years old, but since then I have been a survivor.

My friendship with [Abdulrahman Muhammed] Babu began at a very early age. Babu, who became the brains of our political struggle here in Zanzibar, was several years older than I and lived just across the alley from our house in Malindi. He would tease me whenever my family served rice because he could see I liked to eat ukokoand matandu, which was the rice crust that would collect on the earthen pots after boiling. I liked to dip the rice crust in curry,but Babu would joke with me about that because normally people would not eat the matandu; they would just leaveit for the servants.

I was seven when World War II started, and food was very scarce since most of it was imported, except cassava and bananas. Ships did not run during the war, so bread and other imported foods were rationed. The British made it compulsory for each family with land to plant some sweet potatoes and cassava, and if the family did not, they were arrested. Around five in the evening, we had our meal, which was our last food until the next day. In the mornings, we had just a cup of tea. I never
Knew how my mother managed to support us; maybe she received money from her boyfriends. I never asked. I think that is why later I became more sympathetic with the working people, because of that experience of hardship. It was during the war that racial discrimination became very apparent in Zanzibar. According to the colonial rationing system, the Africans did not receive any imported rice or bread, but the Asians and Arabs got rations of rice and wheat flour of equal quantities. I remember because my mum sent me to the shop with the ration card. Because of this system, I think the British were responsible to a great extent for racial prejudice in Zanzibar. If, when the British came, Arabs were already predominant, they continued Arab dominance for their own ends.

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Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering (Book Review)

In the discourse on Islam prevalent in the popular media and academia, one frequent Manichaen dichotomy one finds is that between so-called 'liberal' Islam and 'radical' or 'Islamist' Islam. This dichotomy is predicated on a superficial understanding of Islamic philosophy and Islamic discourse, in which the theological and philosophical bases for categorization are rarely revealed. If they are, the categories are those of Western liberal discourse, which whatever their virtues as 'universal' values cannot help but operate under particular blind spots and presumptions when it comes to Islamic philosophy.

I view Dr. Sherman Jackson's intervention in Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering as an intervention aimed to correct that ignorance. As such it is one of the best books I have read that attempts the work of cultural translation: that is interpreting Islamic philosophers from the Classical period (8th-12th centuries) in a manner which respects their philosophical positions and imbues their positions with meaning and relevance for the current era.

Dr. Jackson's book is structured as a response to another theological work, Is God a White Racist? by William Jones, which argues that traditional black theodicy overprivileges the idea of redemptive suffering, and that by implication they create the idea that God favors whites. In point of fact, Jones intellectual inspiration is more rooted in Camus and Sartre than any specific theologian from the Christian tradition.

To counter this bold and controversial statement, Jackson lays out the theological positions of the major Islamic theodicies: Mutazilite, Ash'arite, Mutiridite and Traditionalist. After an introduction and first chapter dealing with black theodicy and the problem of evil, he starts by outlining the basis of Quranic interpretation and the development of classical Islamic theology. He then systematically explains the arguments of the major schools over the basis of reason for interpreting truth, the real nature of God, the problem of free will, and God's omnibenevolence vs. God's omnipotence. At the end of discussing each school of thought, Jackson addresses the points of agreement and disagreement between their approach and Jones's.

This book actually works on two levels. Even if one does not have an interest in the various currents of black theology and theodicy as such, the book is one of the best explanations of classical Islamic philosophy I have read in English. It is simultaneously extremely erudite and accessible, a difficult balance pulled off by the author through his clear prose and consistent re-explanation of previous points in order to contrast them. He is passionate about taking the reader on a journey through these beliefs yet ultimately agnostic on his own preference, leaving that to the discerning reader. He does however, urge that blackAmerican Muslims equip themselves with the philosophical and conceptual tools to in order to shape the character of the Muslim community in America. His book is meant as a tool towards that end.

If I have one critique of this book, it is that Dr. Jackson does not historically situate many of these theological debates. Nor does he problematize to any great degree significant anti-black tendencies which inhere in the writings of some Arab scholars and poets. He writes of the hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington owning thousands of slaves, but he does not see fit to question or criticize a great number of Islamic scholars who operated under similar conditions. This brings us to the question of the links between race and slavery in the Islamic world, an uncomfortable topic for many. And it points to the gaps between idealist conceptions of a belief or religion (for example Islam's teachings on slavery) and the actual practice of Muslims in societies with great numbers of slaves (for example 19th century Zanzibar). For more on this debate, Hishaam Aidi has an interesting article. I won't say more because the debate is complex and a bit of a rabbit hole, but suffice to say that Jackson finessed his approach in discussing these provocative issues.

For example, in one footnote Jackson argues that although there is a presumed opposition between "Islam" and "the West", there is no presumed opposition between Islam and blackness. While this is in part true, it ignores significant historical events where in fact the two did conflict (i.e. the Zanzibar Revolution). Jackson does not engage at all with Bernard Lewis's discussion of race and Islam in Race and Slavery in the Middle East. Even if one disagrees vehemently with Lewis's political stances and often reductive writing about Islam, the sources he presents bear engagement and critique with, especially if Jackson's point is to be strengthened. In the end, Jackson's analysis points to a difficulty Jackson himself raises: how in particular cases of overemphasis "blackness" or "Islamic" become neologisms, with more meaning to the person who uses them than a common agreement about their provenance and direction.

I don't necessarily see these omissions as faults per se. They nevertheless point to the need for a historical engagement with these issues. Jackson's book is a work of theology, and in this dimension is is a skillfully argued plea for Islam as a religion capable of meeting the challenge of black suffering as well as a clear explication of Islamic theodicy. It remarkably succeeds in both the academic register and as a sustained personal plea.

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River of Desire, Ocean of Love

Not to toot my own horn, but I just published a book of poems. A few of the poems were featured earlier on the site. I don't claim to be much of a poet, but I hope you will check me out and buy the book online here. The book is 50 pages for $15, so you will get your money's worth of reading at least.
peace, Nati

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Books for African Universities (email from Martin Klein)

Good suggestions. I definitely concur with supporting by donating to the Zanzibar Indian Ocean Research Institute, run by Dr. Sheriff (see below)

From: Martin Klein

On the subject of books for Africa, I am responding to the list instead
of just to the author of the original query. Any university in Africa
needs books. Most have no budget for book purchases. They especially
need books that do not deal with Africa. I have for over ten years been
shipping books to Africa. The biggest problem is the cost of shipping.
Even with the resources of the internet available, it is important that
African universities and the broader intellectual communities of which
they are part have access to books. Unfortunately, in Canada, there is
no institution that will to help with shipping costs. I have simply seen
the cost of shipping as payback for the warmth and hospitality with
which I have been received in various African countries. There is in
some cases a question of the postal system. In one case, I had no
evidence that a shipment to Mali actually arrived. In another case, a
friend suggested that security at a small university library was
inadequate. Still, there are many recipients who inspire great
confidence. There are many conscientious librarians all over Africa, and
most post offices seem reliable.

My suggestion to anyone is that they check either check a library out
with a friend, former student or one-time colleague or that they write
the library. My current favorite is a research institute run by Abdul
Sheriff in Zanzibar (asheriff@zitec.org). (He established the The Zanzibar Indian Ocean Research Institute
(ZIORI - http://www.ziori.org/) a couple of years ago, to which he
donated his own quite substantial library, and which promises to
become a focal point for researchers in East Africa.) If the books are not
appropriate to his library, he forwards them to the University of
Zanzibar Library. I have also given books to the University of Western
Cape, the University of Zambia and the University of the Zambia, but in
some cases, the greatest need is in newer or smaller libraries.

I started giving when I retired and had to move my library home. I gave
away about 16 to 18 boxes of books. Then shortly before I arrived in
Australia, the chair of the history department died. Neither his wife,
nor the Australian National University library were interested in his
library, the majority of which consisted of general works on American
history. I wrote friends and after confirming that they taught American
history, arranged shipments to four African universities. Though I was
willing to pay, the ANU history programme generously took on the costs
of shipment.

The heart of a university humanities is books and teachers. Most African
universities have teachers. They are often hungry for books.

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Pan-African Reading For All Conference feat. Ngugi

Over at Knowledge Matters, a blog run by Tanzanian journalist Emmanuel Onyango, there is an announcement about the Pan-African Reading For All Conference in Dar-es-Salaam. Please click on the title link for more information about the conference:

A well known African novelist, a Kenyan born Professor Ngugi wa Thion’go is expected to be among the key speakers at the sixth annual Pan-African Reading for All Conference scheduled to take place later in Dar es Salaam. According to the Chairman of the conference preparatory committee, Professor Mugyabuso Mulokozi, Professor Ngugi would also be accompanied by Kenyan popular scholar in the USA Professor Ally Mazrui, President of the Pearson Foundation Nieker Mark and Patricia Edward, President of International Reading Association. Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete would be the Chief guest of the conference that is expected to attract more than 200 local and International participants. The event has been championed by Children’s book project for Tanzania Develop Literature Society, Reading for All Pan-African voice of literacy and other stakeholders.

Anyone going to be in Dar for this conference? (Incidentally its around the same time as IPAD East Africa, which is also in Dar).

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Austrian Anthropologists Work on Arabic and Swahili Dialects

A set of books I would like to own, but probably never will...they cost over $1600.

Description: Volume I, " Die Somali-Sprache, Texte" , viii, 287 pp.; double column / Volume II: "Die Somali-Sprache", vii, 126 pp./ Volume III: "Der Mehri- und Soqotri-Sprache", ix, 168 pp./ Volume VII: "Die Mehri-Und Soqotri-Sprache" ix, 168 pp., index/ Volume VIII: "Der Vulgarabische Dialekt Im Dofar (Zfar)" ix, 144 pp., index/ Volume IX: "Mehri- Und Hadrami-Texte, Gesammelt Im Jahre 1902 In Gischin", xxviii, 200 pp., index, contemporary hard boards, titles printed on front cover. Set published between 1900 & 1911. Volumes in Very good condition. Over a period of eleven years these volumes were published by the Austrian Royal Academy. The work is a series of field studies by leading Austrian scholars of the local Arabic and Swahili dialects in Oman, Yemen and Somalia. Leo Reinisch (1832-1919), investigated the languages of the peoples of northeast Africa. This work here is a complete set of his investigation of the Somali language which is spoken by the people of Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. Professor David Heinr Muller (1846-1912), studied Semitic languages at Sachau, and taught Semitic languages at the University of Vienna. He published and edited several Arabic manuscripts including Al-Hamadhani "Sifat Jazeerat Al-Arab". In this work he discusses the Mehri language of Southern Arabia. Wilhelm Hein (1861-1903), was educated as an orientalist - he was fluent in Arabic - he was not only interested in languages but also in ethnology. In 1901, he finished his postdoctoral thesis at Vienna University. He was forty years old when he was finally able to fulfill his childhood dream: to take part in the exploration of southern Arabia. On the suggestion of his mentor, David H. Müller, he and his wife, Marie Hein (1853-1943), spent 1901 and 1902 in Al Mukallah and Aden on an expedition organised under the auspices of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and the Imperial Museums. There, he undertook geographical and linguistic research and assembled zoological, botanical and ethnographical collections. Today, the zoological and botanical collections are still in the Natural History Museum, 142 prints from now-lost glass-negatives have survived in the photographic archive of the Ethnological Museum Vienna and the phonograme archive of the Austrian Academy of Sciences still houses recordings of Yemeny-Arab songs by Wilhelm Hein‘s informant, Ali bin Amer (1902). Nikolaus Rhodokanakis (1876-1945), an Austrian orientalist who contributed several studies on Arabic poetry including translations into German of al-Khansa diwan, and Ibn Qutaiba poems. This work is a study of the Arabic local dialect of Dhofar. Bookseller Inventory # 006587

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Down and Out in Malindi

Reached Malindi from Lamu absolutely exhausted after a rather interesting bus ride in which we busted a tire. The bus was absolutely PACKED too. Unfortunately, I was not able to visit Gedi ruins before my bus to Nairobi the next day. Instead, I laid on my razor thin mattress and read Paul Theroux's Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town until the power went out and I decided it was a sign to go to bed. WRONG. An hour later it came back on and woke me up out of my stupor. I couldn't go back to sleep. Downstairs from dirt-cheap room (about USD $2/night) the disco blazed nonstop until 5am. I should have taken the cue and just gone downstairs and danced.

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