Swahili Proverb of the Day #3

"Usiache Mbacho Kwa Msala Upitao"

This little gem literally means, "Don't throw out your old prayer mat for a new one." In other words, don't be so quick to discard that which is known to you and familiar, just because you see something shiny and new. Or don't discard old friends for new ones. Word.

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The Swahili Coast, 2nd to 19th Centuries

The Swahili Coast, 2nd to 19th Centuries by G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville

I am reading this book in companion with East Africa and The Orient: Cultural Synthesis in Pre-colonial Times ed. Neville Chittick. They both have their virtues, but I prefer Freeman-Grenville's style and communication of ideas; his book is more unitary in theme--constantly returning to certain outstanding features of coastal history and weaving them again and again into East African coastal history from a variety of perspectives.

Freeman-Grenville's erudition is great and his conclusions generally sound. He has some interesting insights into the future of the field, which, although somewhat dated, scholars have increasingly been heeding:

"In the future, the history of the East African coast will of necessity be written by scholars versed in Arabic and Swahili. It will include both public and private records, and likewise oral traditions, some of which have already been collected."

He also has an interesting historical note on the Sidi of India, descendants of enslaved Africans brought there beginning around 1738. Many of them live in Gujarat to this day. They speak a dialect of Swahili. I will have to look and see if any other scholars have done any work on this. He includes some interesting insights about Ottoman interest in the East African Coast, which I touched upon in a paper for an Ottoman History course at Georgetown University. Specifically he discusses the need for Africanists to consult the Seraglio Archives in Istanbul, as well as a collection of Swahili documents at Goa as well as some documents written in Portuguese with an Arabic script. At the time of his writing, no one had consulted the Sultan's Palace in Muscat nor the archives of Pondichery--I am sure that has changed.
Lastly, he has assembled a list of words of Portuguese origin in Swahili. Most of them, unsurprisingly, have to do with nautical topics. I will reproduce a few of them here:

abedari--large pulley (nautical)
amari--anchor cable
bao--plank
barkinya--small boat
bendera--flag
bomba--pump
buli--teapot
bweta--small box
danguro--tavern, brothel
gereza--prison
kandarinya--kettle
karata--playing cards
leso--scarf/cloth
mboleo--manure
nanasi--pineapple (this is also common to Arabic)
parafujo--screw
Ureno--Portugla
upao--roof timber, beam
mvinho--wine, spirits

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On Pant Legs and Right Guidance

This seemingly innocuous issue keeps popping up in conversation. A while back at Masjid Muhammed in DC the sheikh gave a khutba about this very issue, which answered for me 1) Why some Muslim men roll up their pant legs during prayer, and 2) The root of the hadith regarding the Prophet Muhammed's(SAW) opinion of this practice.

Now the other day I found myself in conversation with a brother about this on the way to Arabic class. We had a debate about this, where he was citing hadith to raise the point that one ought to keep one's pants above one's ankle at all times.

Funnily enough, this style (pants above the ankle) at one time became so popular in Philly that I think it crossed over to non-Muslims; During my freshman year in college, I used to see guys from Philly at Lincoln rocking 'jeans' which stopped at the ankle and high socks to match. They also would rock the beard with the low mustache (another 'sunna' practice).

Anyway, I digress. Even though this brother and I disagreed--I felt that the literal meaning of the hadith no longer applied because no one nowadays wears their pants past the ankles out of pride, while he felt that a hadith is a hadith and we have to follow it.--it was still productive in forcing me to think about some difficult theological issues. It made me search out the sources. So I went online and found this discussion about pant legs, and tried to muddle my way through it.

Ironically, the most sensible response in the discussion was not from any of those quoting the commentaries and hadith collections. It came from another cat on the board, who related the sunna to contemporary practice in a way that was actually relevant:

"If I recall correctly, it is reported that the Holy Messenger (SAW) made a remark to Umar ibn Al Khaatab about his clothes that reached to below his ankle, saying that that was a sign of arrogance. We only have to remember the types of clothing that kings and queens used to wear to be able to understand this.

However, today we do not wear trousers below the ankle as a sign of arrogance.

Trousers that reach below the ankle may collect dirt and other filthy things as we walk. Such clothes would not be OK for Salaah. That's clear enough.

So, if we take the precaution of wearing trousers down to a length that ensures that the trousers do not get soiled, there should be no problem.

Folding the trousers above the ankles for salaah is necessary, because the ankles have to be visible so that all in the same row may align their ankles. It is by aligning ankles that shoulders come in a straight row.

Hope, Inshallah that above throws some light on the issue.

I love this response. Its simple, its logical, it makes sense from a practical point of view, and best of all it doesn't presume that those who have read every single commentary know best. I feel stifled and angry when I read some of these commentaries (especially dealing with issues like pant legs). I often feel as if the scholars are using knowledge to put a straightjacket on ordinary common sense and mislabeling their opinions as being "rightly guided".

If you are reduced to following a practice devoid of its context, and actually having arguments about whether it is a major or a minor sin, then you have missed the point of submitting to Allah, and in fact are close to falling into the trap the hadith warns against: pride! For those with the wherewithall and determination to engage with the difficult work of tracing the correct transmission and interpretation of hadith, I say "more power to you." But please keep in mind that submission to Allah should never be confused with following a law. This is not shirk, but in fact a point made by the Prophet Jesus (SAW).

The Prophet Muhammed (SAW) came to fulfill the earlier scriptures, such as The Bible and The Torah, and to reveal how they confirm the truth of the Quran, yet most Christians as well as Muslims (and no doubt colonialism played a role in this) have made finding the rapproachment between the two religions impossible because each view the other as a 'competitor' for souls. This is not the particular space to comment on this capitalistic model of religion, which views the success of religion by an index of ever-increasing growth, but I will say that a more fruitful path would be for Christians and Muslims to read each others' books and try to come to an understanding of the interrelationship between the Quran and The Bible.

For instance, the Bible is flawed and innacurate at some points, and it most certainly was the work of a committee, but many, if not most Muslims have never READ the Bible, so they have no idea about how to discern the truth from the falsehood. This despite the following verses in the Quran:

Say ye: "We believe in Allah, and the revelation given to us, and to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) the prophets from their Lord; We make no difference between one and another of them: and we submit to Allah.
Surat-ul Baqara (2):136

O ye who believe! Believe in God, and His apostle, and the scripture which He sent to His apostle, and the scripture which He sent to those before (him). Any who denieth God, His angels, His Books, His apostles, and the Day of Judgment hath gone far, far astray.
Surat-un Nisaa (4):136

In fact, I remember being in one class on Islam where a teacher discouraged us from reading The Bible on the grounds that its 'falsehoods' would confuse us, despite the fact that the Prophet Muhammed(SAW) himself invited the believer to seek knowledge wherever he can find it.

Similarly, Christians have only rarely taken the time to understand the Quran outside of those partisans who are reading it to try to demonstrate Christian superiority over Islam. I remember one ignorant Christian I met on a train who told me that God and Allah were two different deities! No doubt she was reciting what she heard at her church, and had never read the Quran. Even those Christians who have read the Quran often lack any contextual appreciation of the Islamic message, have no understanding of the various interpretations of difficult verses, or are reading the Quran in an English translation of often dubious accuracy.

A little while back I was discussing this with a friend of mine, and I had the idea of founding an organization called "Christians For Muhammed" (the title coming from the evangelical organization "Jews for Jesus") which would seek to underline the common basis of thought between Christianity and Islam, as well as engage in a dialogue about how Judaic thought has influenced both traditions. As the venerable Ali A. Mazrui has written, "Precisely because Islam conceived of itself as a restoration of the message of Jesus after it had been distorted, Muhammed's revolution was the first Protestant assertion in history like Luther and Calvin nine hundred years later, Muhammed felt that the message of Jesus had been perverted by his successors in the leadership of the flock." Like Mazrui, I see the message of Islam as being an attempt to restore 'balance' to Christianity by removing the deification of Christ while retaining reverence for his teachings.

From my reading, I believe that, much like early Christians deified Jesus and subsequently distorted his message, the true (often esoteric) meaning of the Quran and Sunna has been missed by those zealous to imitate the life of the Prophet(SAW) in every detail without contextual appreciation of aspects of the Prophet's message, and subsequently denounce all those who differ with them. They refuse to even consider the important question: "Which of the Prophet Muhammed's insights were specific to a particular situation or to that culture?"

But the 'text' is in some ways a false refuge; people turn to its authority without bothering to think about the multiple ways in which they conceive of that text's truth may be formed. The Quran, even as an authoritative text, has to be interpreted, has to be given a context. There is no such thing as a non-contextual reading. Unfortunately, this insight is anathema to many Muslims as well as Christians. This can lead to Pharasaical in such behavior and the detriment of a true spiritual understanding. (see Umar Lee's multi-part series on the "rise and fall of the Salafi Dawa in the US"

Let me stress that there is much to be said for the practice of studying and imitating the Prophet's life, as the Prophet(SAW) was a model for human conduct on this earth. Yet from a "longee duree" perspective of true righteousness and model behavior: if Abraham and Musa and Jesus were all Muslims and they didn't (for example) roll their pant legs off the ground (and may have even listened to music), then doesn't this show that the true essence of Islam is in the heart? In short, the practices, pillars, hadith, and shari'a of Islam are meant as rudders for the steering the heart towards Allah, not some straightjacket for us humans as if we were too ignorant to do anything but obey.

Please forgive me for any theological errors. Allahu alim.

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Piracy in the Indian Ocean

Somali 'pirates' have been in the news, and the media is of course treating the story with typical poor reporting (except for al-Jazeera, may its house increase). Like they refer to the main boat that these Somalis launch raids from as "the mothership" like these people are some Borg-like other race. Anyway, the ship boardings and kidnappings have intensified over the past weeks.

I have this sinking feeling that 'piracy' is gonna be the new catchword on par with terrorism, thus transforming what is basically an act of economic desperation into an act with connotations of preying on innocents. Folks, these are OIL TANKERS, ok, not little fishing vessels. Why else do you think these 'pirates' are boarding them? There is MAD multinational DOUGH involved! These are ex-fishermen who've been getting royally F--KED by the world economy--basically its open season for international fishermen off the coast of Somalia, since the non-existent Somalian government is unable to defend, patrol, or even assert its rights to its own coastal waters. I mean isn't it also piracy to trespass in another nation's coastal waters?
Sorry, its late, I had to rant...What do you think?

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British Policy in the Southern Sudan: A Brief Note on Language and Colonization

Just finished Robert Collins long and rather turgid Shadows in the Grass: Britian in the Southern Sudan, 1918-1956, with which, despite Collin's impressive list of sources, I was underimpressed. Perhaps its his lack of a theoretical framework, which leads him to be just a bit too enamored of the nostalgic recollections of British District Commissioners. However, he does offer, in full, this extremely interesting quote from Harold MacMichael, the Civil Secretary for the Sudan condominium from 1926-34, about British policy regarding Arabic in the Southern Sudan:

"The problem is whether to encourage the spread of Arabic
in the South as a lingua franca and medium between the governing class and the
governed, or to resist it on political grounds. The former alternative appears
to be basically unsound, the latter to be demanded as the right aim and object
of our policy...The religion of the Arab is the fruit of thirteen centuries of
discipline and dogma, and it appears now to have reached a state of world-wide
stagnation periodically rippled by political restlessness. There has been no
freedom for the mind or conscience, no intellectual future for this race, except
by the path of heresy..By virtue of its age, its wide diffusion, its adoption of
the older monotheistic belief and a code of morals which is at least no worse
that that of the Old Testament, and because of the state of comparative
civilization in which many of its adherents have come to live, it is rightly
regarded as being relatively on a higher plane than are the undeveloped
religions of the negroes. But it is none the less terile; and we shall render
the poorest of services to these poiples, as we educate their minds and induce
an atmopshere favourable to peace and porgress, we simultaneously open to them
the easy path which leads nowhere.
Moreover, the path, though it is not worth taking, would
carry those that took it into grave dangers. The most serious of these is the
automatic extension of the zone in which Islamic fanaticism is endemic to an
equally large and far more populous area where at present it is not so. One may
vary the metaphor by saying that to encourage the spread of Arabic in the South
would be to sprinkle gunpowder in the neighborhood of a powder
magazine....
The resultant danger is double-endged; for not only would
the Arabs, in the event of a rising, be able to call upon the south in the anme
of a common religion, for assistance, but, if there were trouble between the
Governement and the negroes in the South, these same Arabs of the North and
intelligentsia of the towns would not fail to assume a pose sympathy and
interest which migt become a serious embarassment...
Surely it is wiser and better and safer to take the long
view and to encourage our officials by every possible means to acquire a fuller
and more intimate knowledge of all that pertains to the great negro tribes and
denote a whole-hearted enthusiasm to the "cultivation of their languages,
conservation and sublimation of all that is of value in their customs and
institutions, frank recognition of the measure of truth contained in their
religion."
In this way we shall show ourselves more truly to be their
friends than by tipping them over the brink of a dangerously easy slope; and in
time we shall reap our own advantage, for a series of self-contained racial
units will be developed with structure and organization based on the solid rock
of indigenous tradition and beliefs, the daily life of the family and the
individual will be regulated by customs which are natural to them, the sense of
tribal pride and independence will grow, and in the process a solid barrier will
be created against the insidious political intrigue which must in the ordinary
course of events increasingly best our path in the North."

I guess you can draw your own conclusions about how this statement of policy has impacted the independent Sudanese state. Ironically, MacMichael's statements sound a bit like some reactionary State Department briefing or a statement of Africom policy.

To me the following is clear: British policy in the Southern Sudan attempted to foster not merely a neutral course, but in actual fact a hostility towards the spread of Islam further South. Anyway, I post these insights about Sudan because they provide some guidelines for me on how to deal with similar issues of race, language, and culture within an Omani context, especially in the context of cultural issues with Omani migrants in Central Africa, where the majority of the population is non-Muslim.

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Zanzibar Archives: Arab Manuscripts

A list of major reasons why I am learning Arabic are listed below, from the Zanzibar archives. In the archives there are also court records in Arabic, consular correspondence in Arabic, and the Sultan's personal records from the Palace Archive.

More from the Archives

ZA group: ARABIC MANUSCRIPTS AND BOOKS 1544 AD - 1968:

ZA 1
Books of Quran and Sura’s 1197 - 196; 95 books

ZA 2
Diseases, Treatments, Local Medicine and Witchcraft 1141 - 1903; 22 books

ZA 3
History: general 1257 - 1934; 46 books

ZA 4
Language 1161 - 1923; 25 books

ZA 5
Islamic Laws 1544 AD - 1891; 91 books

ZA 6
Novels- Stories 1294 - 1899; 10 books

ZA 7
Manuscripts and Books on Diaries and Records Books (undated); 6 books

ZA 8
Religion: General 1249 - 1962; 52 books

ZA 9
Prophet’s Muhammad’s Stories, 1246 - 1349; 146 books

ZA 10
Islamic History 1143 - 1950; 35 books

ZA 11
Historical Magazine 1877 - 1945; 15 books

ZA 12
Agriculture: general 1284 - 1956; 6 books

ZA 13
Poetry 1267 - 1914; 22 copies

ZA 14
Miscellaneous 1249 - 1961; 18 books

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From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925

I wish I had read this book (From Slaves to Squatters) when I was in Professor Tutino's Comparative History class , writing papers on peasants and revolution. Fred Cooper takes a 'Barrington Moore' approach to the Zanzibar Revolution by framing his post-abolition history of land and labor on the Swahili coast with a final insight into how the colonial policies of the period may have contributed to the turmoil of 1964. In The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Barrington Moore seeks to explain the variegated routes of political modernization through the framework of lord and peasant relationships. Moore contends that the socio-political character of the landed upper classes and the producers of agricultural surplus are decisive factors in determining whether a nation adopts democracy, fascism, or communism.

Cooper's story is by no means so teleological, and I am oversimplfiying Moore's very subtle argument anyway. One of the virtues of Cooper's work is that it is the other side to the narrative that sees that revolution as a vengeful and capricious strike by a band of barbarians. (ala Ali Muhsin) Spontaneous though it was--poorly executed as well as wantonly violent--nevertheless the revolution was due to the fact that the masses of Zanzibaris correctly traced their problems to a planter class who had been artificially propped up by the British, and whose continuing viability rested on maintaining the paternalistic ties of slavery.

In Zanzibar society at the time of the revolution, most of the planters were still Omani Arabs, descended from those who came to Zanzibar in the 1830s with Said bin Sultan Al Bu Saidi. By the early 19th century, Sultan Said already had an extensive economic base in Zanzibar, founded on trade in ivory, spices, textiles, and slaves. Moving his political base to Zanzibar was Said’s attempt to establish a greater degree of dominance over the trade routes of the East African coast and capitalize on potential profits from this strategically important island. He attempted to make cloves the foundation of a profitable plantation economy. The Omanis expropriated the most fertile land for clove production, and amplified an existing and profitable trade in enslaved Africans. Said created an Omani Arab landholding aristocracy and effectively marginalized the old Swahili elite. The high mortality of the clove plantations led to a constant influx of enslaved Africans from the mainland. Many indigenous residents migrated to the eastern areas of Unguja, where they continued to grow land on the kiambo (kinship based holdings) and the uwanda (common village land). The relative autonomy of this group, including their strong associations of kinship and landholding, created a cohesive intra-group identity and excluded outsiders. The self-distinction they made in referring to themselves as Shirazis would complicate later attempts at political unity.

The British were keen to develop their interests in export crops while maintaining existing relationships of ‘indirect rule’ through the Sultanate. Abdul Sheriff, describing Zanzibar, accurately sums up the dominant impulse behind abolition: “the ultimate reason for the abolition of slavery was rooted in the knowledge that free labour would be more efficient than slave labour.” The overriding interest of British authorities in Zanzibar was to guarantee a supply of cheap labor for the agricultural economy.

These new colonial labor needs eroded the relatively autonomous position many indigenes enjoyed in the eastern parts of Unguja. Many indigenes were pushed off their land and forced to work in a clove economy characterized by instability and depression for much of the early 20th century. As an instrument of coercion, the British imposed a hut tax, forcing the indigenes to work for wages to pay it. Many moved to the urban centers, or commuted on a regular basis to find wage labor. Others squatted in various arrangements of tenancy or sharecropping. The dislocation caused by colonial labor arrangements created a transistional class, or a ‘semi-proletariat’, with a foot in both subsistence agriculture and wage labor, as well as urban and rural contexts. Squatters combined wage labor with subsistence farming and tenancy, utilizing these strategies to simultaneously up their cash flow in a money economy, and position themselves outside of the vagaries of changes in the price of export crops which the British were encouraging them to grow. (On the Kenya coast, a similar situation prevailed, but with white settlement being encouraged in the highlands, increasing numbers of Kikuyu and Luo migrants came to Mombasa--at this time the center of coastal labor demand-- seeking cash to meet their subsistence needs. However, I felt that Cooper's section on Zanzibar made a more forceful point than the section on coastal Kenya, perhaps due to the more homogenous nature of Zanzibar's economy.)

It is obvious that a substantial degree of responsibility for the 1964 violence rests on the shoulders of the British. They remained largely unaware of the growing ethnic tensions of Zanzibar and generally contempous of African peasants in general. Of this obliviousness Moore writes, “The upper classes have to display a substantial degree of blindness, mainly the product of historical circumstances…before a revolutionary breakthrough becomes feasible.” The Arab plantation owners also bear responsibility—their racial arrogance and brutality are not debatable. The arrogance by which they pursued their policies toward the peasantry made the uprising of 1964, led by John Okello, seem more extemporaneous than it actually was. Like Nat Turner, Okello claimed to see visions which he interpreted as his appointment as an instrument of God for the liberation of Africa. He was of Ugandan origin, but had moved around East Africa and eventually settled in Zanzibar, beginning work on a Pemba plantation in the late 1950s. His anti-Arab, pro-African statements called for the overthrow of imperialism, but he insisted on the peaceful treatment of British citizens. His takeover of the radio station and broadcast during the early hours of the revolution proved crucial to winning the masses over to the idea of a fundamental social transformation, while his rhetoric helped stoke an outbreak of violence against Arabs and Asians. The Zanzibar revolution reinforces Moore’s observation that “in any violent conflict the social composition of the victims will not by itself reveal much about the social and political character of the struggle.” The violence was not about ethnic cleansing per se. It was the culmination of a building frustration with the power structure and its most visible element: the planter class, made up largely of Arabs.

Cooper writes, "Yet ideologies that underplay the importance of power and overplay the importance of the force of law or the legitimacy of authority can deceive the rulers far more than the ruled. Ex-slaves proved to be unawed by planters or the state and quite unwilling to regard the amelioration of the conditions of slavery as the limits of their aspirations. Mobility and flexibility were precisely what the ex-slaves wanted..." This statement perhaps sums up the aspirations of peasants worldwide--the right to organize life on their own terms, without interference of any kind. It put me in the mind of Leon Litwack's classic Been In the Storm So Long, which talked about the choices and ideologies of the freedmen in the immediate postbellum South. Litwack shows us the ordinary but moving aspirations of a formerly subject people and their attempts at reclaiming economic and social dignity. It also ought to remind us as would-be revolutionaries that the masses are motivated not by any pet ideology, liberalism communism, nationalism, anarchism, anti-(or is it pro?) syndicalist Maoism, etc. but by the need for dignified work and the ability to feed one's family.

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Obamani

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Photoshop is making someone very rich right now. And he looks pretty good...I think he is the first US president who won't look like an utter clown attempting to 'get down' with cultures in other countries.

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Samah, the Abandoned Village

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Swahili Proverb of the Day #2

"Mtu ajipigaye mwenyewe hali"

This proverb is found in Tippu Tip's autobiography, and it is translated by W.H. Whiteley as "the man who hits himself doesn't cry." Literally it can be read as "the person who hits himself/herself are themselves responsible for their condition."

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