Sufis and Scholars of the Sea - Book ReviewYemen Post Staff 28th July 2012
There
is a need to understand the Indian Ocean area as a cultural complex
which should be analyzed beyond the geographical division of Africa, the
Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent, and South-East Asia, as its
coastal population intermingled constantly. Family networks in East
Africa (1860 – 192, originating in the South Yemeni region of
Hadhramawt, the Alawi tariqa, mainly spread along the coast of the
Indian Ocean. The book discusses the renowned scholar, Ahmed b. Sumayt.
The "Alawis" are portrayed as one of several cultural mediators in the
multi-ethnic, multi- religious Indian Ocean world in the era of European
colonialism.
*
Indian Ocean had a profound influence on the lives of the people who
lived on its shores. Fishermen, sailors, and merchants traveled its
waters linking the world`s earlier civilizations from Africa to East
Asia in a complex web of relationship.
Trade under-pinned these relationships but the Ocean was also a highway
for the exchange of religions cultures and technologies, giving the
Indian Ocean an identity as a largely self-contained world. It was the
expansion of Hinduism Buddhism, and Islam helped to define the
boundaries of the "world" which by the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries was one of the most prosperous and culturally complex regions
on earth.
By the sixteenth century, Europeans were part of this "world" as
partners in trade with the indigenous peoples. But from eighteenth
century this economic relationship changed as the economies of the
Indian Ocean "world" integrated with the capitalist economies of the
West. The change from commercialism to capitalism ended the insularity
of the Indian Ocean "world" and began its integration, as region, into
the global economy and its territorial division among various European
powers. This transition altered the ancient web of regional cultures.
The Ocean was no longer a major force binding the peoples on its shores
in a self-conscious entity, but the legacy of the past is still evident
in their common religious, cultural and historical experience.
Mwambao is the Swahili name for the East African Coast, the chosen
habitat of the Swahili people. The Swahili were called Coast People by
the Arabs, and the Swahili Coast was being referred to as "Murudi al
Dahab" or Golden Pastures. Numerous bays, creeks, and inlets resulting
from coral rock being eaten away by the sea, providing excellent harbors
e.g. near Mtwapa, Kilifi, Mombasa and Vanga while the majority of the
rivers are in Mozambique. The entire coast is composed of coral rock and
most of it provides soft beaches, useful for landing of small crafts.
The presence of water in Lamu, for example, helped to cool the hot coast
climate; the choice of site ensured a maximum of fresh breeze from the
sea upon the sandstone rock.
Regular rainfall has given the coast and the islands south of Equator
rich vegetation, unlike the arid Somali coast north of it. Regular
trade winds brought sailors and traders in search of resins, and gums
for carpentry furniture making, cosmetics, perfume etc. Mangrove poles
growing abundantly in the Lamu archipelago were used for ship building
and roof beams. Of the animal products, ivory, rhino horn and tine cat
perfume were the most sought artifacts already in antiquity. Of mineral
products it has been export market for gold, while Ethiopia exported
gems such as emeralds, and after year 1100 also coffee.
Arabs were traveling to East Africa with the monsoon from South
Arabia and Gulf even in pre-Christian times. The earliest inscriptions
were found on the island of Zanzibar c. 1070 AD. There is also the
oldest datable discovered mosque in East Africa. Arabs continued to
visit the Coast and to settle there throughout the centuries as
individual traders, or as empire builders accompanied by large families,
or establishing themselves as independent rulers. The Arab were known
by their family names, some of which they have planted in African soil.
They were identified by the region, Yemen, Oman, Hadhramawt or even by
the name of towns, Muscat, Shihr, Mukelle, Aden from which they sprang,
even though they may have lived in Africa for generations. They made
Pate, Lamu, Malindi, Mombasa and other towns their home.
Mombasa, in the land of the Zanji, boasted wonderful orchards, which
contained lemons and banana trees, all of which still grow, and rose
apples. Carpets lay on the floors of the guest house. The meal consisted
of rice, cooked or fried in butter, dishes of meat, fowl, fish and
vegetables, pickles, lemons, bananas, ginger, and mangoes. Similar meals
are still served in the Swahili tows today. There were mosques built in
coral stones. The Arabs functioned as teachers and preachers, traders
or rulers on all parts along the Swahili Coast bringing their own Arabic
textbooks for prayer sessions, and hymns to be sung in the mosques.
The numerous elegant dhows connected the colorful ports of the
Swahili Coast. Then the creeks were filled with dhows blown down by the
monsoons, dhows of all shapes and rigs from Lamu, Bombay, Persian Gulf
and from Arabia, some high and dry, some in repair. The dhows, known
also as the Silent Wanderers of the sea, were patiently awaiting the
southern breezes to blow them back to their homes.
Long ago before petroleum was discovered in the Middle East, incense,
fragrant resins, spices and perfumed wood dominated Arab trade.
Southern Arabia as the centre of trade prospered and its maritime
history is the subject of tales. The talk would be incomplete without
mentioning "the Yemeni era", which was an intensely human and cultural
civilization that promoted and enriched various facets of social,
economic and political life of East Africa. They participated actively
in various dimensions of the emerging civilization, including domestic
and international trade, underpinned by their vast experience in
traveling the world seas.
"Sufis and Scholars of the Sea" is an important text which
synthesizes chronological and historic graphical range into its compact
frame. The work researches the directly relevant histories of
Hadhramawt, Oman and East Africa during 1860 – 1925 through the life of
one of the most influential Hadhrami East African scholar of that period
Ahmed B. Sumayt.
Zanzibar`s future, an island off the coast of present day Tanzania,
thus was shaped by its geographical position, right in the middle of the
Indian Ocean trade routes. It is a place of winding alleys, bustling
bazaars, mosques and grand Arab houses, whose original owners viewed
each other over the extravagance of their dwellings. It boasts not only
natural beauty, rich culture, and breathtaking architecture. Zanzibar
during Ibn Sumayt`s time emerged as an important centre of learning in
East Africa eclipsing previous centers such as Lamu and Mombasa.
Today Zanzibar is also the name of a town in southern Yemen while
Yemeni jewelry is sold in the shops of Zanzibar. Unlike Oman, Hadhramawt
(a governorate in the present Republic of Yemen) does not have a
history of a colonial power in the Indian Ocean. Hadhramawt is known for
its continuous export of people to the land of the Indian Ocean,
including the East African coast. They were religious scholars, traders,
cultural brokers, whose impact on both recipient and home country is a
topic which has aroused much interest in recent years.
To them, the Ocean was no barrier rather a long established arena for
cultural and intellectual exchange. With them traveled goods and ideas,
word of mouth, and word in writing, fashion, habits, linguistic
patterns, and seeds for new agricultural crops. They left their imprint
on the place, the most notable being the religion of Islam, and absorbed
cultural elements that were not Arab in origin. The Indian Ocean ports
were not distant exotic cities but actual real places, and where the
human chain, the "silsila", extended through space and time. This is the
"world" into which we enter with A.K Bang`s "Sufis and Scholars of the
Sea".
The topic of this fine scholarly study is the scholarly exchange of
ideas between Hadhramawt and East Africa. It is the history of Islam
during the nineteenth and early twenties century. The study beautifully
reconstructs the channels through which "Alawis", a Sufi tariqa,
originated in the South Yemeni region of Hadhramawt spread along the
coast of the Indian Ocean. It discusses and focuses on life of one of
the most influential Hadhrami – East African scholars of the period
Ahmed B. Sumayt. Thru Ibn Sumayt`s life, it explores how links were
maintained, reinforced, and how their "world" related to other ideas
emerging at the same time. How they formed a tight knit, a transoceanic
network of individuals linked together by blood, and common experience,
which remained open until well into the twentieth century when colonial
frontiers came to be decisive factors, when the peoples actually
transformed themselves into nations.
It researches what the "Alawis" actually thought in East Africa, what
inspired their teachings, its explores their scholarly links, and
further the impact of Hadhrami Alawis on nineteenth century East African
scriptural Islam. It places the highly scriptural widely traveled and
deeply learned tradition of Hadhramawt in East Africa in the frame work
of Islamic learning.
The Alawis were traveling widely for seeking out knowledge beyond
their local communities, and in Ibn Sumayt`s case, in his mature years
he traveled equally wide to spread knowledge. As result families became
not only transoceanic, but also trans-regional. Time flies and things
change: as nineteenth century drew closer, the Alawis in East Africa,
like their fellow residents in the Indian Ocean shores, were exposed to
European colonialism.
The central figure of this research, Ahmed B. Abo Bakr b. Sumayt (1860– 1925)-
was one of the most prominent Hadhrami-East African scholars of that
period. Born in the Comoro Islands, to a father who had immigrated from
Hadramawt, Ibn Sumayt returned to his father’s homeland. But he achieved
his greatest fame in East Africa, as a pious man, a scholar, and qadi
in Zanzibar. As East Africa came under colonial rule he earned great
respect from those British administrators who came into contact with
him. It was he - who made them appreciate the true Arab reactions - to
foreign rule.
.
Through focusing on the life of Ibn Sumayt and his life within a
network, it presents the life "in the middle", of a "man in the middle".
Ibn Sumayt is the link between sail ships and oil tankers, between the
empires of the monsoon, via the period of European imperialism, and the
ear of the notion states. Especially the later half of the nineteenth
century when he saw European influence in East Africa and British
influence in Zanzibar.
Ibn Sumayt was also a reformer and teacher, at the same time fully aware
of developments in the Middle East. We meet him as propagator of
improved agricultural methods, and even discussing new breed of crops
with friends. However, Ibn Sumayt`s importance lays in his work as qadi
and how the Ulama found their place in the "colonial space" as active
partners. Ibn Sumayt is presented here as pious and learned man - yet
intensely human, who possessed a reputation which extended far beyond
the limits of Zanzibar.
"Sufis and Scholars of the Sea" is well researched, focused in
excellent presented. It will be of interest to scholars, researchers,
students but also as general reading to all those interested in the role
and contribution of the Yemeni Hadhrami Arab scholars to the history
and culture of the Indian Ocean.
Book Reference
Anne K Bang – Sufis and Scholars of the Sea, Published by RoutledgeCurzon
ISBN 0-415-31763-0
About Anne K Bang
Is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Bergen, Norway.
Historian of Islamic societies with a special focus on Arabia and the
Muslim communities of Eastern Africa as well as the wider Indian Ocean
rim. Her research has primarily focused on factors that cause ritual and
devotional life, intellectual discourses and political ideologies to
change in different Muslim societies. Focusing on the Muslim societies
of the Indian Ocean (east/southeast Africa) and Southeast Asia her
research has mainly focused on migration and cosmopolitan Muslim
societies and the ensuing family- trade- and scholarly networks. She has
also worked on Islamic education and on the transmission of scriptural
cultural heritage in Africa. In addition, she has worked on the role of
Norwegian traders in during the colonial era. She has published several books and articles on these topics.
Irena Knehtl, Sana`a, Yemen
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