Beatrice Nicolini
(Researcher
of History and Institutions of African and Asian Countries
Faculty of Political Science – Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
– Milan)
ZANZIBAR AND EAST AFRICA
INTERRELIGIOUS AND INTERCULTURAL RELATIONS THROUGHOUT HISTORY
The aim of this short note is focusing on the role played by
religion and its influence, both numerous and complex, on Zanzibar Island and
on the Subsaharan East African littorals throughout history with special reference
to the nineteenth century.
Due to the wide and extremely complex subject, I would like to concentrate on
Zanzibar, Unguja in kiswahili, as a case study, as I consider to be one
of the most interesting and fascinating islands of the Western Indian Ocean.
From time immemorial, the spread of Islam through short as well as long-distance
trade routes strongly influenced, and in many cases modified, East African societies.
Islam undoubtedly made a tremendous impact upon the people of East Africa and
of Zanzibar. Along the centuries, due to an increasing number of merchants,
travellers and immigrants coming from southern Yemen, from Hadramawt and from
other non Shiite areas, a solid Sunni-Shafi’i community emerged(1).
Along the littorals of East Africa the impact of Islam with pre-existing religious
realities, mostly animism, was inevitably a shock for the latter ones. The growing
predominance of Islamic trade and exercise of power politics in East Africa
led to a misconception of the delicate, as well as of the troublesome, relationships
between different societies and cultures. And the process was getting deeper
and deeper within both Islamic and non-Islamic societies, especially western
societies. So much so that Chabal still thinks today about East Africans:
[...] at the same time they (the Africans) seem locked into what outsiders all too readily tend to see as ‘backward’ social or psychological conventions such as ethnicity or witchcraft [...](2).
Starting from the beginning of the nineteenth century, the level
of influence on trade routes strongly controlled by Arab and Asiatic merchants
in the Western Indian Ocean was high. And the reasons perhaps could be found
in the endogenous characterisations of what was sadly destined to become what
we tend to identify as a ‘backward’ reality. As we all know, Islam
in East Africa – as elsewhere – was not monolithic, encompassing as
it did so many regional variations and changes over times. Nevertheless, it
provided a framework; and within this framework, Muslim merchants, often culturally
shocked by the animism of East Africa, were more likely to emphasise their Muslim
identity; moreover, their minority status and their geographical isolation led
to the creation of Muslim enclaves which served as bases for extensive islamization
and created an ideological support for resistance to economic and political
competition as, for example, in Zanzibar(3).
Near the coast of equatorial Africa, separated from the continent by a canal
some 50 kilometres long, is the island of Zanzibar. It is the largest of the
coral islands of the eastern coast of Africa and forms part of a coral reef
that extends from the near island of Pemba (al-Khudra), which means the
Green, or Emerald island, to the north, as far as the island of Mafia to the
south. It constitutes a type of extraneous coastline to the continent. The city
of Zanzibar is situated to the west of the island and its port, one of the best
of East Africa, allows deep anchorage for the docking of the ships. Zanzibar
has always been strategically and commercially important due to two fundamental
points: its proximity to the continent and the monsoon winds. The regular recurrence
of the latter allowed continuous contacts with India, the Red Sea and the Persian
Gulf; while the closeness of Zanzibar to the coast placed it in an ideal position
for commerce between the interior of the African continent and the Indian Ocean.
Notwithstanding a marked heterogeneity of its population – a polyethnic
and a multireligious society – south-eastern Zanzibar was inhabited principally
by Bantu speaking people known as Hadimu (Wahadimu), while the Tumbatu (Watumbatu)
were found in the northern part of the island. The Wapemba tribe, however, inhabited
the island of Pemba. During the XIX century these groups were Sunni Muslims
of the Shafi’i school, despite strong connections to animism (witches,
sorcerers, and an aggressive dwarf with one eye named Popobawa played, and still
play, a crucial role in Zanzibar and in Pemba). Both the Hadimu and the Tumbatu
were dedicated to fishing, agriculture and animal breeding, whilst the Hadimu
women were entirely responsible for the manufacture of cord made from coconut
fibre in villages in the south of the island. At the beginning of the nineteenth
century, the links between the East African Coast and the western Indian Ocean
opened up a great deal of commercial contacts, which then flourished. With this
in mind, the hegemonic accession of the Omani tribe of Al Bu Sa’idi, Ibadhi,
to Zanzibar could be seen as highly symbolic.
During the nineteenth century, the island of Zanzibar represented one of the
four terminals of Oman-Arab mercantile powers of the Al Bu Sa’idi tribe,
together with the port of Maskat in Oman, the ports of the Asiatic coastal strip
of Baluchistan, Makran, the mercantile centres of the coast of West India and
the coasts of East Africa. Starting from the XIX century, there were clear power
connections among the Sunni Baluch of Makran, the Ibadhi Arabs of Oman, the
Hindu and Ismaili mercantile communities of West India and the animist Africans
of Zanzibar: the Omani were the political leaders, the Baluch the military force,
the Indians were brokers, financiers, bankers and tax collectors, and the Africans
were slaves. And with this in mind Michael Pesek thinks that the Swahilis had
much to lose and lost much(4).
The Al Bu Sa’idi and in particular their most ‘glorious’ exponent
of the XIX century, Saiyid Sa’id bin Sultan Al Bu Sa’idi (1791-1856)(5),
proposed a division of power, thanks also to their ethnic-religious superiority
as one is Ibadhi only through birth and not conversion. This division would
not be without conflict, although the Ibadhi Sultans were highly tolerant, and
it has to be remembered that – as already stated above – the centrality
of Islam, together with the power of magic and ritual of the different ethnic
and religious groups on Zanzibar, decreased from the early nineteenth century.
Inevitably, the presence of Omani governors (liwali) with their Baluch
mercenaries, and of Indian merchants was bitterly resented by the local population.
The Asiatic community of Baluch coming from Makran represented strength, the
shawqâh. They were Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school and, those coming
from Makran, Zikris; as they were famous for their cruelty and courage, the
Arabs always considered Baluch more trustworthy than the Arab mercenaries. Another
essential and decisive factor for the extraordinary development of Zanzibar
in 1800 was the even more active presence of the Indian mercantile communities.
The banyan, considered by the Arabs as mushrikûn (polytheists),
were absorbed into and protected by the institution of aman (protection).
The first Indian merchants to trade in the Western Indian Ocean seas were the
Bhattia (from bhatti, subhatta, Hindu warriors from the Vaishnavi caste), originally
from Rajahstan. Another group of Bhattia was the Kutchi, also comprised of Hindus
who enjoyed great privileges in Oman as well as in East Africa and who were
exempt from paying taxes to the Arabs. Together with this group of Hindu merchants
were the Khojâs (Khwajahs), Ismailites. They were described by explorers and
English merchants of the nineteenth century as being slight of figure, with
a lighter complexion than that of the Arabs, with long moustaches, no beards
and a Chinese pony-tail at the base of their shaved heads. The richness and
elegance of their clothing, distinguished by silk tunics with long, ornate sleeves,
was a sure sign that manual work was foreign to them. Socially isolated from
the Arabs, they observed a strict endogamy and were principally devoted to boat
construction. The Ismailite Indians were numerically the largest group in East
Africa. Yet at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was the Hindu merchants
who maintained and intensified an undisputed financial hegemony.
Coming back to the Muslim presence, Islam in Zanzibar was often used as a political
weapon, defining hierarchical differences and ethnic origins. But, it should
be stressed that profit, not power, was what counted(6).
Consequently, the Omani dynasty of Al Bu Sa’idi respected the Hindu merchants
wide-ranging connections in the Western Indian Ocean, which allowed them to
enjoy the functions of both mediators and lenders in the various Indian mercantile
communities settled in Zanzibar, and also to benefit from their widespread presence
within Swahili society. It was this emergence of a politically powerful élite,
in contact with the native population that gave rise to the commercial splendour
of Zanzibar. The lucrative trading of the West Indian Coast constituted all
types of merchandise and spices, which in most cases were valuable.
But the most important products bought by the Arabs in Africa in 1800 were slaves.
Bearing this in mind, the growth in the demand for sugar cane from the Mascarene
islands and for ivory and cloves from East Africa, fired the continual demand
for slaves on the plantations (shamba) in Zanzibar and for manual labour
for the transportation of the goods. This caused a widespread migration of slaves
from the interior of the African continent towards the coasts and the islands.
Slavery did not only occur as a result of direct capture, but also resulted
from misleading contracts between the tribes of the interior – among others
the Yao and Nyamwezi(7) – and the slave
merchants. Furthermore, the recurring periods of drought along the Mrima coast
pushed people to the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. Moreover, slave trade was
a perfect means for obtaining European goods, especially weapons. Demand for
slaves grew as much as the growing demand for weapons in East Africa; as a consequence,
violence and war were totally pervading, and gradually destroying(8),
East African traditional religions and cultures as well as local powers. European
rifles were used not only by slave caravan traders, but also by elephant hunters
and ivory traders.
As Islam was the religion of all free Swahili within the Arab dominions, those
slaves that came from areas not influenced by the Swahili culture were not Muslims;
these slaves were the property of their owners. They represented a closed caste
not yet absorbed into the coastal population, either having been transported
in their childhood within the borders of Zanzibar or born into slavery. The
most privileged were naturally the domestic slaves. The demand for slaves came
from various quarters: from Arabia, foremost, where the cultivation of dates
demanded a high influx of man labour at zero cost; from western India, where
they were used on oases, on sugar and tea plantations; from Central Asia, where
they started the practice of cotton cultivation; from various areas of the Ottoman
Empire; and from America. Another speciality was the eunuchs, especially appreciated
in the Ottoman Empire. The organ mutilation was carried out in totally unhygienic
conditions, resulting in a survival rate of one in ten of those eunuchs transported
from Africa(9). Those who survived often became
very powerful and closely connected to regional dynasties, mainly because their
physical condition inhibited any kind of menace to power.
Between the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century
the influence of Europeans in Zanzibar was exerted through commercial treaties
and agreements with the Arabs present on the island concerning trade in slaves
and African ivory, both flourishing and lucrative commodities. Very soon, however,
fascination for the blank spaces on the world map, together with the archetype
of the exotic island which Zanzibar represented (rich in spices, perfumes, luxuriant
vegetation, with drinking water, fruit and good money-making prospects through
the commercial trading of slaves, ivory and spices and other commercial temptations)
opened the door to a new world scene.
The centre of this scene was to take the shape of European rivalry for strategic
control and political-commercial supremacy over the Western Indian Ocean; a
rivalry that developed from the growing predominance of Great Britain, which
virtually transformed the waters of the Western Indian Ocean into an “English
lake”.
Britain’s impact on Zanzibar during 1800 undoubtedly interfered with the
social and religious composition of the island; its strategy was based on commercial-political
control of local mechanisms of power, mainly through the banning of the slave
trade. Therefore, in 1800 the power of the Omani-Arab élite of the Al Bu Sa’id
in Zanzibar was inevitably destined to decline. The growing strategic importance
of the Western Indian Ocean as a watering highway was soon to become the focal
point of world politics, making the region the pivot of world affairs. The promotion
of trade and its influence and impact on religious realities has been a source
of deep and complex relationships between different people and different cultures
and religions(10).
Drawing on the above therefore leads to the conclusion that during the XIX century
trade and religion in Zanzibar and in East Africa were deeply connected and
strongly influenced by local cultures and populations.
Note
(1) W. GERVASE CLARENCE-SMITH
& U. FREITAG, (Eds.), Hadrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian
Ocean 1750-1960, Leiden, 1997.Su
(2) P. CHABAL, Africa: Modernity without
development?, ISIM Newsletter, n. 5, Leiden, 2000.Su
(3) P. RISSO, Merchants and Faith.
Muslim Commerce and Culture in the Indian Ocean, Boulder, 1995, pp. 104-105.Su
(4) “Die Swahili hatten viel zu
verlieren und sie haben auch viel verloren”. M. PESEK, Sulayman
bin Nassor und die Qâdîryyia. Islamische Eliten und Koloniale Herschaft in Deutsch-Ostafrika,
1890-1919, VII DAVO Congress, Mainz, October, 2000.Su
(5) J.G. LORIMER, Gazetteer of the
Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia, Calcutta, Superintendent Government
Printing, 1915, 2 Vols. (repr. from I ed.), Vol. 1 (geographical 1908), Vol.
2 (historical and genealogical, 1915), 1970, Vol. 1, pp. 440-469; R.S. RUETE,
Said Bin Sultan (1791-1856). Ruler of Oman and Zanzibar. His Place in the
History of Arabia and East Africa, London, 1929; IDEM, The Al Bu Said
Dinasty in Arabia and East Africa, “Journal of the Royal Asiatic and
Central Asian Society”, Vol. 16, 1 July, London, 1929, pp. 417-432; S.A.S.
FARSI, Seyyid Said Bin Sultan. The Joint Ruler of Oman and Zanzibar (1804-1856),
New Delhi, 1986; V. MAURIZI, History of Seyd Said, Sultan of Maskat,
I ed., London, 1819, new ed., Cambridge, 1984.Su
(6) J. MIDDLETON, The World of the
Swahili. An African Mercantile Civilization, Yale, 1992, p. 44.Su
(7) S. ROCKEL, A Nation of Porters:
The Nyamwezi and the Labour Market in nineteenth century Tanzania, “Journal
of African Studies”, 41, 2000, pp. 173-195.Su
(8) See for example the progressive decadence
of the traditional power elite of the rain-men in Subsaharan East Africa.Su
(9) R.F. BURTON, Zanzibar: City, Island and
Coast, 2 Vols., London, 1872.Su
(10) L. BRENNER, The Study of Islam in Sub-Saharan
Africa, ISIM Newsletter, n. 4, Leiden, 2000, p. 3.Su
©
Giovanni
Armillotta, 2002