Swahili Culture Research Articles

Islam and Swahili Culture on the Banadir Coast

Islam and Swahili Culture on the Banadir Coast Mohamed M. Kassim The ongoing conflict in Somalia has seriously disrupted life and threatened to destroy communities and cultures throughout the Peninsula. Nowhere has the threat been greater than along the Banadir coast,1 whose ancient towns have been damaged and looted, and many of whose people have been forced to abandon their homes, shops and farms to seek refuge in neighboring Kenya. In such circumstances, it is particularly crucial to record the history of these coastal towns, since there is a real danger that war will destroy much of the evidence of their rich cultural heritage. This article2 seeks to highlight some aspects of the cultural history of the Banadir which have been neglected but are deserving of further study. After summarizing the background and early development of the Banadir as a whole, the article briefly examines the lives of five remarkable ulama (religious scholars) who played key roles in the cultural life of Brava in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through the oral and written records of their lives, one can learn a great deal about education, poetry, trade, and gender roles in the pre-colonial Banadir. Historical Background The history of the Banadir is as much a part of the history of the East African coast as it is of the Somali peninsula. It is closely intertwined in all its economic, cultural, and historical evolution with the Swahili civilization. Contemporary historians have concentrated their research©Northeast African Studies (ISSN 0740-9133) Vol. 2, No. 3 (New Series) 1995, pp. 21-37 21 22 Mohamed M. Kassim on the Kenyan, Tanzanian, and Mozambican parts of the Swahili coast and neglected or did not give due merit to the Banadir coast. The Banadir coast has been treated merely as the coastal area in which the first Arab-Persian settlements were built and from which some of these settlers later migrated to the southern Swahili coast.3 Most coastal historians agree that the earliest Swahili settlements on the east coast of Africa date from the 9th or 10th centuries and were located in the Banadir coastal area.4 Evidence suggests that the Swahili language as we know it today is a relatively late development from earlier Bantu languages that were spoken along the northern part of the east African coast.5 Tradition, coastal chroniclers, and Arab geographers suggest that the first settlers came from the Persian Gulf. Archaeological and linguistic evidence suggests that there was also a Bantuspeaking population in the nearby fertile river valleys of the Juba and Shabelli.6 The Swahili culture that evolved in this coast was the result of the contact of this Arab-Islamic civilization on the coast with the Bantu culture of the hinterland. According to coastal traditions, the Arab-Persian immigration reached the Banadir coast in a series of waves over several centuries. This coastal area was also the first foothold of Islam on the East African coast.7 Oral traditions relating to the foundation of the Banadir coastal cities by Arab and Persian immigrants are supported by the historical sites in these areas.8 Even the location of the cities indicate that they were built by communities with maritime and mercantile interests.9 There is not enough space here to discuss precisely who founded these cities and at what point in time; these issues have been extensively debated by scholars.10 What is important to note is that all the early historic sites found today are credited to Arab-Persian settlers. There is strong evidence that Swahili was originally spoken throughout the Banadir coast.11 Several communities on this coast and some villages along the Juba River have retained their Swahili language and culture . In addition to the coastal city of Brava and the Bajunis in the Kismayo zone (which are areas of Swahili literature and culture), the native inhabitants of Mogadishu and Merka have retained some aspects of Swahili culture, traditions, and personal names.12 Also, the origin of the place names of Mukadisho (mui wa mwisho = the end city), Shangani (on the sand), Marika, Kismayu (kisima iu = upper well) indicate Islam and Swahili Culture on the Banadir Coast 23 that these...

BOOK REVIEWS

Journal Article BOOK REVIEWS Get access Swahili Origins: Swahili Culture and the Shungwaya Phenomenon By JAMES DE VERE ALLEN. London, Nairobi, and Ohio: James Currey Publishers, 1993. Pp. 272. Price PB £12.95. 0–85255–075–8. Mervyn Hiskett Mervyn Hiskett Meopham, Kent Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Islamic Studies, Volume 5, Issue 1, January 1994, Pages 139–141, https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/5.1.139 Published: 01 January 1994

The Power of Swahili Porcelain, Beads and Pottery

This ethno‐archeological case study presents an emic view of the meaning of Swahili artifacts. Porcelain, beads and pottery have been deposited by generation of Swahili people, but only recently has symbolic and structuring social meaning of these items become of interest to archeologists working on the East African coastal sites. The emic perspective also revealed an unconscious belief that pottery decoration has a “protective” function within the Swahili culture.

Asiatic colonization of the East African coast: the Manda evidence

The history of early settlement of the East African coast is currently interpreted in widely differing ways. One view takes as its premise the idea that the coast was first colonized from Asia. This hypothesis, which has its roots in the work of XlXth century historians suggests that there was substantial settlement by non-Africans who established trading and religious communities. These colonies formed the basis of what has come to be known as the Swahili Culture. At first defensible peninsulas and offshore islands were chosen as safe refuges from the African tribes of the interior. Eventually contact was established between these new communities and the African coastal peoples, to the benefit of both parties. Raw materials were obtained from the hinterland of these trading outposts, which were traded and taken across the Western Indian Ocean on the seasonal monsoons. The foreign merchants married local African women and an Afro-Arab culture developed, building stone towns, mosques, and tombs, that still remain today along the coastline from Somalia to Mozambique.

The Shirazi in Swahili Traditions, Culture, and History

“Strange foreign jewels on a mournful silent shore”Historians have frequently viewed the Swahili-speaking peoples of the East African coast as members of an Arab diaspora that spread around the Indian Ocean with trade over the last two thousand years. The interpretation flowed easily from the apparent “Arab” nature of Swahili culture--a written language using Arabic script, elaborate stone buildings and mosques constructed in urban settings, Islam, and genteel social behavior--especially when contrasted with the culture of mainland Africans, members of preliterate, uncentralized communities. Since the Swahili culture of the islands and coastal fringes bore little apparent resemblance to the cultures of the mainland, historians reasoned, its development could only have been the product of Persian and Arab merchants bringing to the “mournful silent shores” of East Africa the “jewels” of their own Muslim civilizations.The perspective was essentially diffusionist in assuming that cultural innovation and historical development in Africa could only have come from elsewhere, and racist in assuming that race and culture were so inextricably linked that a separate “race” of immigrants had to carry these new ideas. As a result, historians failed to investigate the possible African roots of Swahili culture in their Bantu language, their religious beliefs and values, their economy, or their social structure. But this charge applies not only to European historians; Swahili oral historians have long recounted the development of their societies in essentially the same terms in involved genealogies tracing the development of different Swahili families, communities, and institutions back to Persian or Arabian ancestors. When European historians came to study the oral traditions of the Swahili (usually in written, chronicle form), they thus found ready confirmation of their own assumptions and interpretations.

Swahili Culture and the Nature of East Coast Settlement

Swahili Culture and the Nature of East Coast Settlement

Swahili Culture. A Bibliography of the History and People of the Swahili Speaking World. By Richard Wilding. Nairobi: The Lamu Society, 1976. Pp. iii + 98. Unpriced. - The Siwas of Lamu. Two Historic Trumpets in Brass and Ivory. By Hamo Sassoon. Nairobi: The Lamu Society, 1975. Unpaginated, unpriced.

Swahili Culture. A Bibliography of the History and People of the Swahili Speaking World. By Richard Wilding. Nairobi: The Lamu Society, 1976. Pp. iii + 98. Unpriced. - The Siwas of Lamu. Two Historic Trumpets in Brass and Ivory. By Hamo Sassoon. Nairobi: The Lamu Society, 1975. Unpaginated, unpriced. - Volume 18 Issue 3

Swahili Culture. A Bibliography of the History and Peoples of the Swahili Speaking World

Swahili Culture. A Bibliography of the History and Peoples of the Swahili Speaking World

Women's Wedding Celebrations in Mombasa, Kenya

Through their wedding celebrations, women from all strata of Mombasa society have participated in the evolution of a variegated Swahili culture. An historical analysis of wedding ceremonies illuminates two important questions: first, the pattern of interaction between people of slave and free ancestry after the abolition of slavery in 1907, and second, the role women have played in integrating into Swahili culture elements drawn from both slave and free peoples. An awareness of the interplay of ethnicity and social stratification is crucial to understanding Swahili society. Historians have traced successive migrations of people from different parts of Africa and the Indian Ocean, bringing disparate ways of life. But despite the well-known formulation that Swahili culture grew from the mingling of African and Persian or Arab peoples, little attempt has been made to analyze specifically the contributions of African slaves to the mixture. The failure to distinguish different strata in the African component of Swahili culture obscures the class dynamic in coastal society. Scholars do not ignore social stratification, but few describe adequately the interaction between various strata. Still fewer writers analyze cultural artifacts as the expression of different, and often competing, strata. For example, James De Vere Allen, in his excellent guide to the Lamu museum, argues persuasively that “Swahili culture … is an African culture,” not an Arab import, as early British writers assumed. But having exposed the colonialist assumptions behind the earlier idea and having established the indigenous roots of Swahili culture, Allen (n.d.: 1-2) does not attempt to describe the impact of the lower strata on the material culture of the elite, whose articles dominate the museum. Allen is handicapped by the fact that poor people tend to create fewer and less substantial artifacts. In order to analyze the contributions of slaves and other people from the lower strata of society, one must turn to customs, particularly dances, which did not depend upon wealth or power for their creation.

Swahili Culture Reconsidered:

Summary J. de V. Allen was until recently curator of the Lamu Museum. In this article he presents a new view of Lamu society. There was a major economic and cultural renaissance in the northern Swahili world between c. 1700 and 1885 coinciding with Pate's political supremacy and declining when Oman asserted itself in the region and Indian and Western commerce began to intrude. Evidence for this renaissance can be found not only in the abundant architectural remains but in the opulence of the material culture generally. It must have been financed from three sources: from products found in or near the coast towns; from natural products brought from the interior; and from large-scale agriculture and trade in livestock when political conditions on the mainland permitted. An examination of the material remains and of the eighteenth and nineteenth century economy reveals that Swahili society was at this time far more homogeneous and Swahili culture far less dependent upon Arabia and India than has generally been assumed. So much so that it is hard to believe the same was not true of earlier periods also, since this latest great flowering of the culture is unlikely to have occurred in conditions totally antithetical to those of any previous Golden Age.