Islam in East Africa
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
Like a benevolent mother opening her arms to all the children in the neighborhood, Africa held its arms open for successive waves of refugees from Arabia. In turn, the immigrants brought with them the light of Islam and shared it with the people of Africa. This was the quid pro quo between Africa and Arabia: Africa gave protection to the Arabs. In turn, the Arabs shared their faith and their knowledge with Africa.
It was the year 613 CE, nine years before the Hijra. Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) was still in Mecca. Mighty was the struggle he was engaged in, teaching the message of the Unity of
God and the brotherhood of man to a people steeped in layers of ignorance. As conversion to Islam gathered momentum, so did the persecution of the Muslims. Conditions became so harsh in Mecca that the Prophet ordered a group of Muslims to migrate to Abyssinia, across the Red Sea from Arabia. There the Christian king received them with honor and gave them protection. Two years later, in 615 CE, a larger migration took place. Many were the well-known Companions who were a part of this second migration. The second group stayed in Africa for fourteen years, returning only in the year 629 CE, long after the Hijra (622 CE) and the establishment of a Muslim community in the City of Madina.
This pattern of migration continued after the passing away of the Prophet (632 CE). The civil wars that ensued over the succession to the Prophet generated successive waves of refugees. Africa always had its arms open to those Muslims who were at the losing end of armed conflicts and were fleeing the heavy-handed persecution by the victors. The Indian Ocean was the connecting link between the Arabian Peninsula and the coast of East Africa, called the Swahel (or Sahel) in Arabic. It became the conduit for men and women seeking refuge from the political upheavals in the Arab world.
After the assassination of Hazrath Ali (r) in 661 CE and the tragedy of Karbala in 680 CE, the Umayyads consolidated their hold on the Arab Empire and relentlessly persecuted those who had supported Ali (r). Any sign of dissent was mercilessly crushed. Resistance to this oppression, flowing in the body politic like a subterranean stream, surfaced sporadically but each time it surfaced, it was brutally crushed. The lineage of Hazrath Ali (r), the Shi’a Imams and their followers were always suspect in the eyes of the Omayyads who used every coercive means at their disposal to extirpate any sign of dissent.
The kharijites (al-khwarij) who had opposed both Muawiya and Ali (r) were the first group to face the wrath of the Omayyads. Unable to withstand the pressures, the kharijites split. One group moved west to North Africa and settled south of Tripoli, Libya. Another migrated to Oman (686 CE) and from there sailed down the coast to East Africa. In their new homes in Africa, they gave up their violent ways and turned their attention instead to charity and prayer (ibadah). Hence they were called the Ibadis.
The political climate for the Shi’as, and others opposed to Omayyad rule, improved somewhat during the reign of Khalifa Omar bin Abdel Aziz (717-719 CE) but deteriorated rapidly for the worse after his death by poisoning. During the reign of Abdel Walid Hisham, a group of Sayyeds (descendents of the Prophet) migrated to East Africa and settled at Mogadishu. Wherever they went, they established mosques and halqas (centers of learning). The purity of their hearts and the nobility of their character attracted people and a large number accepted Islam.
The Abbasid Revolution of 750 CE turned the power structure of the Islamic world upside down. The victorious Abbasids pursued the Omayyads with a vengeance. It was now the turn of the Omayyads to flee. One of the Omayyad princes, Abdul Rahman I, escaped to Spain where he founded the Omayyad Emirate (751 CE). Other Omayyads fled south taking the oceanic route to the Swahel and settled along the coasts of Somalia and Kenya.
In the tenth century, the political edifice of the Islamic world was rent asunder from the Shia-Sunni split. The Fatimids (a branch of Shia Islam), challenging the authority of the Abbasids of Baghdad, marched out of the deserts of North Africa and soon overran Egypt and the Hejaz. In the tenth century, their sway extended as far east as Multan, currently in Pakistan. There were also many splinter groups among the Fatimids.
One of the extremist groups, the Karamatians rose up in Yemen. Moving north, they sacked the city of Mecca in the year 930 CE, removed the Hijr e Aswad from the Ka’aba and carried it off first to Basra and then to Bahrain (it was brought back to Mecca by the Abbasids in 952 CE). People of Yemen and the Hejaz scattered. Some found refuge in the Swahel, settling down in cities as far south as Tanzania. Excavations on the Pate Island in the 1980s confirmed the presence of Muslims in East Africa as early as 830 CE. Faza on the northern coast of Pate Island was a major center of commerce until it was destroyed by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century.
Through these centuries, there was a constant influx of traders from Oman and Persia into the Swahel. The immigrants had contacts in the lands they came from. Trade flourished. Africa offered Ivory and gold. The Arabs offered Yemeni textiles, Omani pearls, and Arabian (Yemini) incense. There was also a three-way trade involving spices from the southwest coast of India and silk from China.
Trade, commerce and the two-way movement of people attracted the attention of kings and noblemen as well. Circa 1000 CE, Prince Ali Ibn Hassan al Shirazi of Persia migrated to East Africa along with his entourage of courtiers and supporters. He disembarked in Mogadishu, Somalia but his reception by the local elite was cool. Sailing further south, he landed at Kilwa in Tanzania. He purchased the island from the Bantu king and established a trading post there. (Continued next week)
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