Islam in East Africa - 3
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
It was not until 1578 when an Ottoman Turkish armada engaged a Portuguese fleet off the coast of Tanzania and inflicted heavy losses upon it that the Portuguese menace was contained. It was the same year that the Portuguese king Sebastian was killed in the Battle of Al Qasr al Kabir in Morocco and Portugal became a protectorate of Spain. Moreover, Portugal did not have the resources to control and police a vast body of water like the Indian Ocean. For all these reasons, a stand-off prevailed for a hundred years between the Portuguese navy and the navies of the great land powers of Asia, the Moguls of India, the Safavids of Persia and the Ottomans of Turkey. This power balance lasted on the high seas until the ascendency of the Dutch and then the British in the eighteenth century. It is not commonly appreciated that it was the Ottoman naval effort in the Indian Ocean (1560-1578 CE) which preserved the Muslim influence on the coast of East Africa north of Tanzania while the coastline south of it continued under Portuguese control.
It is instructive to ask how a small country like Portugal could project its naval power as far away as China. The answer must be sought in the state of naval technology in Europe and Asia. The Andalusian Christian powers, the Spanish and the Portuguese, mastered the art of mounting cannon on board ships. It required an understanding of how to keep gunpowder dry under the salty, humid conditions at sea. The Asian powers did not have this know-how. Secondly, the Europeans knew how to sail against the wind which gave their ships an advantage in close combat. Third, the Asian powers invested very little in their navies, content with the riches on land. China, the only Asian power which had shown its prowess at sea during the great voyages led by Admiral Ho (1402-1424 CE), had long since withdrawn into itself after the death of the Ming emperor Yongle. The Great Moguls never made a serious attempt to build a navy. The Safavids mounted a concerted effort to recapture the Straits of Hormuz from the Portuguese which they did in 1615 CE with some help from the British navy but it was a limited local engagement. The Ottomans did build a powerful navy (1540-1600 CE) which challenged the Spaniards in the Mediterranean and the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean but their interest tapered off in the seventeenth century.
It was left to the sultans of Oman to challenge the Portuguese sway over East Africa. In 1698, Saif ibn Sultan, Imam of the Ya’rubi dynasty of Oman captured Fort Jesus in Mombasa, Kenya. In the succeeding years, the Omanis advanced down the East African coast and consolidated their hold on all the territories between Mogadishu in Somalia and Sofala in Mozambique. Thus the Muslim sultans regained political control over the Swahel. In 1741 the Sa’idis succeeded the Ya’rubis as the Emirs of Oman. In 1837, Sa’id bin Sultan shifted his capital from Oman to Zanzibar. Under this able monarch, the East African region was integrated into a common market. The Swahili language received royal patronage while Arabic was the state language. Trade, commerce, culture and the arts flourished. Schools and madrasas were built all along the coast. Trade fostered business relations with the interior and conversion to Islam gained momentum in the African hinterland. The sultan founded the new cities of Tabourah and Ajjuji and worked ceaselessly to establish friendly relations with the heads of the neighboring states. Further north, the emirate of Lamu (Kenya) flourished. It became renowned for its fine wooden structures, intricate jewelry, cloth, musical instruments, and the fine arts.
After the death of Sa’id bin Sultan, the Omani Kingdom was divided between his two sons. One of the sons, Majid Ibn Sa’id inherited the Swahel while the other, Thuwaini Ibn Sa’id kept Muscat and Oman. Sultan Majid was a farsighted monarch and continued the wise policies of his father. He founded a new city, Dar es Salaam, as the capital for his kingdom. Through deft diplomacy, he kept at Bay the British and the other European powers that had consolidated their hold on much of Asia. During his reign, Islam was at its zenith of influence in East Africa.
Colonialism was a spreading virus. Sultan Majid passed away in 1870 and his successor Sultan Bargash lacked the wisdom to govern and stave off the contagion of colonialism. An independent East Africa was too much to stomach for the British who had consolidated their Indian empire. The British navy was the mistress of the seas. The other European powers were not far behind in their quest for colonies and actively worked with the British to divvy up the continents of Asia and Africa.
Kaiser’s Germany, moving in collusion with Great Britain, colonized much of Zanzibar between 1883 and 1885. The sultan was left a narrow stretch of land surrounding his capital. The Portuguese extended their sway to the north and occupied all the territories up to Cape Delgado. The sultan was hemmed in. In 1886 he accepted the protection of the British over the coastal strip north of Wenga while the strip to the south was ceded to the Germans. Further concessions followed in succeeding years. In 1889, he accepted British protection over Zanzibar. He then sold Dar es Salaam, Kilwa and Lindi to the Germans for four million pounds. By 1894 the sultanate had completely disappeared and its place taken by British, German and Portuguese colonies.
The Germans organized their colonies under the name of Tanganyika. However, their colonial empire was short-lived. After their defeat in World War I the Germans surrendered their colonies to the British except for Rwanda and Burundi which were handed over to the Belgians. The areas under British control were reorganized into the modern states of Kenya, Uganda and Malawi. Somalia resisted under the determined leadership of Shaikh Mohammed Abdullah Hassan (1899-1920) but his endurance was no match for the vast resources and firepower of the British Empire. The resistance was crushed and Somalia became a British protectorate. It was occupied briefly by the Italians under Mussolini during WWII.
European colonial rule did not go unchallenged in other parts of East Africa as well. Al Abushiri of Tanzania led a revolt against the German occupation in 1887-88. The uprising was crushed and Al Abushiri was publicly hanged by the Germans. There were revolts against the British in Malawi and Uganda, and against the Belgians in the Congo. This was the political-military front. More important was the resistance to European cultural imperialism. Christian missionaries appeared on the heels of the colonizers and set up proselytizing missions. Conversion to Christianity was encouraged by the Portuguese by force and more subtly by the British, the Belgians and the Germans. The language of instruction in schools and in official transactions was changed from Arabic to English and other European languages. The Muslims were suspicious of the European schools and stayed away from them. This had the impact of excluding the Muslims from government jobs because the state machinery now worked through English, French and Portuguese. On the other hand, those who attended European schools rose to occupy the new strata of the bureaucratic elite, the government functionaries, judges and teachers. The Arabic schools, lacking state support, fell back on local community support. As poverty spread, the support of these schools also decreased, catching the Muslims of the Swahel in a downward socio-economic spiral.
Faced with this cultural onslaught, the Muslims of the Swahel waged a valiant struggle, setting up their own Qur’anic schools. As the European administrations built roads and improved communications with the interior, the Muslim ulema used the opportunity to open Islamic schools in the interior. In the ensuing contest for new converts, the Muslims, with the simplicity of their religion and the sincerity of their efforts, were more successful than their Christian counterparts. But they lagged behind in education, jobs and the technical disciplines.
The Second World War sapped the strength of the European colonial empires. When India gained its independence in 1947, the British lost the Indian army which had provided the muscle power to keep their other colonies at bay. Independence of the African countries followed. Tanganyika gained its independence in 1961 followed by Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda in 1962 and Kenya in 1963. Zanzibar also gained its independence in 1962 but it was overrun by troops from Tanganyika who invaded and slaughtered a large number of Muslims. Malawi gained its independence in 1964 and Mozambique was free in 1974 after a long and protracted armed struggle. (Continued next week)
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