Notes on Some Members of the Learned Classes of Zanzibar and East Africa in the Nineteenth Century

Contenu

Titre

Notes on Some Members of the Learned Classes of Zanzibar and East Africa in the Nineteenth Century

Créateur

Martin, Bradford G. Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Date

1971

Dans

African Historical Studies Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Résumé

P. 525: this short paper is an attempt to draw a profile, to describe some of the features of the ʿUlamā’ class of Zanzibar and East Africa, based on the biographies of seven prominent members of this class who lived in the 19th century. These men show a wide range of interests, from poetry to juridprudence, from commerce to mysticism. Two of them might be described as “radicals”; the others were fairly conventional. In passing I have made a few comments on some significant points: the history of the “old Arabs” in East Africa, the role of the ʿUlamā’ class in the Muslim society of this time and place, the relations of the “learned” to trade and government, the interconnections of the two Muslim sects, Ibāḍīs and Shāfiʿīs, the literary and educational accomplishments of the ʿUlamā’, the participation of some of the ʿUlamā’ in the Qādirī and Shādhilī revivals of the 1880s and 1890s, the extent of Pan-Islamic influence in Zanzibar and East Africa. I would like to suggest a few priorities for further research in this field.
The seven scholars who are treated are the Sunnī ʿUlamā’: Muḥyī ‘l-Dīn b. ʿAbdl. al-Qaḥṭānī al-Wā’ilī (c. 1790-1869), Manṣab b. ʿAlī (1863-1927), ʿAlī b. ʿAbdl. b. Nāfiʿ al-Mazrūʿī (1825-1894), ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Amawī (1832-1896), ʿAbdl. b. Muḥ. Bā Kathīr al-Kindī (b. 1864), Aḥm. b. Sumayṭ (1861-1925), and the Ibāḍī scholar ʿAlī b. Khamīs b. Sālim al-Barwānī (1852-1886) (pp. 534-535), who became a Sunnī and was imprisoned for that by Sayyid Barghash. He had studied under the leading Ibāḍī Qāḍīs of Zanzibar in Barghash’s time and before, Yaḥyà b. Khalfān al-Kharūṣī and Muḥ. b. Sul. al-Mundhirī, and a visiting scholar from Oman, Khamīs b. Sālim al-Khaṣībī (Khuṣaybī). Martin cites frequently from Farsy 1944 and 1942. According to Kagabo 1991, 63, Barwānī was a Sunnī and was converted to Ibāḍism by the Ibāḍī sheikh Khamīs b. ʿAlī, and became a Sunnī again.

Sujet

Zanzibar Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Langue

eng

volume

4

numéro

3

pages

525-545

doi

10.2307/216528

issn

00019992

Source

Fonds Martin Custers Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Ibadica Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Martin, Bradford G., “Notes on Some Members of the Learned Classes of Zanzibar and East Africa in the Nineteenth Century”, 1971, bibliographie, consulté le 18 septembre 2024, https://ibadica.org/s/bibliographie/item/6995