Mosques, merchants and landowners in Zanzibar stone town

Contenu

Titre

Mosques, merchants and landowners in Zanzibar stone town

Créateur

Sheriff, Abdul Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Date

1992

Dans

Azania Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Résumé

In the old “stone town” of Zanzibar west of the former creek there are about fifty mosques, mostly built during the 19th century. By studying these mosques, this paper reconstructs the growth and economic and social history of the town. It demonstrates that merchants as well as landowners supported the construction of mosques and that the construction of mosques was an important aspect of urban development. An examiniation of the growth of Zanzibar town shows that, from the latter part of the 18th century, Zanzibar began to develop as the centre of a commercial empire based on the twin foundations of transit trade and plantation agriculture. The history of the mosques can be divided into several phases, of course with some overlap. First the Sunnī mercantile tradition and the mosques built during this phase are described. By the 1840s, a new phase is discernible in mosque construction, a phase dominated by the Ibāḍī tradition with its unique architectural features reflecting Ibāḍī dogmas and practices. Finally, attention is paid to Ibāḍī-Sunnī interaction (Catalogue African Studies Centre, Leiden).
At Zanzibar, the Ibāḍīs were a minority sect that tended to be gradually absorbed by the Shāfiʿī denomination. Generally the two denominations lived together in perfect harmony. Only under Sultan Barghash b. Saʿīd (Sultan 1870-1888), who was under the influence of the Ibāḍī Imamate movement in Oman, an Ibāḍī Nahḍa occurred which lead to some tension between Ibāḍīs and Sunnīs (pp. 17-19).

Sujet

Zanzibar Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Langue

eng

volume

27

pages

1-20

Source

Fonds Martin Custers Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Ibadica Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Sheriff, Abdul, “Mosques, merchants and landowners in Zanzibar stone town”, 1992, bibliographie, consulté le 19 septembre 2024, https://ibadica.org/s/bibliographie/item/7007