The Indian Ocean - Michael Pearson [190]
This was a reciprocal matter, for some East African scholars spent time in, and were influential in, Istanbul itself. The important Zanzibar scholar, Ibn Sumayt (or Bin Sumeyt), spent a year in Istanbul and studied with his fellow Hadhrami scholar Fadl b. Alawi, who was one of the theoreticians of the pan-Islam movement. Yet when World War I broke out the flimsiness of the ties to Turkey were revealed, as indeed they were also in India and in the Hijaz. In the former the khilafat movement met with little success, while in the latter the sharifian dynasty in Mecca and Medina opted for the Arab Revolt and the Allies rather than the Ottomans and their German allies. Once the Ottomans entered the war on the side of the Germans and Austrians, they called it a jihad, but very few in East Africa were impressed. Many contrasted harsh German rule in the area with the more lenient British rule in Kenya. The Sultan of Zanzibar issued a declaration hostile to Germany and also to Turkey. This is hardly surprising, given that he was essentially a pensioner of the British.
Colonial rule from the late nineteenth century interacted with these various tendencies and influences from outside. It involved speedier communications, and the widespread dissemination of ideas via the printing press. Textbooks for prayer sessions printed in Egypt, Mumbai, Singapore and Penang have been found in Jakarta, Mombasa and Dar es Salaam: an important link all around the ocean. Texts for Shafi'i law were published in Swahili, Malay, Javanese and Amharic.
Possibly the main response of Islam to the colonial challenge was an increasing emphasis on the life of the Prophet (sometimes indeed he was presented as an African, and the leader of resistance to the westerners) and especially of his birthday, that is the Mawlidi festival. Celebrations to mark the birthday of the Prophet take place in most of the Swahili stone towns. The most famous of these celebrations takes place in Lamu, and its popularity there demonstrates yet again the widespread connections of the Islamic world in our century.
The end of colonialism, and the Islamic revival, have produced new trends in East African Islam. In Kenya, and to an extent Tanzania, the Swahili are now marginalised, considered to be collaborators with the slave trading Omanis and then with the western colonial rulers. In the face of this, some lineages 'are now picking up on their Yamani or Umani patrilines where they can and going to Jeddah, Mecca, Muscat, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.'161 Others, no doubt the less prestigious with no kin ties to the outside, have turned to Islam as a positive force and reaffirmation of a Swahili identity. Some have even converted to shi'i Islam, this being considered to be more militant. In Zanzibar the anti-Arab revolution of 1964 led to a period of downplaying of any foreign influences, but more recently, in 1985, an Omani consulate was set up, significantly not in the capital of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, but rather in Zanzibar. Around the same time discontent with what was perceived to be an anti-Islamic mainland regime led the island to join the Organisation of Islamic Countries. Following a great outcry from mainland Christian politicians, this decision was reversed in 1993.
These connections continue to today, most obviously via the greatly expanded hajj, but in other ways also, ways very similar to those we have described for the past. As just one example, the Swahili Muslim population in Kenya has been strongly influenced in recent decades by the push towards normative Islam, sponsored especially by contact with and people from Saudi Arabia. Some young Kenyan Muslim leaders have trained at the University of Madina. The hijab is increasingly seen in Kenyan schools.