The generous Sultan of Kilwa Kisiwani

Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania

“…we sailed on to the city of Kulwa, a large city on the seacoast, most of whose inhabitants are Zinj,  jet black in color…….The city of Kulwa is one of the finest and most substantially built towns; all the buildings are of wood, and the houses are roofed with dis reeds. The rains there are frequent. Its people engage in jihad because they are on a common mainland with the heathen Zinj people and contiguous to them, and they are for the most part upright and Shafi’ites in rite.”

Ibn Battuta refers to this city as being on the mainland and perhaps it was at that time but today its full name is ‘Kilwa Kisiwani’ which means Kilwa the Island, and you need a small dhow to get to it.  There are another two Kilwas; Kilwa Masoko, meaning Kilwa the market, a rather dreary jumping-off point for Kilwa Kisiwani, and Kilwa Kivinje meaning Kilwa of the Casuarinas, the ubiquitous coastal tree of these parts which has a small cone a bit like a fir tree.  Kilwa Kisiwani is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for which special permission is needed to visit, which I tried to do on-line.  This was a waste of time as the only time one gets a reply from this august body is a computer-generated email saying they are out of the office. Fortunately I soon realized I could obtain the necessary permission through the local hotel. I almost didn’t get there at all as I flew from Zanzibar via Dar-es-Salaam and nobody seemed to be quite sure which plane I should take. The flight on Coastal Aviation only runs when there are a sufficient number of people and fortunately that day there were, although we offloaded most of them en route on the oddly-named Mafia Island.
Teensy little 5-seater plane that took us back from Kilwa.

Impossible as it is to believe, Kilwa was once one of the most important trading ports of the Indian Ocean. Its rise to power began under the Shirazi dynasties of the 11th and 12th centuries and by the time of Ibn Battuta’s visit in 1331, the ruling Sultan, Hasan ibn Sulaiman Abu'l-Mawahib, had built what was then the largest single stone building south of the Sahara. The first gold coins struck south of Ethiopia are said to have been minted in Kilwa, to facilitate what was already a burgeoning international trade. Today Kilwa is a forgotten island settlement of about eight hundred souls with a collection of solidly-built stone huts with thatched roofs, some interesting Omani-built 18th and 19th century ruins, a 15th century mosque, a Great Mosque with an old part Ibn Battuta would have seen, and some 14th century Persian-built ruins further down the island.

Solidly build stone and coral rag house on Kilwa.

Kilwa's strategic importance grew when gold that was mined in present-day Zimbabwe was portered to the coast then shipped to Persia, Arabia and India. To the south the town of Sofala in present-day Mozambique, was the most southerly of the Swahili towns but eventually it came under Kilwa’s control, until both fell to the Portuguese in the 16th century. Around 1780 the Omani Arabs managed to wrest back control from the Portuguese, and Kilwa’s second incarnation as a trading port began  – this time as a slaving port sending captured slaves to the clove plantations of French-controlled Mauritius, Reunion and the Comoros Islands. By the 19th century the British and Germans dominated the coast and Kilwa once again fell into obscurity.
 
The 21st century port of Kilwa.

A lovely Italian couple of honeymooners and a very good guide called Ahmed were my traveling companions to Kilwa on a dhow, the MV Christopher, which took some time to arrange since we were told we needed a motor ‘just in case’. In the end we did not use it but the winds can be fickle. The first thing you see on the approach to Kilwa is the Omani-built fort - the Portuguese had all but destroyed Kilwa and other coastal settlements in the 16th century in a mission supported by the Portuguese King to  establish Catholicism in place of Islam, but their impact on the culture was minimal and they never succeeded except perhaps to rile the local people against Christians which led to jihads against the Christian Ethiopians. 

Kilwa Great Mosque

When the Omanis regained control, the first thing they did was build or re-build defensive forts. A nearby 15th century Mosque with half-shell domes is in remarkably good shape, as is the Great Mosque, a small portion of which dates to the 13th century. (A plaque outside the mosque notes that Ibn Battuta passed through Kilwa.)

Lateen-rigged dhow - now made of cotton, the sails were once woven from Doum palm fronds.

"Its sultan at the period of my entry into it was Abu'l Muzaffar Hasan who was called also by the appellation of Abu'l Mawahib, on account of the multitude of his gifts and acts of generosity. He used to engage frequently in expeditions to the land of the Zinj people, raiding them and taking booty, and he would set aside the fifth part of it to devote to the objects prescribed for it in the Book of God Most High. This sultan is a man of great humility; he sits with poor brethren, and eats with them, and greatly respects men of religion and noble descent." 

Ibn Battuta's comments regards setting aside the fifth portion refer to the Quran, sura 8, verse 42 ; "whatsoever you take in booty, the fifth of it belongs to God, the Apostle, the relative, the orphans, the poor and the traveler."  Ibn Battuta did very well out of this injunction and was almost always very well looked after. Nowadays not so much, at least not for the traveler - perhaps there are just too many of us although not in Kilwa....

A Scandalous Princess, a short war and some Swahili habits

Zanzibar, Tanzania

At the House of Wonders or Beit al-Ajaib, now a museum, I picked up a copy of the ‘Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar’ which recounts the true story of a daughter of Sultan Said the Great and a Circassian slave, who met and eloped with a German trader. Born princess Salme, she was one of the very few women in the household, or indeed in Zanzibar, who was literate - after her father’s death she became embroiled, somewhat unwittingly by penning notes, in the escapades of her half-brothers who were vying for the throne, an event which split the family into bitterly feuding factions from which unity was never regained. The young princess, bereft after the death of her mother and separated from half of her family who had retreated into warring camps, began an affair with a German merchant who lived in a nearby house. It seems they met across the rooftop balconies.

Beit Sahel where the young Princess Salme lived for a time although not when she began her affair.

She is said to have become pregnant and was thus forced to flee Zanzibar by ship - for the time and place it was deliciously scandalous, and annoyingly she gives very little detail about this monumental episode in her life – perhaps because, as she explains, it was written for her children so they would know something of this unknown part of their heritage and not necessarily the racier bits of their mother’s history…..  En route to Hamburg she converted to Christianity and was baptized in a small English church in Aden in Yemen. Taking the name Emily, she was married for only three years when her husband died in a tram accident.

The three-storey Beit Al-Ajaib, the first building in Zanzibar to have both electric light and an elevator - was built in 1883 by Salme’s half-brother Barghash, one of the schemers for the throne from the legitimate heir Majid.  It was bombarded by the British in what is termed the shortest war in history – 45 minutes - in August 1896, when on the death of Sultan Hamid, his nephew Khaled Ibn Barghash, tried to grab the throne by occupying Beit al-Ajaib. The British had another more compliant candidate in mind and issued an ultimatum to Khaled. When it was rebuffed they shelled the building, hostilities ceased when Khaled sought shelter in the
German Consulate, and the British got their man on his throne. A decorative wooden screen at Beit al-Ajaib

                Beit al-Ajaib

One evening I had dinner at Mercury’s, an oceanfront restaurant named in honor of former Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury, who was born in Zanzibar of Iranian parentage.  The house in which he was born and raised now houses a shop called Zanzibar Gallery. I became aware that when local musicians were not playing, Michael Jackson’s music was played all night. The following day a street seller of local CD’s began to sing, calling himself the King of Pop of Zanzibar. “So, you’re the Michael Jackson of Zanzibar?” I asked “Yes”, he replied, “but you know he’s dead?” I did not, but from then on I realized his music was being played everywhere. Zanzibar is known for its taarab music, a fusion of African, Arabic and Indian music which is performed all over the island. I heard and saw an exuberant performance at the Zanzibar Heritage House, drawn in from the street by the unmistakably African-influenced drumming. 

The Arabs brought Islam to the East African coast but local people kept many of their animist practices. New-born babies may have had the call to prayer whispered into their right ear and the standing prayer whispered into their left, but they were linked forever to the land by a tree being planted at their birth under which the placenta was buried. Spirits – who were imprisoned during Ramadan - had to be appeased, and makeshift shrines sprang up in caves and under trees with little bits of cloth tied to branches and offerings of incense and food left.

Healers and diviners cured the sick by writing out Koranic verses on to a plate in saffron then washing it with pure spring water and having the afflicted drink it. Another favored cure was to have the feverish victim recite 40 times certain suras of the Koran – after each recitation a knot was tied into a long piece of cloth and the whole submerged in boiling water, which was then drunk.  If the treatment failed, upon death the eyes were closed, arms were straightened and feet brought together, the body was wiped with oil of cloves, camphor and incense, paying particular attention to the points of the body used in prayer, the deceased was placed in a shroud and buried with the head facing Mecca and the right side of the face touching the earth.  Three days of mourning were declared and on the 40th day a feast was given with food being given to the needy. A widow was required to be in seclusion for a minimum of 4 months and 10 days. (Not certain the same was expected of a widower?)  Forty days was also the length of time a new mother was required to remain isolated from society, after which she was taken to the hammam for ablutions from her ‘impure’ state, her eyes were kohled, she was painted with henna and - of course - she received jewelry from her husband. Henna decoration of the body was considered to be of such potent sexual attraction, that unmarried women were not allowed to use it.

Zanzibar lantern

Ibn Battuta may not have set foot in Zanzibar but he was well acquainted with the coconut. This astonishing tree was an integral part of life for people who lived around the Indian Ocean. Its trunks were used in construction and for making furniture, the fronds were used for thatch; for fencing, roofs and brooms, the dried shells were used for kitchen and bathroom utensils, the husks were used for coir to make rope and to make Swahili-style beds, the meat of the nut was eaten, the liquid was drunk, the sap used to sweeten dishes or to make toddy, the meat was dried to make copra used to make soap, the oil used for boatbuilding and to add luster to women’s hair, and when dried, chemicals were extracted which were used to make such things as shampoo and modern day brake fluid. The coconut was, and remains, so central to people’s lives that new-born babies are sprinkled with coconut milk and coconuts are smashed at weddings upon the appearance of the bride.  As for Ibn Battuta, of the coconut he noted wryly, “As for its aphrodisiac quality, its action in this respect is wonderful.”

Coconut palm outside the Omani-built fort, Zanzibar

The Arab Legacy of East Africa; Part 1 - Zanzibar, Stonetown

Zanzibar, Tanzania

Ibn Battuta did not visit Zanzibar, and although one sees written from time to time that he did, he himself does not mention it and Ibn B would not have forgotten Zanzibar, the evocative-sounding Spice Islands.  I went to discover its Arab and Muslim roots.

Plaque of Arabic calligraphy seen outside a Stonetown townhouse.

Arabs began trading with East Africa south of Somalia around 700AD – and like the Phoenicians millennia before them, they established a series of city states - often islands - the length of the coast from Mogadishu to Mozambique. Arabs were settled in Zanzibar by 1100. The next century saw Persians from Shiraz arrive and this intermingling of Persian and Arab with the Bantu-speaking natives produced the culture known as Swahili, a derivative of Arabic meaning ‘people of the coast’. 

Islam spread first to North Africa in the mid 7th century by conquest, but East Africa was Islamized from the 8th century mainly through the influence of Muslim Arab traders who, relying on seasonal monsoon winds to traverse the Indian Ocean, were often marooned in ports for months. They intermarried, many having one family in their city of origin and another in East Africa.  But while Islam was concentrated in the cities, the people who farmed the land across the continent continued with animism until eventually, as with Christianity in Africa, Islam became grafted on to animism in a hybrid Africanized Islam which to some extent continues to this day, even in those towns which had direct Arab influence. The spread of Islam was undoubtedly helped by the fact that people who converted could not be sold as slaves.

Coral atolls off the coast of Tanzania

Zanzibar became rich as one of the principal Indian Ocean trading ports. From Africa, gold, ivory and tortoise shells were sent east while from India and Arabia came aloes, pottery, china, textiles, dates and salted fish. In the 9th century, slaves were sent from the African interior to Iraq to desalinate the marshlands for cultivation, but the slave trade in the East did not take on the same dimensions as in West Africa until the late 18th century when French demand for labor for their plantations in Mauritius and Reunion as well as Omani demand for their date plantations and for pearl divers took on a more sinister aspect. Furthermore the social effects of slavery in the East was never as brutal as it was in the United States, Brazil and the Caribbean. Perhaps the single biggest difference was that the offspring of female slaves, who were sold or sent as domestics or concubines, and their masters had the same rights and position as the ‘legitimate’ children of a wife, and on the death of the master, the slave was automatically freed. At the same time, the intermingling of the Arab, Indian, Persian and African gene pool meant that although racism existed, at no time was it institutionalized as it was in the West and people of darker skin were not ostracized from society as they were in the Americas.

Traditional architecture on Kenyatta Road, Stonetown

The dhows which plied this trade to and fro across the Indian Ocean, rarely went directly from one place to another but loaded up at various ports buying and selling as they went. Colonialism, steamships, aircraft, changing economies and oil, changed everything and while dhows can still be seen in most small ports along the shores of the Indian Ocean, the once fabled routes from Zanzibar to Mogadishu, Mombasa to Bombay and Lamu to Sur have long gone.  In 1872 a hurricane struck Zanzibar destroying the clove trees which along with coconuts had once formed an important part of the island’s economy.

By the end of the 16th century Zanzibar was ruled by a local dynasty under Portuguese control, by the late 17th century Oman had taken control of Zanzibar and by 1740 Oman had defeated the Portuguese in East Africa, with the exception of Mozambique. Under the Busaidi ruler Sayyid Sa'id or Said the Great, who ruled from 1805-1856, Oman established hegemony along much of the Swahili coast. In 1840, Sayyid Said established his capital in Zanzibar, moving it from Muscat in Oman. Indians involved in the spice and ivory trade arrived and over time became the Sultanate's moneymen, storeowners and craftsmen. By the end of the 19th century the British (and Germans) were interested in expanding their empire into East Africa, and in 1890 with the Busaidi clan involved in internal power struggles, Zanzibar was declared a British Protectorate under the nominal leadership of the Busaidi Sultanate. This situation continued until December 1963 when Zanzibar was given Constitutional Independence, but a month later a revolution under a Ugandan living on Pemba Island, called John Okello, broke out which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Arab and Indian citizens - many fled. In April 1964, Zanzibar linked with Tanganyika to form Tanzania under President Julius Nyerere in an agreement which gave the island the right to elect its own president, prime minister and cabinet, a situation which still stands today. The Sultanate was abolished and the last Sultan left to take up residency in England.

Typical Omani-style architecure in Stonetown. Old Muscat has similar harbor-front housing.

The heart of Zanzibar is Stonetown a clutter of narrow streets and balconied houses so-named because the houses were built of coral rag and lime, a common construction material in the port cities of the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf.  Zanzibar properly refers to the whole island and archipelago, Unguja is the name of the town generally called Zanzibar, while Stonetown is both the historic and modern-day Zanzibar. Most of the interesting architecture is relatively recent dating only to the 19th century, the city being known for its carved doors with carved lintels often featuring a plaque written in Arabic denoting the family name of the owner.

Typical Zanzibar door - the square shape denotes purely Arab influence

The people of Zanzibar still comprise elements of its cosmopolitan past; in addition to the Shafi Muslims originally from Dhofar province in Oman and Hadhramut in Yemen who are identifiable by their small white embroidered skullcaps called kofia, there are Ibadis from Oman, Ismailis from India, and Rastafarians with their trademark dreadlocks and large knitted caps. A Hindu temple is testament to the formerly large Hindi community and the Catholic church of St. Joseph which is still in use, highlights the tolerant aspect of the island's different religions. While Ismaili women wear a special garment composed of a long skirt, small cape-like top and veil, most local women wear traditional brightly-colored khangas with married women wearing the all-enveloping black buibui, over it. Most do not cover their faces but a fashion has taken hold of late for some women to wear a black sequinned burqa leaving only the eyes exposed. The island is 97% Muslim and despite the exhortations of guidebooks to respect the modest dress code, it is a curious thing that as unthinking male tourists wear tank tops and girls wear skimpy tops and shorts, local women are covering up even more than before. 

The Old Dispensary, Stonetown