Renewers of the Age Islam in Africa
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Renewers of the Age Islam in Africa Brill’s Islam in Africa is designed to present the results of scholarly research into the many aspects of the history and present-day features of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa. The series will take up issues of religious and intellectual traditions, social signifi cance and organization, and other aspects of the Islamic presence in Africa. It includes monographs, collaborative volumes and reference works by researchers from all relevant disciplines. Editors John Hunwick Rüdiger Seesemann Knut Vikør VOLUME 9 Renewers of the Age Holy Men and Social Discourse in Colonial Benaadir By Scott Reese LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Reese, Scott Steven. Renewers of the age : holy men and social discourse in colonial Benaadir / By Scott Reese. p. cm. — (Islam in Africa ; v. 9) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-16729-2 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Islam—Somalia—Benaadir. 2. Islam and social problems—Somalia—Benaadir. 3. Sufi sm—Somalia— Benaadir. 4. Benaadir (Somalia)—Social life and customs. I. Title. BP64.S6R44 2008 297.096773—dc22 2008008972 ISSN 1570-3754 ISBN 978 90 04 16729 2 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands CONTENTS Acknowledgements ..................................................................... vii Note on Transliteration, Personal and Place Names ................. ix MAP ............................................................................................ xi Chapter One Introduction: The Ulamā as “local intellectuals” ................................................................. 1 Chapter Two Religious History as Social History .................. 33 Chapter Three Saints, Scholars and the Acquisition of Discursive Authority ............................................................... 63 Chapter Four Urban Woes and Pious Remedies: Sufi s, Urbanites, and Managing Social Crises in the Nineteenth Century ................................................................................... 101 Chapter Five When is Kafāa Kifayah?—Sufi Leadership, Religious Authority and Questions of Social Inequality ....... 139 Chapter Six The Best of Guides: Sufi Poetry, theological writing and Comprehending Qādiriyya popularity in the Early Twentieth Century ........................................................ 171 Epilogue: End of the Sufi Era ................................................... 217 Appendix One .......................................................................... 223 Appendix Two .......................................................................... 229 Bibliography ................................................................................ 233 Index ......................................................................................... 241 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS When undertaking any research project the debts of gratitude one accrues are enormous. This work began life as a Ph.D. dissertation completed at the University of Pennsylvania in 1996. It has changed greatly since then and truly stands as a separate work. Having said that, I am deeply indebted to those who assisted me in completing that fi rst work. In Mombasa, this includes a large of number of Benaadiri refugees, but most importantly the late Abukar Sokorow and his sons Abdi and Muhy al-Din. In addition, the long suffering members of my doctoral committee, Margaret Mills, Everett Rowson and my advisor Lee V. Cassanelli have continued to provide support, guidance and friendship over the years. The continued research, writing and (almost) unending revisions of this book were made possible by generous grants (in both time and funding) from my home institution, Northern Arizona University and the College of Arts and Letters. A Fulbright Fellowship in 2002 enabled me to spend a productive semester at the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Bergen where I fi rst began work on this revised manuscript. In addition to institutional support, I have been fortunate to have the assistance and friendship of many individuals during the prepara- tion of this work. Special thanks to Carl Ernst, Valerie Hoffman and Roman Loimeier for reading all or parts of the volume as it progressed through its various lives and for providing guidance and advice that have certainly made this a better book. Among the legion of friends who must be singled out for thanks for advice and support over the years are Kai Kresse, Anne Bang, Ed Simpson, Kjersti Berg, Loren Lybarger, Martin Orwin and Elke Stockreiter. In Flagstaff, I would be remiss if I did not recognize the same fellowship that I have received from dear friends and colleagues at NAU including Susan Deeds, Sanjay Joshi, Sanjam Ahluwalia, George Lubick, Cynthia Kosso, Leilah Danielson, Eric Meeks, Jude Costello, Paul and Ruth Donnelly, Zsuzsa Gulasci and Jason Beduhn. There are certainly many others, too numerous to mention. It is also crucial to thank the series editors of the Islam in Africa Series, Knut Vikor and Ruediger Sessemaan as well as Sasha Goldstein viii acknowledgements and Trudy Kamperveen at Brill. In addition, Sean O’Fahey who arranged for my stay at Bergen and my doctoral adviser Lee Cassanelli, both of whom have shown an unwavering faith in my work over the years, deserve special thanks and recognition. My wife Marilya and kids Kai and Svea (not to mention our “junior” family members Henry and Howard) whose love, understanding and—in the case of the latter—penchant for long walks in the forest have offered me perspective and sanity during the long and diffi cult writing process. Finally, my parents whose love, support and understanding over the years have been instrumental in making me the person I am. It is to them I dedicate this book. NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION, PERSONAL AND PLACE NAMES The transliteration and spelling of Arabic and Somali personal names, places and terms represents a particular challenge in this book. All of the locally compiled primary sources are written in Arabic however their authors were native Somali rather than Arabic speakers. Similarly, an offi cial Latin based orthography for the Somali language was adopted in the 1970s which, theoretically at least, standardized the spelling across the language and adopted a number of unique conventions designed to represent certain Somali vocalizations. The letter “C”, for example, served to represent the pharyngeal fricative corresponding to the letter “ayn” in Arabic, while “X” represented the Arabic “ha” or . This raises the interesting question of how should one transliterate Somali personal and place names appearing in Arabic? For the sake of clarity, and the fact that more readers will be familiar with Arabic translitera- tion than Somali, this book follows the system of transliteration laid out in the International Journal of Middle East Studies with regard to most personal names. So, Amad will be used rather than Axmad, Muammad rather than Maxamaad etc. The same holds for titles (e.g. Shaykh) and technical terms (e.g. {ilm). In a few rare cases, Somali forms of names exist that are signifi cantly different from their Arabic originals (e.g. Abiker or Abukar for Abū Bakr). In these instances—where chang- ing the name would render it unrecognizable to a Somali speaker—the Somali form has been retained. With regard to clan and place names I have in most cases opted to employ a simplifi ed orthography that maintains the spirit of the Somali spelling. So, Bendawow rather than the Arabic Bandawū, for example. In cases where there already exists a commonly accepted English spelling of place names, Mogadishu for example, that will be used instead of either the Arabic transliteration (Muqdishū) or the Somali (Muqdisho). In some cases, however, the new Somali spelling of certain place names has become the standard so, Barawe rather than Brava or Marka rather than Merka or Merca and most importantly Benaadir instead of Benadir. The fact that none of the authors of these texts was a native speaker of Arabic also raises the issue of spelling. Systematic misspellings x note on transliteration of common and technical Arabic terms occurring within the texts have been politely corrected by the present author in the interests of clarity. Finally, the above spelling conventions are applied only to historical texts and fi gures. A great deal of the data for this book was collected through oral interviews in and around Mombasa, Kenya in 1994. The majority of my interviewees preferred anglicized spellings of their names, for instance, Abdi rather than Cabdi, Muhammad rather than Maxamaad. In order to respect their personal preference I have opted to use these forms rather than either Arabic transliteration or Somali orthography. GULF OF ADEN Calula Bosaaso Zayla Berbera Dharor Harar