Islamic Reform in East Africa, Ca. 1870-1925 the Alawi Case
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Paper presented to the workshop "Reasserting Connections, Commonalities, and Cosmopolitanism: The Western Indian Ocean since 1800" Yale University, November 3-5, 2000. Anne K. Bang University of Bergen, Norway Islamic reform in East Africa, ca. 1870-1925 The Alawi case 1. Transmission of Islamic learning among East African Alawis: Family and scholarly links beyond East Africa: The example of Abd Allah Ba Kathir Much of what we know about the Zanzibari Shafii ulama derives from the retrospective accounts by Abdallah Saleh Farsy1 and Said b. Ali al-Mughayri.2 Both accounts begin where the tarjamas of the Hadrami Alawis end; focusing on Zanzibar, they depict a tight-woven network of Shafii scholars, some of whom were part of the Alawi tradition, others who looked elsewhere for their orientation. According to Farsy's account, the first generation of Islamic scholars centered around four persons: al-Qahtani, al-Amawi, al-Mazrui and al-Barwani. The second generation was made up of the younger students of the four scholars portayed above, as well as individuals who came in "from the outside". An example of the latter was Ahmad b. Sumayt, who by the 1890s had emerged as a leading figure in the new generation. Almost equally important important was his disciple Abd Allah Ba Kathir. Abd Allah b. Muhammad Ba Kathir (1860-61 - 1925) Abd Allah b. Muhammad b. Salim Ba Kathir al-Kindi was born in Lamu in 1276/1860-61. Not only was he almost exactly the same age as Ibn Sumayt; his background and early life has many similarities with that of his mentor. In Ba Kathir's case, it was his paternal grandfather who had emigrated from Hadramawt to Lamu - probably some time in the early nineteenth century. Like Ibn Sumayt, Ba Kathir lost his father early - he died in 1281/1864-65. The young Abd Allah was forced to support himself as a tailor, an occupation which he maintained until old age. Also like Ibn Sumayt, Ba Kathir's maternal line was a notable one: his maternal grandfather was Abd 1 Farsy/Pouwels, The Shafii Ulama . 2 Al-Mughayri, Juhaynat al-Akhbar. Other studies of the East African ulama include the brief, but thorough note by B.G. Martin, "Notes on Some Members" and J. Kagabo, "Resaux d'ulama". 1 Allah b. Adi al-Barwani, whose brother built the al-Hadith mosque in Zanzibar. However, unlike Ibn Sumayt who could draw prestige from a long line of sayyid ancestors, Ba Kathir came from a tribal/mashaykh family.3 It should be noted, though, that the Al Ba Kathir was a family with long scholarly traditions in the Hadramawt - as Abd Allah Ba Kathir himself was going to discover. In his youth, Ba Kathir was drawn towards the scholarly milleu of Lamu, which in the 1870s and 1880s was heavily influenced by members of the Al Abi Bakr b. Salim and Al Jamal al-Layl. To this should be added that BaKathir's early Alawi teachers operated networks which reached beyond the East Africa-Hadramawt connection; one example being Sayyid Mansab b. Abd al-Rahman who studied in Mecca. Abd Allah Ba Kathir soon followed the same path. At the instigation of his teacher Sayyid Mansab b. Abd al-Rahman, he made his first journey to Mecca at the age of nineteen (hijra years, i.e. around 1877). He performed the hajj, but did not stay for very long. He returned to Lamu where he became a student of Habib Salih, but in 1887 he was again in Mecca. There, he studied with the same shaykhs who had taught the Alawis of Hadramawt, and who - as we have seen - also taught Ibn Sumayt. This included Muhammad b. Said Babsayl and Umar b. Abi Bakr Ba Junayd, both of whom were also Ibn Sumayts teachers. The latter was Ba Kathir's main shaykh, and the two remained in close contact until Ba Kathir's death. Another important teacher was Abu Bakr b. Muhammad Shatta - another teacher of Ibn Sumayt.4 B.G. Martin5 states that Ba Kathir also studied with Ahmad Zayni Dahlan, who at that time was at the height of his career. Given that Dahlan died in 1886, Ba Kathir can only have met Dahlan on his first visit in 1877. Farsy, on the other hand, does not name Dahlan among Ba Kathir's teachers in Mecca. Furthermore, in his Rihlat al-Ashwaq, Ba Kathir makes a number of references to Dahlan, and makes it a point to demonstrate that Dahlan features in the silsila of the litanies and prayers he receives. However, nowhere does he indicate that he himself actually studied with Dahlan. The most likely interpretation is that Ba Kathir received his "Dahlan links" by way of Muhammad b. Said Babsayl - Dahlan's assistant and closest colleague. After some time Ba Junayd sent Ba Kathir to Java, upon the request of some Javanese Hadramis who were looking for a teacher. It is unknown how long Ba Kathir stayed in Java and where he was actually teaching. What we know is that he returned to Ba Junayd in Mecca (some time in 1888) to further his studies. It is possible that this 3 The Al Ba Kathir is one of many sub-branches of the Al al-Kindi, a large and well- known tribal association in South Arabia. 4 Farsy/Pouwels, The Shafii Ulama, 84 and al-Mashhur, Shams al-Zahira, 455. 5 B.G. Martin, "Notes on some members", 539. 2 period in Mecca co-incided with Ibn Sumayt's visit to that city. (As we have seen, Ibn Sumayt stayed in Mecca/Medina before returning to Zanzibar in 1888.) In 1892 Abd Allah Ba Kathir settled in Zanzibar. He brought with him his family which now included two sons, Abu Bakr and Salim, and several daughters. In the Stone Town he first lodged with a relative of Shaykh Muhyi al-Din al-Qahtani, but in 1902 he bought a house in the Ukutani/Kajificheni quarter. In Zanzibar, Ba Kathir received further teaching from scholars who had been students of the first generation. Finally, in Zanzibar, Ba Kathir became a devoted disciple of Ibn Sumayt. In the hagiographic literature of both Hadrami and Zanzibari origin, Ibn Sumayt and Abd Allah Ba Kathir are invariably mentioned together. In the East African context they were the "two great shaykhs", the two most influential scholars, the most brilliant ulama and teachers. In the decades after their deaths their students and successors repeatedly lamented the decline of scholarly standards; with the understood assumption that the achievements of Sumayt/Ba Kathir could not possibly be bettered. Umar b. Sumayt, who was a direct student of both his father and Abd Allah Ba Kathir, in 1953 assured the Dutch scholar Joseph Schacht that "... Islamic scholarship in Zanzibar had fallen on evil days; the last two great scholars of Zanzibar had been [Umar's] father, Ahmad b. Abi Bakr b. Sumayt and Shaykh Abd Allah b. Muhammad Ba Kathir; now there were no real scholars left..."6 Another aspect that is invariably stressed in the Sumayt/Ba Kathir biographies, is the strength of their friendship. They were "totally devoted" according to Umar b. Sumayt.7 In fact, the bond between them was more than a friendship. Rather it was a case of the Sufi shaykh and the disciple tied together in a relation where the boundaries of the egos are dissolved in love. Umar relates that "[the bond of love] continued unceasingly until there occurred between them a mingling (ikhtilat) and blending (imtizaj) of the spirit and they became like one soul, as in the words of the poet: "I am he whom I love and he whom I love is me * We are two souls inhabiting one body (Ana man ahwa wa-man ahwa ana * Nahnu ruhani halalna badana")"8 What Umar is describing here is the Sufi idea of fana resulting in tawhid; the student's complete annihilation within his shaykh resulting in a spiritual unification - or, what Valerie Hoffmann has described as the Sufi ability to "transcend the boundaries of their own individuality, to touch each other's spirits in such a manner that they deny their 6 J. Schahct, "Notes on Islam in East Africa", Studia Islamica, XXIII, 1965, 116. 7 Umar b. Sumayt, Biography of his father, in Ahmad b. Sumayt, Al-Ibtihaj, 51. 8 Umar b. Sumayt, Biography of his father, in Ahmad b. Sumayt, Al-Ibtihaj, 30. The poetic quote is from al-Hallaj. 3 own separate identities."9 Farsy, too, emphasises that the Sumayt/BaKathir relationship was essentially one of student-master: "In [Ibn Sumayt's] presence, Shaykh Abdallah acted the way a child does around his father, for indeed religious and intellectual parentage is superior to blood kinship."10 Of another character altogether was Ba Kathir's relationship with Salih b. Alawi Jamal al-Layl (Habib Saleh). Although Ba Kathir had initially been a student of Habib Salih, theirs was a friendship, cemented by marriages. Ba Kathir married a woman of the Lamu Jamal al-Layl, while the eldest son of Habib Salih, Ahmad al-Badawi, was married to the eldest daughter of Abd Allah Ba Kathir. These marriages are interesting in relation to the great sada/non-sada marriage controversy which broke out in Java in 1905. Evidently, the Hadrami sada of East Africa took more lightly on the ban against marrying daughters to non-sada. As Farsy points out, non-Alawi scholars like Abd al- Aziz b. Abd al-Ghani al-Amawi and Said b. Dahman all took wives from sada families.