THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES of AFRICA 1. Introduction the History

THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA

1. Introduction The history of Islam in Africa begins when the Arabs took Egypt from the Byzantines in 641 AD1. The Arabs went on conquering and by 647 the Greek city of Tripolis paid them tribute2. Tunisia was definitively in Arab hands after 689, when they retook it from the Berbers3. In Algeria, Berber independence was destroyed in 693, although rebellion flared up again later4. In Morocco, Fes, the first Muslim town of any significance, was founded in 789 by Idris ibn Abdallah5. Islam became dominant when the Almohad rulers settled Arab tribes there in the 12th century6. Islam was not yet dominant in the eleventh century in the kingdom of Ghana in what is now southern Mauretania7. Many West African rulers of the later Middle Ages paid lipservice to Islam as the religion of the rich traders, but for political and ritual rea- sons they had to continue worshipping the ancestral gods so as to keep the clan structure intact8. The Muslim traders no doubt made many converts among the villagers in West Africa, but occasionally there arose a great military leader who would proclaim a jihad and sweep large tracts of the sahel and savannah regions free of pagan rulers9. Today, Islam is frimly established in all of West Africa with the exception of the coastal areas. It has a majority in Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and all the countries to the north of those lands in North and West Africa. The

1 Carl BROCKELMAN, History of the Islamic Peoples, New York, Capricorn Books, 1960, p. 57. Encyclopaedia of Islam (EI) Vol. I, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1960, p. 451, 844. 2 Cyrenaica (now the region of Benghazi) was occupied by the Arabs in 643 A.D. See EI Vol. I, p. 1049; E.E. EVANS-PRITCHARD, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica, Oxford University Press 1949, p. 48. BROCKELMANN, op. cit., p. 74. Kayrawan, founded in 670, was sacked by the Berbers in 756, showing there was as yet no complete Arab domination. (EI vol. I, p. 1175). 3 EI vol. IV, p. 827. 4 EI vol. I, p. 367. 5 EI vol. II, p. 818; vol. III, p. 1031. 6 EI vol. I s.v. Abd al Mu}min and vol. III p. 386-7. 7 EI vol. II p. 1002. 8 Mervyn HISKETT; The Development of Islam in West Africa, London, Longman, 1984, p. 21-4. 9 Op. cit., p. 24, and all of chapter fourteen. 194 J. KNAPPERT northern states of Nigeria are also in majority Muslim. In total, Nigeria has a Muslim population of some 50 million, or 47% of all Nigerians10. The Republic of the Sudan is a special case. There, Islam is still pro- gressing as a result of government intervention11. Eritrea and Somalia have Muslim majorities, whereas in Kenya and Tanganyika, Islam is limited to the coastal area, the so-called Swahili Coast. In northeastern Kenya Islam was introduced by the Somali herdsmen spilling over from Somalia12. In Etiopia too, Islam forms an important minority (35%). The phenomenal success of Islam in Africa (half the population of the continent is Muslim), is the result of three factors: war, trade and marriage. Islam entered Africa in 640 as a holy war against the Christians. All of North Africa was Islamicised by the sword, and so was the Sudan. In many other regions, including the Swahili Coast, we learn of Islam first from the arrival of the traders. All the Swahili chronicles mention the arrival of the first Muslims as traders who bought parcels of land from the local chiefs; many of them married a chief's daughter13. The chiefs did not mind being associated with men who were rich by African standards and the best association between two men is that of in-law- ship. The traders' wives may still have been pagans in their hearts, but their sons certainly became Muslims. Since Islam permits a man four wives and as many concubines (i.e. female slaves) as “his right hand

10 Readers Digest Guide to Places of the World, London 1987, p. 475. 11 Very little information is available concerning the Sudan owing to the government admitting no one to the southern provinces. The Independent, a well respected London Newspaper, reported on 24 Oct. 1987: “Sudanese Muslims conduct trade in slaves from the South… Arab militias, armed by the government in its war against the Dinka-led Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement, have seized as many as 7,000 villagers, who have been sold ..”. Figaro (Paris) reports on 30 April 1991: “Soudan: un génocide pro- grammé. L'homme fort de Khartoum dépense cinq millions de francs par jour pour écraser les chrétiens du Sud du pays. Son peuple meurt de faim. En silence”. Time, New York, reports on Feb 21, 1994: “Under pressure from discontented elements within his National Islamic Front government, President Omar al-Bashir apparently ordered his forces to the attack in an effort to boost the morale and silence the opposition with a deci- sive victory in what he calls a jihad, or holy war”. Whole villages have been bombed in this “final attempt by the Islamic government in Khartoum to crush the predominantly Christian rebels with whom it has been at war for 11 years”. 12 For Somalia and southern Eritrea see I.M. LEWIS, Peoples of the Horn of Africa, London, International African Institute 1969, p. 140-154, 172-3. For Kenya, A.I. Salim in the EI, vol. IV, p. 885, gives “6%” as the percentage of Muslims, but in the next sentence raises that by implication to 8%. in a population of 10.942.704 in 1974. Since in the 22 years thereafter the population of Kenya has doubled to twenty million, the number of Muslims is at least 2 mill., though Muslim sources claim that it must be 15% or 3 mill. 13 J. KNAPPERT, The East African Coast: Some Notes on its History, in Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 23, 1992, p. 152. Wives were often accomodatd in different towns. THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA 195 possesses” (Koran 3,4), the Muslim traders in Africa usually sired whole clans. The Arab writer Al-ÎafiÂ praises African women for their fertility, saying they can have as many as “thirty wombfuls of babies” each. The Muslim traders, if they were successful in their new domain, would invite their brothers and cousins to join them. In this way there arose, and prospered, bomas, i.e. walled towns, in advanced positions beyond the frontiers of Islamic territory, e.g. in Tabora and Ujiji in western Tanzania, and in Kisangani and Kasongo in Zaire. There was no question of “quarantine”14, since every African clan had its own “kraal” (from Luganda ekiraalo ‘dwelling place’), where its own gods were worshipped. Women were usually expected to adopt their hasbands' religion. The traders obviously had to keep their traderoutes open and there was no better way to achieve that than by means of one's relatives. Thus, brothers and nephews would be settled in halfway stations along the car- avan route. For instance, Hamed Bin Muhammad (alias Tippu Tip) married the daughter of Fundikira, chief of the Nyamwezi of Tabora, which lies as the crossing of two traderoutes. Extensive religious communities like the Kadiriyya and the Ismailiyya have numerous commercial interests in the interior. Their clients in Zaire will realise that confessing Islam is in their interest. Many local agents in Kinshasa and Brazzaville work for the Hausa and Fulani traders from Cameroun and Niger. These facts also illustrate the benefits of colonial and modern times: the rich merchants travel by air; the traders and their agents use French or English when Swahili or Hausa are not spoken in the areas where their trade is expanding. A very common cause for the spread of Islam is ethnic multiplication. The Arabs in the Sudan have grown from a few persons to fourteen million in five hundred years. The Somali people of Somalia and Ogaden expanded likewise from a few persons, perhaps one clan, to eight million in 500 years. The Fulani of Fulbe people spread out from their land of origin in the middle Senegal Valley, via the Niger bend and northern Nigeria to northern Cameroun, bringing their dominant Islamic culture with them as they conquered northern Nigeria c. 190015. The Diula or

14 HISKETT, Op. cit. p. 22. The fact that every clan, with its retainers, lived within an enclosure, did not mean that there was no contact between them. On the contrary, there was certainly trade, and probably an exchange of brides from time to time. The Muslims always sought to dominate eventually their non-Muslim countrymen, and they usually succeeded, but the privacy of each clan was sacred. 15 HISKETT, op. cit., p. 151 ff. & p. 158∞ff. 196 J. KNAPPERT

Dyoula are another example: a Manding-speaking ethnic group of traders who have spread out over most of what used to be French West Africa. They have great influence in the Ivory Coast16.

2. Literacy Since the majority of the Muslims with whom the Africans came into contact, were traders, the notion of writing came to their perception as the Muslims' most curious activity. Traders use writing to keep their accounts, and to send reports and orders to other traders, to relatives and to rulers. By means of these written notes the traders could wield considerable power, if only by remembering how much money they had lent to their borrowers, and what they had in stock. The art of writing for magic purposes had been practised by the ancient Egyptians and later by the Romans and the Jews17. The Arabs may have learned the art of writing magic signs and formulae from both the Jews and the Egyptians, but mostly from the former. Magic books in Arabic contain numerous names of angels and demons of Hebrew origin, and even Hebrew letters, arranged in diagrams to be copied as protection against those demons, on pieces of paper which are rolled up and worn on the body by children to avert disease and the evil eye. Such little packets of written formulae nicely wrapped in cloth baglets, are sold far outside the Islamic sphere of influence, and the people pay high prices for them18. The Swahili words for these amulets are azima, dawa, hirizi and talasimu, all from Arabic19; there is still a brisk trade in them, in East- and West Africa. Many a tabibu “doctor” will also “read” sup- posedly therapeutic prayers over a wound or a sprained ankle. These formulae are always in Arabic, if often corrupted, so that the Arabic language itself has curative powers or so it is believed far beyond Islamic territory. The “doctor” does not know what he pronounces: he has

16 HISKETT, op. cit. p. 45-6. 17 In Mombasa one can buy Arabic booklets with rules for practising magic and magic formulae drawn up in diagrams complete with the names of spirits in Hebrew script. For Egypt see Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts translated by J.F. Borghouts, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1978. 18 See J. KNAPPERT, Swahili Islamic Poetry, Leiden, E.J. Brill 1971, vol. I, p. 75. About the magical use of graphic symbols see David DALBY, The Indigenous Scripts of West Africa and Surinam: their Inspiration and Design, in African Language Studies IX, London, S.O.A.S., 1968, p. 159. n. 9. 19 Ar. tilism derives from Greek telesma ‘fulfillment, ceremony’. THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA 197 memorised the magic formulae. The people believe more readily in these doubtful practices than in medical science20.

`3. The beginning of written literature in Arabic script. Mervyn Hiskett21 has demonstrated that the first writers of Hausa literature (as opposed to the oral traditions) were Muslim scholars who wished to use their didactic verse as a weapon for the conversion of the Hausa people to Islam, and for reforming those who were already Mus- lims, but whose Islam was not good enough in the scholars’ eyes. In Swahili, the oldest manuscripts we possess, which were written between c. 1650 and 1750, both the praises of the holy Prophet22, and the earliest epic poetry23, were clearly intended to make propaganda for Islam. The epic either describes in exalted language the early victories of islam in the days when the Prophet was still walking upon earth, or the life and marriage of the first women of Islam. Thus Islamic propaganda aims at both men and women in the earliest written literature in Swahili. Of course there was an oral tradition in Swahili song24, both panegyric and epic, but we know very little about it. Yet, when studying the written poetry it is evident that this could not have been created ex nihilo, but was built upon an existing and sophisticated tradition of praises, self-praises and epic, in nine fixed prosodic forms that have never changed in 400 years25. Regarding Fulani (Peul), Dr. Arnott writes26: “Since the Islamic reform movements of the early 19th century, Fula has been written in a form of the Arabic script, modified with reasonable success to cope with Fula sounds not found in Arabic.” The oldest known poet in the Fula language, in Dr. Arnott's own list on pp. 92-5 of the same work, is Usman Dan Fodio, of whom Arnott writes: “A pioneer in the composition of religious poems in Fula as a means of propagating his reformist

20 Oral information from Dr Miles Harris, then in Ethiopia. 21 Mervyn HISKETT, A History of Hausa Islamic Verse, London, S.O.A.S., 1975, p. 18. 22 J. KNAPPERT, The Hamziya Deciphered, in African Language Studies IX, S.O.A.S., London 1968, p. 52∞ff. 23 ID., Het Epos van Heraklios, thesis, Leiden 1958, p. 109. ID., Four Centuries of Swahili Verse, London, Heinemann, 1979; DARF 1988, p. 109∞ff. ID., Epic Poetry in Swahili and Other African Languages, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1983, p. 47∞ff. 24 ID., A Choice of Flowers, an Anthology of Swahili Love Poetry, London, Heine- mann 1972, gives modern songs, many of them influenced by Islam. 25 ID., Swahili Metre, in African Language Studies XII, London, SOAS 1971, p. 110. 26 D.W. ARNOTT, Literature in Fula in B.W. ANDRZEJEWSKI, S. PILASZEWICZ and W. TYLOCH, Literatures in African Languages, Warszawa 1985, p. 74. 198 J. KNAPPERT views.” Usman's brother Abdullahi was the second oldest poet in Fula (ib. p. 92). He was born in 1763, Usman in 1754.

4. What is an Islamic literature? In principle, an Islamic literature is the creation of an Islamic nation or people. This thesis requires qualification. The Mali-nke people, for instance (also called Manding, Maninke etc.) are entirely Islamicised, yet in their (oral) literature there are only traces of Islamic influences to be found. Such oral traditions were made evidently in a period of history when the people had not yet been converted to Islam27. In Swahili poetry on the contrary, there is hardly a trace of pre-Islamic culture. For instance, the great Muyaka who flourished in Mombasa c. 1800, who was the first known secular poet in Swahili, and whose poems were carried solely by the oral tradition, composed poems that were permeated by the ideology of Islam28. It is only in the twentieth century that East African authors began to write truly secular Swahili literature, but those writers were in majority not born Muslims and often had a western education. Islamic literature does not have to be pious or devotional, or even religious. It is Islamic when the subject is Islamic, and when the author is a Muslim writing for his fellow Muslims. Thus for instance, the long narratives about the exploits of the ancient Arabian heroes Abu Zayd, Antar, Hamza, Miqdad, Amr29, and many others, some of whom are believed to have lived before Islam, are undoubtedly part of Islamic literature because they breathe the spirit of Muslim heroism and the ideals of Mus- lim warriors whose enemies are invariably demons and other heathens. At the other extreme, the “Cape Malays”, the Muslims of the Cape Province, possess an extensive literature in Arabic script in Afrikaans, of works on shari}a, Hanafi Law and daily duties for Muslims30. The question is: do these didactic texts constitute a literature?

27 See Knappert in Journal for Islamic Studies 10, Johannesburg 1990, p. 128-9. 28 J. KNAPPERT, Four Centuries (see note 23), p. 186-7. 29 ID., Islamic Legends, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1985, vol. II, p. 417-429 for Miqdad; ID., Malay Myths and Legends, Kuala Lumpur, Heinemann 1980, p. 91-102 for Hamza; ID., Sons of the Crescent, The Hero in Arabian Legend and Lore, in The World and I, Vol. 8, n° 2, Washington, February 1993, p. 622-633 for the Banu Hilal. ID., Wizards, Wars and Wives: the Hero in Arabic Legend and Lore, in The World and I, Vol. 8, n° 3, Washing- ton DC, March 1993, p. 224∞ff. for Antar and Amr. 30 A. VAN SELMS, Abu Bakr se ‘Uiteensetting van die Godsdiens’, Amsterdam 1979; ID., Arabies-Afrikaanse Studies, Amsterdam, Koninklijke Akademie, 1951, afd. Let- terkunde. THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA 199

A literature, to qualify as such, has to be beautiful, i.e. aesthetically enjoyable, at least for the target-audience or -readership. An outsider may find it dull reading, but a person born into that culture may listen for hours, enthralled by the fantastic adventures recited in a sing-song voice by the Arab rawi, the Swahili mwimbaji (singer) or msimulizi (story-teller), the West African griot or jali31. These texts are composed in a literary form, a beautiful expression of the people's culture and thoughts. Of such truly artistic literature there is an abundance in Africa, both in Islamic cultures and in other cultures, “pure” or “mixed”. By defining Islamic literature as the creation of an Islamic people, the need has arisen for a definition of an Islamic people. In a western society, or should I say, a secular society, religion is part of an individual cit- izen's personal concern, but in an Islamic society, religion is a public concern so there is heavy pressure on individuals to conform. The result has been that in all societies with an Islamic majority, all people behave in public as good Muslims: they are seen going to the mosque, they are not seen eating during Ramadan, nor drinking wine ever. However, at home and in the company of very good friends they might do the very things which are most abhorrent to Islam: sacrificing to the gods of the ancestors. An anthropologist would say that such people are not Muslims, but a Muslim would say: they are Muslims, but sinners. This is also the case with Islamic literature. “Islamic” does not mean that it deals exclusively with Islamic subjects. It does mean that an Islamic literature takes Islam for granted. It is there in every line of verse. For instance, in the Swahili epic of the German invasion of the Tanganyika Coast (1885), there is present at all times the conscious- ness that the Swahili heroes are fighting a holy war against an infidel usurper32. In the Mandinka epic of Sunjata there are only a few refer- ences to Islamic thinking, yet they demonstrate that Islam is an inte- gral part of the people's culture. Sunjata's father has lost his sons in the Holy War (jihad-o)33. He hopes to be saved in the next life and

31 Mia I. GERHARDT, The Art of Story-telling, Leiden, E.J. Brill 1961 — a literary study of the Arabian nights. Christiane SEYDOU, Les Herauts de la Parole Epique, in M.M. Jocelyne FERNANDEZ-VEST, ed., Colloques Internationaux du Conseil National de Recherches Scientifiques, Paris 1987, p. 449-466. John D. SMITH, The Singer or the Song? in Man (New Series) 12 (1977), p. 141-53. Camara LAYE, Le Maître de la Parole, Paris, Plon, 1978, p. 19∞f. 32 Hemedi Bin Abdallah Bin Said Bin Abdallah Bin Masudi El-Buhriy, The German Conquest of the Swahili Coast, transl. by J.W.T. Allen, Dar es Salaam, Eagle Press, 1960, p. 13, 75. 33 Gordon INNES, Sunjata, London, S.O.A.S., 1974, p. 152-3, l. 171. 200 J. KNAPPERT attain paradise34, using Arabic words for those concepts; he prays (sali)35 a prayer of several raka{ats; he exclaims: “Alhamdulillahi Rabi- lalamina!” This is the first verse in the Koran. Thus, even though the Sunjata epic as a structured narrative dates from the pre-Islamic period, yet the culture of the characters is Islamic. The Sunjata epic is, conse- quently, a piece of original African literature which, as it is being recited by succeeding generations of Muslim bards, becomes gradually Islami- cised. However, when begenning their epic songs, the Mandinka bards follow their own style. Bamba sings: “It is I, Bamba who speaks!” Another bard begins, like Vergil: “I sing of Sunjata”; another asks first: “My lords! How is the music”? Commencing another epic, Bamba intones: “Many are those who recount the deeds of war”, calling Yeats to mind. In contrast, every Swahili epic poet will begin his work: “In the name of God Almighty — Merciful, Compassionate” … often adding many other Òifat, praisenames, before starting his narrative. That is Islamic literature: Allah is invoked first; and again at the end, the poet thanks God for helping him to complete his work: “Without His help no man succeeds”36. The choice remains the privilege of the literary critic: the student decides where the scholars fear to tread. In the following pages an attempt has been made to show some of the immense wealth that has been created by the impact of Islamic culture upon the creative minds of African poets.

5. The contents The contents of Islamic literature in the languages of Africa can usually be classified in the following categories: (1) Documents of historical interest, in the first place the shajara of nasabu, the family tree, seldom more than a list of the male ancestors of the patrilineage, and their functions, especially if they were local rulers, e.g. kings. Rarely, major events in the lives of such men are indicated, such as wars, floods, droughts, migrations, rebellions. More elaborate chronicles have come to light too, usually called khabar or tarikh, giv-

34 Op. cit., p. 152, l. 168, using the word Arjanna, from Ar. al-Janna ‘the Garden’, Ala from Allah. 35 Op. cit., p. 152, line 176; in the next line the word for God is Taala, from Ar. Ta{ala ‘He is exalted’. 36 J. Knappert, Epic Poetry in Swahili and Other African Languages, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1983, p. 77∞ff. THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA 201 ing the dates of the rulers as well as their exploits, military expeditions and deaths37. (2) Law and personal duties, i.e. shari‘a and fiqh, often in poetic form so it can be memorised by schoolboys, form the next important category. There is little original in this, except that it enables the Islamologist to assess the level of sophistication of the local Islamic scholars38. (3) Devotional and theological works, (tawÌid) including didactical works describing death, the grave, hell and its punishments as well as Paradise and the rewards of the good39. (4) Liturgical works, mainly in poetry, especially hymns (du‘a) in praise of God and His Prophet (Òifa) and often of the members of his family: Ali, Fatima, Hasan and Husayn40. Many of these hymns which are often sung in the mosque, contain prayers for intercession (shafa‘a) to the saints (awliya}), local, or universal such as Abdu’l-Qadir41. Much of this beautiful poetry will soon be lost because visiting preachers from the Middle East militate against this singing in the mosque in the vernacular for the local saints, all of which they consider as bid{a and shirk42. (5) Narrative literature, in prose or in verse, relating the QiÒaÒu}l- Anbiya}, beginning by the Creation, followed by the history of the Koranic prophets and their families including Adam and Eve, Isaac, Isma{il and Hagar, the founding of the Ka{ba; Jacob, Joseph (Yusuf) and

37 M. HEEPE, Eine Swahili Chronik von Pate, in Mitteilungen des Seminars für Orien- talische Sprachen, Berlin 31, iii, 1928, p. 145-192. Henri TOURNEUX et Christian SEIGNO- BOS, Chronique des Peuls de Bindir, Ndjamena, Octobre 1978, Annales de l'Université de Tchad, numéro spécial. 38 J. KNAPPERT, Traditional Swahili Poetry, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1967, p. 12-62. Mervyn HISKETT, A History of Hausa Islamic Verse, London, S.O.A.S., 1975, p. 64-7. 39 HISKETT, op. cit., p. 68-72. J. KNAPPERT, Swahili Theology in the Form of an Utenzi, in Hans-Jürgen GRESCHAT und Herrmann JUNGRAITHMAYR, eds., Wort und Religion, Kalima na Dini, Evangelischer Missionsverlag Stuttgart 1969, p. 282-293. See also note 30 for Muslim Afrikaans works. 40 This literature is exceedingly rich in Fulani, Hausa, Swahili and the Berber languages. See below, p. 207 for Fula=Peul. HISKETT, op. cit. (see note 38 above), chapters IV and V. J. KNAPPERT, Swahili Islamic Poetry, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1971, vol. II & III. Gilbert VIEILLARD, Poèmes Peuls du Fouta Djallon, in Bulletin du Comité d'Études His- toriques et Scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidentale Française, Paris 1937, p. 225: Sermons versifiés en langue vulgaire. 41 See for the legends about Abdu}l-Qadir, J. KNAPPERT, Islamic Legends, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1985, vol. II, p. 313-328; these are my translations of the Swahili texts, which are very close to the Indonesian versions. 42 Bid‘a ‘innovation’ refers to every new custom in Islam; shirk ‘polytheism’ is an even more objectionable sin, since only the One God may be worshipped, the first dogma of Islam, and the very meaning of the word tawÌid ‘making one’. For bid{a see the Ency- clopaedia of Islam, vol. I, p. 1199. 202 J. KNAPPERT his brothers in Egypt, Moses (Musa) and the divine revelation on Mount Sinai (™ur Sina), Isa (Jesus) and Mary. Minor prophets are: Hud, SaliÌ, Jonah, Job (Ayyub), Elijah. The latter, under the name of Al-Khi∂r, accompanies Al-Iskandar- Dhu}l-Qarnayn (Alexander the Great) on his conquest of the world; this is a very popular narrative43. (6) A large number of popular works in prose or in verse, centre around the life and teaching of the Prophet Muhammad, ranging from an abridged biography (sira) to a versified Mawlid to be recited during the night of the Prophet's birthday celebration (12th Rabi} al-Awwal). Numerous detailed narratives expand this biography, especially the Mi{radj and the Prophet's death44. (7) The history of Islam after Muhammad is less popular than one might expect. The elaborate literature on Ali, Husayn45 and the other imams which we know from Iran46 and Pakistan, has been little developed in Africa. We have already mentioned Abd al-Qadir and the local saints. Some African nations sing the local heroes who established Islam, or Islamic empires, or fought pagans and demons. Numerous miracles occur in these legends which are often of local origin, a welcome source for the mythologist. (8) Very rare are the works on mysticism, taÒawwuf, or the tenets of the local †ariqa, Qadiriyya, Shadhiliyya, Tijaniyya47. (9) Even more exceptional are the learned works on †ibb, i.e. traditional medicine, pharmacology and herbalism, usually based on Arabic translations of classical authors such as Gallen (Jalinus) and Al-Maqrizi, abridged. African scholars whose interests are at that level, can read enough Arabic to study medicine from Arabic books. The Islamic Med- ical College in Lamu uses Arabic books48.

43 J. KNAPPERT, Islamic Legends, Leiden, Brill, 1985, vol. I, p. 23-184. ID., The QiÒaÒu}l-Anbiya}i as Moralistic Stories, in Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Stud- ies, vol. 6, London, Inst. of Archaeology 1976, p. 103∞ff. 44 ID., The Mawlid, in Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 19, 1988, p. 209-215. ID., Mi{radj in East and West Africa and Mi{radj Literature in Indonesia, in Encyclopaedia of Islam VI, p. 103-4. 45 Hemedi Abdalla el-Buhriy, Utenzi wa Sayidina Huseni, transl. John W.T. Allen, Dar es Salaam 1965, E.A. Literature Bureau. There is also an epic dealing with the exploits of Ali Bin Abu ™alib in Swahili, but the MS in Arabic script is lost. 46 J. KNAPPERT, Some Notes on the History of the Twelvers in Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 25, 1994, p. 237∞ff. 47 ID., A Swahili Islamic Prayer from Zaire, in Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 4, 1973, p. 198-207. 48 In the library of the Museum in Dar es Salaam there is a manuscript entitled Kitabu cha Tibu, ‘the Book of Medicine' compiled by Muhamadi Kijumwa of Lamu. THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA 203

(10) The most occult subject of all (more so than nr 8 above) is astrol- ogy, tanjim, which is extremely popular in all African countries, though in very different forms. A separate publication should be devoted to this subject which has lost none of its popularity even in Europe. In South Africa alone, astrologers of all races are consulted by people of all races, anxious to know their stars. Astronomy ‘proper’ is practised in a very limited form for agriculture, to calculate the right time for sowing, etc. The Swahili navigators have some knowledge of the stars which they need to sail by. They have charts, drawings showing the position of the stars but all the manuscripts I have seen on this subject, were entirely in Arabic. Precisely because it is presented as an occult science, the astrologers keep all their textbooks in Arabic, quoting from them in a mumbling monotone, to impress their clients, while they are drawing up their horoscopes49. (11) Another occult science which is, for that reason, kept in the form of Arabic manuscripts, and also because it is believed that the Arabic language has more effect, being God's own language, is talismanry, the art of writing amulets and charms, an extremely lucrative craft, which also deserves a separate publication, especially since in all the countries of Africa that are even superficially influenced by Islam, everyone, in the first place small children who need most protection against the evil spirits, wears amulets, usually a sura sewn in a sachet50.

6. The scribes and the script About some of the scribes of the manuscripts in Arabic script a great deal could be said. Here we have room for only one or two examples. In his Filon du Bonheur Eternel (Arabic title: Ma{dan as-Sa{ada)51 Alfa Ibrahim Sow gives many details of the scribes’ art, a little-known aspect of literacy in Arabic script. In Fulfulde literature, as in Swahili, the scribes had made their literary endeavours into a fine art. In both cultures, the scribe or copyist was not necessarily the same person as the poet. Many are called, few are cho-

49 See the Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. VI p. 105: Nudjum. 50 Sura 18 and 36 of the Koran are the most therapeutic texts, it is believed. For other texts see Edward LANE, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, London, Dent, 1963, p. 254. See also KNAPPERT, Swahili Islamic Poetry, Leiden, Brill, 1971, I, p. 74-5. Mtoro Bin Mwinyi BAKARI, The Customs of the Swahili People, University of California Press 1981 (Berkeley), p. 60-62; 272-273. 51 Alfa Ibrahim SOW, Le Filon du Bonheur Eternel, Classiques Africains, Armand Colin, Paris 1971, Introduction. 204 J. KNAPPERT sen: among the students of one master literateur, who would all be set copying work, one or two would later excel in ‘nature’s chief master- piece, the art of writing well’. At the end of his work the scribe would copy the poet's words: Here is the place where I complete this work. If any of you readers finds a fault Let him remove it, I will give him thanks. I shall not disagree. I'm ignorant. I did not study long nor did I read The works of the great masters of the pen. May God forgive me. Reader, pray for me, Godfearing, poor, the son of So-and-so.

In this last line the poet and/or the scribe would ask by implication for some subvention and name himself, sometimes dating his manuscript. Ibrahim Sow names some master-scribes and the towns where they taught. In Swahililand, one of the great master-scribes lived in Lamu: Muhammad b. Abu Bakari Kijuma (d. 1945)52, and in Malindi Ahmed b. Nassir is continuing the fine tradition. Several Swahili poems begin — after the invocation of God and his Prophet — with an exhortation to the scribe (the poet imagines himself dictating his poem, although most poets are known to have written their own poems) to use the best Syrian paper, the finest black and red ink, etc. See ‘Swahili Literature in Arabic Script’ by Jan Knappert, Manuscripts of the Middle East, 4, Leiden, Holland 1989, 74-84.

7. Arabic literatures in Africa Strictly speaking, Arabic falls outside the scope of this article. How- ever, the Arabic language has spread across almost half the area of the African continent, spoken by some 100 million people as a first or second lanuage in northern and western Africa, between Dakar and Suakin on the Red Sea. During this process of expansion, Arabic itself evolved, ramifying into half a dozen dialects. The following list enumerates the most important dialects with oral traditions.

52 Mohammed Ibrahim ABOUEGL, Life and Works of Muhammad b. Abubakari Kijuma, thesis, London University, 1984. THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA 205

(1) Hassaniya, the dialect of Mauritania, q.v. See especially H.T. Norris, Shingiti Folk Literature and Song, Oxford 1968. (2) Moroccan Arabic, Mogrebi or Maghribi. Folktales and other texts have been published in various subdialects of Mogrebi. See for instance, W. Marçais, Textes Arabes de Tanger, Paris 1911 (Bibliothèque de l'École des Langues Orientales Vivantes, IV). (3) Algerian Arabic. See for instance, Lévi Provençal, Textes Arabes de l'Ouargla, Thesis, Algiers 1922. (4) Shuwa Arabic, spoken in northern Nigeria. Stories in Shuwa Arabic have been published by Howard, and Patterson. (5) Tunisian Arabic. See for instance W. Marçais et Abder Rahman Guiga, Textes Arabes de Takrouna, Paris, Leroux, 1925. (6) Egyptian Arabic. This is by far the most important Arabic dialect, spoken by over fifty million people. It is also the dialect in which there is a vast amount of pupular Islamic oral traditions, some of which have been printed as pamphlets; a few have been taken down phonetically in Roman, showing the dialectal details. See especially Enno Littmann, Mohammed im Volksepos, Kobenhavn 1950. (7) Sudan Arabic. Arabic is spoken by some 14 million people in the Sudan, but it is sharply divided: real Arabic dialects in the north, and creolised Arabic in the south.

8. Problems of research in Islamic literature in Africa

When the researcher arrives in a village, and asks for manuscripts in the Arabic script, he will often be told that there are none, because it is believed (1) that he is asking for documents in the Arabic language, or (2) that he cannot be interested in those old family papers in the home language, let alone that he could read them, (3) he must be a government requisitioner or he wants to check the accounts for taxation purposes (family accounts are often written on the same papers as the religious and historical texts), or (4) he is going to sell those papers in America for a small fortune, or (5) it is feared he may treat the family heirloom with lack of respect or even with contumely. So, the researcher should never be in a hurry and scrupulously observe all the conventions of courtesy such as paying a visit to the mayor before opening negotiations about purchases. The present writer has made every one of these mistakes and more, enough to fill a book of anecdotes on researchers. No wonder then that bona fide scholars have flatly denied the existence of vernacular 206 J. KNAPPERT literatures in areas where they had worked for years as missionaries or anthropologists. Often the best thing to do for a researcher is to employ a young man to copy manuscripts for him. Usually one has to approach a senior person first, often his teacher, who will simply order his students to copy the manuscripts and give them a (small) share of the honorarium offered by the researcher. The advantage of this approach is that one does not even have to see the sacred manuscripts with one's profane eyes, and that the young scribe or his old teacher may remember passages that are lost in the text. I have seen manuscripts with pages missing, washed clean by rain, singed by fire, covered under fungus, crumpled, torn and worn, half eaten by insects or worms. Local scholars can often restore the missing words from memory.

9. Islamic languages The chief Islamic languages of Africa are the following: (An Islamic language is the language of a people who have not only become Islami- cised, but have also developed an Islamic culture uniquely their own, of which their language is the vehicle.). First in West Africa: (1) Berber is the collective name of several peoples scattered across northeastern Africa speaking related but distinct languages. The main groups are the following53: a. Berberi, or Tamazight, the language of the Imazighen in Morocco. b. Shilhi, Shuluhi or Tashelhit, spoken by the Ishelhain in Morocco. c. Kabyle, Kabili or Akbaili, spoken in north Algeria d. Tarqi, Temasheq or Tamajeq, spoken by the Twareg in S. Algeria. (2) Malinke, Mandinka (‘Mandingo’), spoken in Mali, Gambia, E. Senegal, Guinea, northern Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso; dialects: Dyula (Dioula), Bamana, Bambara, Mande (3) Fula, Fulani, Fulfulde or Peul, spoken all across the Sahel. (4) Hausa, spoken in northern Nigeria, Niger, and widely scattered. (5) Songhay and Zarma (Jerma), spoken in Niger and Burkina Faso54.

53 André BASSET, La Langue Berbère, International African Institute, London 1969, with map. 54 Dietrich WESTERMANN and M.A. BRYAN, Languages of West Africa, International African Institute, London 1952. THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA 207

In eastern Africa: (6) Somali in Somalia. This language has no literature in Arabic script. (7) Swahili all along the East Coast between Mogadishu and Mozam- bique, as well as on the islands, including Zanzibar. Certain African languages of Africa are used by a Muslim minority for their literary expression, although the majority of the speakers are not Muslims; chief amongst these are: Afrikaans in South Africa; Amharic in Ethiopia; Malagasy, the chief language of Madagascar; Oromo in Ethiopia, and in Nigeria several languages of semi-Islamicised groups. Manuscripts in Arabic script are known to have been written in the following languages: Afrikaans, Berber (see above), Dagomba (Ghana), Fulani, Harari, Hausa, Gurague (Ethiopia), Kanuri, Makua, Malagasy, Mande, Nupe, Swahili, Yoruba, Zarma55.

10. Fula Arensdorff writes in his Manuel Pratique de Langue Peulh (1913) on p. 1: “C' est l'Islam qui donna l'écriture aux foulah; ils puisèrent dans le Coran les caractères indispensables pour fixer leurs mots”. Arensdorff then proceeds to describe the traditional Fula alphabet in which a few diacritic signs have been added to the consonants (e.g. p) and two vowel signs (pp. 13-14), demonstrating that the Fula literary tradition has old and fixed conventions. Similarly, it has fixed conventions for the prosody of its extensive poetic tradition (p. 290∞ff.); specimens of poetry in Arabic script and transliteration are given. On p. 290 Arensdorff dis- tinguishes between the oral epic poetry of the praise singers and the Islamic liturgical literature which is a written tradition kept by lettrés. Little of this Islamic poetry has been published. See Haafkens (note 26) who edited a series of these hymns using both written and sung texts, some of the same poem. Many of oral poems have been edited by Dr Christiane Seydou, of Paris; here we are only concerned with the written literature, of which she gave a fine example in Christiane Seydou, “Majaado Alla gaynaali”, Poème en langue Peule du Fouta Djalon’, Cahiers d'Études Africaines Vol. VI, 24, 4, Paris/La Haie 1966, p. 643-681. On p. 643 she lists the chief publications on Peul literature. She also states there that the text of

55 For Amharic see A.J. DREWES, Islamic Literature in Central Ethipia, cyclostyled, S.O.A.S. London 1968. For Afrikaans Islamic literature see note 30 above. 208 J. KNAPPERT the poem had been given her by Alfa I. Sow, a well known authority on Peul literature. The text was written in ajami (ib., n. 2), but Mme Sey- dou does not describe the manuscript so that we do not know its age, only that it was written by a woman who lived in Telikoo in Futa Jallon; she may still be alive, since there is no indication that she lived long ago. Christian Seignobos and Henri Tourneux, in their Chronique des Peuls de Bindir (Ndjamena 1978), relate that their text was written down from a manuscript — again it is in ajami (p. 3) — which had been written only recently. The genealogy of the chiefs of Bindir was made available to them by the present head of the clan as an ‘Arabic manuscript’ though its main contents are just the names of the paternal ancestors. Here again, an African society lives on the borderline between orality and literacy, which means that the art of writing is available and known, but many texts are still exclusively entrusted to the minds of local scholars. On p. 84 the authors state: “Ajami is the writing of a language other than Arabic with Arabic characters (with some modifications). In Bindir (Tchad) the usage is kept up by certain families who write their corre- spondence in Ajami… The manuscript reproduced in this volume does not possess the beauty of certain Peul manuscripts, in particular those which have been published by A. Sow”. The MS of the chronicle is fac- similed on pp. 93-118. See also: A.I. Sow, Chroniques et Récits du Fouta Djallon, Paris, Klincksieck 1968. Ch. Seydou, Bibliographie Générale du Monde Peul, Études Nigériennes n° 43, Niamey, Institut de Recherches et Sciences Humaines 1977. Henri Tourneux, Écrire le Ful- fulde du Tchad, Annales de l'Université du Tchad n° 6, 132-142, n.d. An early text in Peul was published by Henri Gaden in La Vie d'El Hadj Omar. Qacida en Poular, Paris, Institut d'Ethnologie 1935 (Peul text by Moh. Aliou Tyam, with transcription and translation). Mme Seydou gives further details of the conventions in using Arabic script adapted for Peul in: ‘Essai d'Études Stylistique de Poèmes Peuls du Fouta Djallon’56.

56 Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Afrique Noire, tome XXIX, série B, nos 1-2, Dakar 1967, p. 192-225. Mme Seydou transliterated her texts from manuscripts in Arabic script; also her Trois Poèmes Mystiques Peuls du Fouta Djalon, in Revue des Études Islamiques XL/1, Paris 1972, p. 185, where she refers to a ms in Arabic script. See also: Paul Kazuhise EGUCHI, The Poem of Repentance (Arabic title: Shi{r at-Taubati), by Muham- madu Kaatabu, 570 lines of verse in Fulfulde (the language of the Fula or Fulbe), with English translation and a facsimile of the manuscript, written in the tradition of the Ëadiriyya fraternity. Chants Musulmans en Peul by. J. Haafkens, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1983, contains 21 poems and some prose texts in Peul. (Peul and Poular are the French names for Fulfulde above.) THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA 209

11. Berber literature Berber Literature is omitted in most works on African literatures57, yet it is quite extensive, both oral and written in Arabic and Roman scripts, both Islamic and secular in theme. There are written works dating from the sixteenth century, in Arabic script; there are also modern songs available on cassettes, of both Islamic and secular themes and genres (islan). The most active poets and singers of our time are to be found among the AÈbaila of Grande Kabylie, many now living in Algiers. The dialect of Tanger and surrounding districts of the Rif, the former Span- ish Morocco, is also used for song composition; these songs are heard nowadays in France, Belgium and Holland, where Berbers now live per- manently as ‘guest’ laborers. See Mme Galand-Pernet, Recueil de Poésie Berbère, Paris 1972. The older literature in the Tashelhiit dialect of the Sous Valley, is written on manuscripts and belongs to the Islamic tradition originating at least from c. 1550; the names of some 150 authors are known. These numerous manuscripts are difficult to read since no dictionary is available of this language which differs considerably from the modern dialects, also in style. The most important works include a sira or life of the Holy Prophet comprising over 800 pages of ms; versifications of the Asma} al-Îusna, the Most Beautiful Names of God; the TawÌid or theology, also in versified form, and works about fiqÌ (duty). The most prominent classical poet was Auzali who died c. 1750. His only published work is BaÌr al-Dumu{, translated into French by Dr Bruno Stricker under the title “L'Ocean des Pleurs”58; it belongs to the devotional and admonitive pious literature so widespread in Islamic Africa, called wa{aÂ or waÒiya in Arabic. Three volumes of manuscripts in this language, dating perhaps from the late Middle Ages, have recently come to light. (I am grateful for this information to Dr. Harry Stroomers, Leiden.)

57 The two oft quoted works, Albert GERARD, African Language Literatures (London, Longman, 1981) and ANDRZEJEWSKI, PILASZEWSKI and TYLOCH (see note 26 above) have no chapter for Berber literature (nor for Songhai). 58 See the Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. I, Leiden 1960, p. 1186. Stricker's Océan des Pleurs was published in Leiden in 1962. 210 J. KNAPPERT

12. Galla – Oromo Oromo or Galla is spoken over a large part of Ethiopia: central, western and southeastern, and in northern Kenya; it is a Cushitic language related to Somali. The Oromo speakers who number in the millions, are divided by religion: many are Christians; those who live in the Ethiopian province of Arusi are Muslims, but the vast majority still adhere to their old gods Waka (Waaqa) the Supreme Being, and Maram the goddess of childbirth and fertility. There is a wealth of oral traditions in Oromo, but very little of this has so far been published, especially the Islamic traditions are poorly repre- sented. Only two publications by Andrzejewski give oral Islamic texts. These are all connected with the veneration of the Islamic saints whose lives are narrated by the Oromo storytellers in tales full of morals and miracles, and praise poems are recited about the saints' virtues and holi- ness. See B.W. Andrzejewski, ‘Allusive Diction in Galla Hymns in Praise of Sheikh Hussein of Bale’, African Language Studies XIII, SOAS London 1972, pp. 1-31; do. ‘Sheikh Hussen of Bali in Galla Oral Traditions’, IV Congresso Internazionale di Studi Etiopici, I, Roma, Academia Nazionale dei Lincei 1974, pp. 463-480.

13. Harari The Harari language is spoken in the ancient city of Harar and its environs. Harari is a Semitic language spoken by one of the oldest peoples of Ethiopia, the first to confess Islam. Harari has an interesting Muslim literature which has been described by Enrico Cerulli, La Lin- gua e la Storia di Harar Studi Etiopici I, Roma 1936.

14. Hausa (Nigeria) By the end of the 9th/15th century, Islam was firmly established in Hausaland, and Arabic scholars were busy introducing Islamic law in the towns such as Kano and Katsina. They taught Arabic to prospective cadis at the courts of local rulers, and later, as Islam spread to the villages, to the songs of local chiefs. As Arabic script became known, it gradually came into use also for writing the Hausa language. The great impetus to use Hausa verse for the propagation of Islamic ideas came from the famous warrior Osman Dan Fodio, or Uthman ibn THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA 211

Fudi, in the end of the eighteenth century. He was a poet as well as a statesmen and he encouraged scholars at his court to compose literature in African languages, first in Fula, his own language, soon also in Hausa. Originally, the majority of poems in Hausa were praise songs for local rulers, but gradually it was agreed that only the Prophet Muham- mad deserved supernatural descriptions and eulogies. After this panegyric, madahu, the learned poets began to write wa}azi, admonitions in verse. These included warnings for the tortures that the sinners would undergo in Hell, described in shrill colours by the poets, who based their works on Arabic sources. Then, they argued, in order to avoid these suf- ferings after death, their readers should live a life of prayer and absten- tion from lust in this world. The first writer of wa}azi verse in Hausa was Abdullah bin Muham- mad who died c. 1829, after writing a poem on death. He also wrote a versified Sira or biography of the Prophet Muhammad. Wa}azi was also written by Muhammad Tukur, who lived in the same period as Abdul- lah. One of the early Hausa poets was a woman, daughter of the ruler: Asma Bint Shehu Usman Bin Fodio. She wrote a long poem in praise of the Prophet Muhammad. Asim Degel (fl.c.1845) was the fourth known Hausa poet of the Islamic tradition. Buhari Dan Gidalo was the first Sufi poet; he flourished c. 1890. Sufiism came to northern Nigeria from Morocco as well as from Egypt, via the Islamic religious centres of the Sahara. Of the Sufi orders, the powerful Qadiriyya is almost ubiquitous in Africa, from Morocco to West Africa, Zaire, Kenya, Somalia and Egypt. The Tijaniyya is a tariqa which started in Algeria and became very popular among the Fulani under Al Hajj Omar. It spread in Hausa- land in the late nineteenth century, where it became a regular feature in literature, witness the following lines from Aliyu Dan Sidi, Emir of Zaria, who flourished in the early years of the 20th century. Tijani, we belong to you, For the sake of your blessedness, take us all, We are your community, all of us, Take us to our leader (the Prophet Muhammad), all, To Ahmad (Muhammad) our leader, full of grace. (See Mervyn Hiskett, A History of Hausa Islamic Verse, 1975, p. 78.) Another nineteenth century poet, born in Sokoto, wrote on tauhidi, theology, in verse. His name is Malam Usuman, imam of Miga. Here are a few lines from Mu san samuwar Jalla “Know the existence of the Glorious God”, a Hausa theodicee: 212 J. KNAPPERT

If He did not exist in essence Then we would not see the heavens and the earth And the created beings, they would not exist. Just as a pot could not exist, If the potter had not made it.

The tradition of Hausa Islamic verse is very much alive today. Here is a stanza from a madahu by a contemporary poet, Aliyu Na Mangi of Zaria: My Lord! I intend this song To praise him without vain pretence. Help me, give me zeal To compose an eloquent song To praise him without error.

15. Malagasy Madagascar is one of the largest islands of the world. With 587 000 square km, it is larger than France and Belgium together. Its population, however, is only 11 million, with nearly one million Muslims, some in the southeast, another group in the north of the island, around the port town of Majunga. In this latter region, Islam was imported mainly from the Comores and from the Swahili coast of Africa. Those ‘importers’ were traders, who brought with them the Shafeitic school of Islam and introduced numerous loanwords into the Malagasy language, mainly for the items they imported, such as trade goods, metals, precious stones, food plants, animals and concepts of Islamic cosmology. On the east coast of the island, however, the art of writing was introduced in the late Middle Ages; it is preserved in three towns: Manan- jary, Manakara, and Vohipeno; the first of these towns is the capital of the Antambahaoka division of Madagascar. For centuries these people have been isolated from the centres of Islamic culture, but recently contact has been restored. See: Gabriel Fer- rand, ‘Prières et Invocations Magiques en Malgache Sud-Oriental’, Actes du XIVe Congres International des Orientalistes, Paris 1906, pp. 1-34. Gabriel Ferrand, Les Musulmans à Madagascar et aux Iles Comores, Paris I-III, 1891-190259. See also: Révérends Pères Soury-

59 Also: Gabriel FERRAND, Un Texte Arabico-Malgache du XVIe Siècle, Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1904. Ludvig MUNTHE, La Tradition Arabico-Malgache vue à tra- vers le manuscrit A-6 d'Oslo et d'autres Manuscrits disponibles, Oslo 1978. ID., La Tra- dition écrite Arabico-Malgache. Un aperçu sur les manuscrits existants, in Bulletin of the THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA 213

Lavergne et de la Devèze, S.J., in Anthropos XIII, 1918, pp. 395-418 (Fribourg). It seems that, since the Malagasy language is fairly homogeneous across the island, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Arabic script was spreading rapidly as a means of communication and preserva- tion of Islamic and other literature. However, in 1820, Christian missionaries started their activities, introducing the Roman script and translating the Bible into Malagasy. Literacy spread rapidly in the new alphabet.

16. Mande “Bambara, Maninka and Mandinka, spoken mainly in Mali, Guinea- Conakry, Senegal and the Gambia, along with Dyula in Ivory Coast and some other northern Mande Languages, have in recent years come to be regarded by linguists not as separate languages, but as regional varieties of a single language, to which linguists have given the name Manding.” See Gordon Innes, “Literatures in the Mande and Neighbouring Lan- guages”, in: B.W. Andrzejewski, S. Pilaszewicz and W. Tyloch, Litera- tures in African Languages, Warszawa-Cambridge 1985, p. 100. One of the first publications of Mande literature of the ‘great’ oral tradition was edited by Diango Cissé and Massa Makan Diabete: La Dispersion des Mandeka, Bamako 1970. It is an account of the early history of the Manding expansion which was linked to the expansion of Islam in West Africa and the history of the hero-king Sunjata. See Mervyn Hiskett, The Development of Islam in West Africa, London 1984, p. 28-9. A text was also published by Lassana Doucoure and Madame Marta, Soundiata, Centre Régional pour la Documentation de la Tradition Orale, Niamey, Institut des Sciences Humaines du Mali, sine dato. Text in Bambara with interlinear translation. Another important text edition of this epic is L'Empire du Mali. Un Récit de Wa Kamissako de Krina, enregistré, traduit et annoté par Youssouf Tata Cissé. Fondation SCOA 1975. Rex Moser, Foregrounding in the Sunjata. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1974, gives full text and translation. Other epic texts have been published by G. Dumestre: La Geste de Segou: Textes de Griots Bambara. Paris 1974 (Thesis).

School of Oriental and African Studies 40, pt 1, 1977. ID., Le Manuscrit Arabico-Mal- gache HB-4 à Paris, in Acta Orientalia 38, Copenhagen 1977. 214 J. KNAPPERT

It is clear from the literature cited above, that the vast majority of literary works in the Mande dialects are publications of oral traditions. Only a few manuscripts in the Arabic script have come to light, fewer have been published. One manuscript in Mandingo in Arabic script, written in the late nineteenth century was published by M.M. Schaffer, ‘Pakao Book, an Intro- duction to the Pakao Expansion and Social Structure by Virtue of an indigenous Manuscript’, African Languages / Langues Africaines 2, 1976, pp. 32-59. Manuscripts in Arabic script in the Bambara dialect have been reported as lodged in the public archives at Niamey in Niger and at Tim- buctoo in Mali. They await their editors. Professor Gordon Innes published three volumes of Mandinka epic poetry in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of Lon- don, viz. Sunjata, Three Mandinka Versions (1974): Kaabu and Fuladu, Historical Narratives of the Gambian Mandinka (1976), and Kelefa Saane, His Career Recounted by two Mandinka Bards (1978). Although these narratives in verse hail from the pre-Islamic period, there are numerous allusions in them to Islamic beliefs and practices, for the Mandinka have been Muslims for centuries. I have discussed one Islamic passage in Journal for Islamic Studies n° 10, Johannesburg 1990, p. 128-9.

17. South Africa There are some 25∞000∞000 people in South Africa, of whom 56% are Christians and less than 2% are Muslims. Less than 10∞000 of these are black Muslims, whose languages are Zulu and Makua60. There is a Koran translation in Zulu. The largest Muslim group are the Indians, mainly from Gujerat and the Punjab; they number some 160∞000. As a result of the high standards of education among the Indians in Africa, most of them are fluent in English (they do not speak it with an ‘Indian’ accent), and use Gujerati only as the home language. Young Muslims learn Urdu in school as their language of culture and literature, but they read all their Islamic literature in English, including fiqh-books, prayer manuals and theology.

60 Makua is spoken in northeastern Mozambique, on the coast. There is a manuscript in Arabic script in this language in the School of Oriental and African Studies; it dates from c. 1810 and has never been published. THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA 215

The only original Islamic literature in South Africa arose in the nineteenth century and was written in Afrikaans in Arabic script, making Afrikaans the only European language to have been regularly used for a literature in Arabic script. Today the Afrikaans speaking Muslims are so well educated that they can all write Afrikaans in the modern standard orthography in Roman. These Muslims of the Cape Province used to be referred to as the “Cape Malays” since some of their ancestors were brought to South Africa some three hundred years ago from Java (not from Malaysia). They belong therefore to the Shafe'i school, whereas the Indian Muslims of Natal belong to the Hanafi school. The two groups have very different customs. Afrikaans literature in Arabic script is extant in a large number of manuscripts, all dating from after 1860; the oldest mss were written by and for Hanafi Afrikaans speaking Muslims. See Knappert in the Jour- nal of the Royal Asiatic Society 4, 1980, p. 189.

18. Swahili It is not easy, after 40 years of study, to summarize one's subject in three pages. Swahili literature is one of the richest literary cultures in the whole of Africa, and Swahili Islamic literature, as a part of the whole, is richer than all the other Islamic literary traditions in Africa, unless, of course, some unknown hoards of manuscripts in Arabic script are discovered in West Africa61. Swahili Islamic literature commenced with the translation of the Hamziya of Al-BuÒiri into archaeic Swahili in 1652 AD.62 The manuscript, now in the School of Oriental and African Studies at London, is dated and the poet names himself as Aidarusi. The sophisticated metre of the poem demonstrates that its author had a long tradition of versifi- cation at his fingertips. Of that we have only some relics of songs from the pre-Islamic period, fascinating, but historically uncertain63. The next three texts are epic poems, all composed in the eighteenth century, all centered round the person of the Prophet Muhammad. The earliest of these is the so-called Herekali or Heraklios, i.e. the epic of the Expedition to Tabook, Swahili Tambuka, against the Byzantine king

61 See further down. 62 J. KNAPPERT, The Hamziya Deciphered, in African Language Studies IX, London, S.O.A.S., 1968, p. 55. 63 ID., Four Centuries of Swahili Verse, London 1979, 1988, chapter 3; ID., Epic Poetry in Swahili and Other African Languages, Leiden, Brill, 1983, chapter six. 216 J. KNAPPERT

Heraklios64. The poet names himself as Mwengo Bin Athumani; he lived at the court of the sultans of Pate, who commissioned him to compose the poem. It is dated 1141/1728 on the oldest ms. The second poem is an imitation of the Herakali, but lacks the great composition, the truly epic language, the brilliant imagery. It may be dated c. 176065. It describes the expedition of the Prophet Muhammad against a hea- then tyrant called Ëa†irifu in Swahili, from the Arabic Al-Ghi†rif, who adores a wicked woman who demands Ali's head as dowry before agree- ing to marry him. The liturgical poetry has been described and published in Knappert, Swahili Islamic Poetry, 3 vols, Leiden, E.J. Brill 1971. This work contains several versions of the text of the Maulidi celebrations commemo- rating the life and death of the Prophet. The lyrical poetry has been anthologized and translated in Knappert, A Choice of Flowers, An Anthology of Swahili Love Songs, London, Heinemann 1972. There are numerous allusions to Islamic ideas, customs and beliefs in these very popular songs. The mythology of Islamic literature with particular reference to Africa has been collected in Knappert, Islamic Legends, publ. E.J. Brill, Leiden 1985. This work is intended to serve as background information, as a handbook for the student of Islamic works. A general literary work surveying the history of the Swahili people and their literature can be found in Four Centuries of Swahili Verse, by Jan Knappert, 2nd ed., London, DARF 1988. The utenzi or tendi poetry, that is the epic and didactic verse in Swahili, has been described and exemplified in Knappert, Traditional Swahili Poetry, Leiden, E.J. Brill 1967. An analysis of the cosmology of East African Islam. The dua, hymns or sung prayers in Swahili, perhaps the finest poetry their poets have ever composed, has been collected in my Religious Songs of the Swahili, which is still waiting for a publisher. A survey of narrative verse in Africa can be found in Knappert, Epic Poetry in Swahili and Other African Languages, Leiden, E.J. Brill 1983. The famous tarabu songs (taarabu is not correct) have been illus- trated in Knappert, ‘Swahili Tarabu Songs’, Africa und Uebersee, LX, 1/2, Hamburg 1977, p. 116-155.

64 J. KNAPPERT, Het Epos van Heraklios, thesis, Leiden 1958. 65 ID., The Utenzi wa Katirifu or Ghazwa ya Sesebani, in Afrika und Übersee LII, 3/4, Hamburg 1969, p. 81. THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA 217

Very popular is the celebration of the Prophet Muhammad's nativity during which specially composed kasidas and epic legends, are recited or sung; both the feast and the recital are called maulidi ‘birth’, see notes 44, 66, 68 and p. 218. Perhaps the finest religious poems in Swahili are the elegies (malalamiko, see the Encyclopaedia of Islam under martha), in honour of recently deceased men of merit (rarely of women). Wedding songs, nyimbo za ndoa, are composed freely by local poets often using lines from traditional songs, and are sung at every wedding, wishing God's blessing and a fruitful marriage upon the couple; these songs accompany numerous ceremonies. Lyrical songs, if in one of two traditional metres, are often referred to as tarabu songs (the form taarab is incorrect; the Arabic word is †arb ‘entertainment’). Their theme is love, for a sweetheart or for parents, or for a child. A frequent topic is a man's complaint about his girlfriend's unfaithfulness. These themes are also common in Arabic and Urdu radio songs; several popular Swahili songs are taken from Indian film songs. By far the most frequent metre in Swahili is the utenzi (tendi) with stanzas of 4≈8 syllables. It is much in use for didactic poems, easy for boys to put to memory, concerning the duties of Òalat, Òawm, obedience to parents, to one's mu{allim etc. More interesting for the lover of literature are the 72 epic songs in Swahili, more than half of which sing his- toric legends, didactic chronicles of the sacred history of Islam in verse, extolling the exploits of Ali b. Abu Talib and his heroic contemporaries Abu Bakr, Omar, Miqdad, Khalid b. Alwalid, and, of course, Husayn b. Ali, who perished in the sad battle of Kerbala. This Islamic epic poetry is a strongly living tradition; the poems are only written down to be memorised and recited or sung by trained singers, waimbaji. The many hymns composed for the purpose of recitation during the weeklong celebrations of the Maulidi (Mawlid)66, the commemoration of the birthday and the death of the Prophet Muhammad form a link between the narrative and the liturgical, between the epic and the panegyric poetry. The second great kasida, praise poem for Nabii Muhammad, after the Hamziya, was the Hymn on the Scroll, now in the library of Trinity Col-

66 ID., Swahili Islamic Poetry, Leiden 1971, vol. III. 218 J. KNAPPERT lege, Dublin, in the Mombasa dialect. This hymn has been published in full, with translation67. The first datable Maulidi was composed by the great Sheikh Muhiud- dini ËaÌ†ani (1798-1869), who was Shafeitic cadi of Zanzibar during the 1850's and a great scholar, not only of law, but a historian as well as an author in both Arabic and Swahili. He was born in Lamu and died there. He also composed the oldest known Miiraji, a poem celebrating the Prophet Muhammad's ascension to Heaven, which is recited annually on the 27th of Rajab, after the Òalat al {isha} 68. The next great author of the Islamic tradition in Swahili, Sh. Man- sabu, was born in Lamu in 1828 and died there in 1922; he too was Shafeitic cadi at Zanzibar and later in Lamu. His splendid tomb on Lamu island bears his name and dates. His most famous works are a Maulidi and the Kishamia69 on Muhammads's robe. We know much less about the poet Sayidi Abdullah Bin Ali Bin Nasir, who composed the famous poem Inkishafi, c. 1820, lamenting the ruins of his beloved city of Pate, once a sultanate dominating the other Swahili towns. From this common theme the poet then goes on to exhort his readers to lead modest lives of virtue, preparing themselves for Heaven70. Ahmad Basheikh Husein (Mombasa 1909-1961) was the last great poet of this early Islamic tradition. His grand-nephew Ahmad Nassir Juma Bhalo continues the tradition with brilliance.

19. Wolof The Wolof people in Senegal have been Muslims for centuries. Their language has been reduced to writing in Arabic script, though sofar only a limited number of manuscripts has come to light. Writings in Wolof in Ajami script are referred to as Wolofal; this literature only came into being in the nineteenth century. Great poets of the past whose names are still famous are: El-Hadji Abdoul Aziz Sy, El-Hadji Ibrahim Niasse, Moussa Ka, El-Hadji Ahmadu Bamba Mbacke and Khali Madiakhate

67 ID., The Discovery of a Lost Swahili Manuscript from the Eighteenth Century, in African Language Studies X, London, S.O.A.S., 1969, p. 1-30. 68 Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. VI, p. 103, art. Mi{radj. 69 Ernst DAMMAN, Dichtung in der Lamu Mundart des Suaheli, Hamburg 1940 (Han- sische Universität), p. 276. 70 William HICHENS, ed., The Inkishafi, London, SPCK, 1939; see J. KNAPPERT, Four Centuries (see n. 63), p. 243-263 for Ahmad Basheikh, and op. cit., p. 287-310 for Ahmad Nassir Juma Bhalo. THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA 219

Kala. See Bamba Diop, Lat Dior et l'Islam Suivi de la doctrine sociale de Mouhamadou Bamba. Bruxelles, Les Arts Graphiques, s.d. Moussa Ka, Ma Dyema Burati, transcrit et traduit en Français par Bassirou Cissé, Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Afrique Noire, Serie B, 30 (3), 847-860, Dakar 1968. Amar Samb, ‘L'Influence de l'Islam sur la Lit- térature Wolof’, Bulletin de l'IFAN, Série B 30 (2), 628-641, 1968. Amar Samb , ‘Jaaraama, Un Poème Wolof de Moussa Ka, transcrit et traduit’, Bulletin de l'IFAN XXXI (B) 3, pp. 592-612, Dakar 1974. Mbye B. Cham, ‘Islam in Senegalese Literature and Film’, in: Kenneth W. Harrow, Faces of Islam in African Literature, Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH, 1991, pp. 163-186. Most modern Senegalese writers write French, or write secular literature in Wolof in Roman script. We have as yet no catalogue of works in Wolof in Arabic script, not even of the manuscripts, so that we know little about the contents, except in general terms. Most Wolof Islamic literature deals with the rules and duties of life, the saints, the prophets, and especially the life and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. Most published works are essays about Wolof literature, or new works in which style and content revive the old tradition.

Conclusion It is clear from the material presented that our information is very uneven. On some subjects, such as Peul (Poular)71 and Swahili72 many more entries could be added to our bibliography, whereas for other languages such as Tamachegh73, or Kanuri74 only a few words or a single poem are known to have been written in Arabic script. In other lan-

71 Abdallah Adam writes in his beautiful collection Ehrzählungen in Fulfulde, Berlin 1913, with fifty pages of Arabic script: “The Fulbe prefer Arabic script.” (p. IX). Mention should also be made of Le Filon du Bonheur Eternel by Tierno Mouhammadou-Samba Mombéyâ (Classique Africains, Paris 1971) with 33 pages of text printed in Arabic script in Fulfulde. Henri GADEN, Le Poular, Paris, Leroux, 1913, gives specimens of Arabic script; Pierre François LACROIX, Poésie Peule de l'Adamawa (Classiques Africains, Paris 1965), explains the history of the Fulfulde Islamic literature, p. 25∞ff. 72 KNAPPERT, Epic Poetry in Swahili and Other African Languages, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1983, Introduction. 73 Henry T. NORRIS, The Tuaregs, Warminster 1965, p. 213 shows a page of Arabic script with glosses in Tamachegh (See p. 122). 74 P.A. BENTON, The Languages and Peoples of Bornu, London 1968. R. PRIETZE, Bornu Texte, in Mitteilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen, Berlin 33, 1930, p. 82-159. 220 J. KNAPPERT guages with Islamic cultures such as Songhay75 there are epic poems in a rich oral tradition76, which causes me to suspect that there might also be a written tradition hidden away (see below, and p. 205-6). Because no researcher has asked about it yet, no one has been told that it exists. Again: whereas printed literature is for publicity, handwritten literature is for private use, like personal accounts and letters to friends. Another aspect of this question is that in all Islamic countries, the international language is Arabic, whereas the regional language is not supposed to be known to anyone except native speakers77. When I applied for a grant to go and search for Swahili MSS, in 1958, Lyndon Harries said none would be found. In 1964 I had collected 300, and J.W.T. Allen found another 200 in 1964-7. This proves that wher- ever a systematic search was undertaken, success has come. It is no coincidence that rich collections have been found in English speaking countries (Kenya and Nigeria) and very little in the vast French speaking countries of Islamic West Africa. In these latter areas the available African literature is mostly published in French translation, whereas text publications date only from the last twenty years. The educational system produced excellent authors in the French language and none in their own language. All these considerations make it probable that a systematic search in “French-speaking” Africa will yield a rich harvest of manuscripts in Arabic script in the languages of West Africa.

Postscript After completing this article I received a delayed letter from Dr F. Mounkaila of the University of Niger at Niamey in which she summarizes her visit to the librarian of the Niger Institut de Recherches en Sciences Humaines at Niamey. The Institute possesses hundreds of manuscripts in Hausa and Fulani (Fulfulde), but only three in Zarma (Djerma) and a few in Kanuri and Tamajak (Tamachek). The librarian knew of other manuscripts but was confronted “by the systematic refusal by families which possess numerous manuscripts but decline to donate or even to lend them to the Institute because they regard them as a family heir-

75 John O. HUNWICK, ‘The Recovery of African Language Material from Arabic Chronicles: the Songhay Case’, paper read at SOAS, London, 15th May 1969, lists the Songhay words gleaned from medieval West African chronicles in Arabic. 76 Fatima MOUNKAILA, Le Mythe et l'Histoire dans la Geste de Zabarkane, Thesis, University of Dakar 1985. 77 A national language like Urdu in Pakistan may be known to foreigners, but a regional language like Sindhi, would only be expected to be known in Sindh; see for its literature Annemarie SCHIMMEL, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Univ. of California 1975, p. 74-5, 383-402. THE ISLAMIC LITERATURES OF AFRICA 221 loom.” The contents of the texts are in majority praises for the Prophet Muham- mad and his religion, texts which are intended for the diffusion of Islam. This report confirms my most optimistic forecasts. (See p. 220). On the other hand, it is to be hoped that said families will keep those treasured clan documents in good condition. Sad experience in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and India has shown that in spite of pious assurances the heirs of such priceless manuscripts will often neglect them or even lose them. The report also demonstrates how much work remains to be done in collect- ing (with love and money), cataloguing, editing, translating, collating on the basis of age, author, subject, language and provenance. The librarian added that he knew of manuscripts in Arabic script being kept at Tombouctou in Mali, in the Songhay, Bambara and Soninke languages. This already adds up to MSS in eight language in two countries, the result of a casual, non-systematic query. This little information already promises years of study and editing work to a team of researchers, to say nothing of the added knowledge regarding lexicography, cultures and religion. Recently an unknown manuscript of the Utenzi wa Kutawafu was discovered in a village near the town of Mozambique, by Professor Rzewuski from War- saw, while he was doing research near the coast. He sent me some pages which I identified as being the first part of this Utenzi. Later he sent me the entire MS in photostat copy asking me to publish it. There are three separate utenzi poems in the ms, the other two being the Mke wa Msikitini ‘The Woman in the Mosque’, a tale set during the life of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina, the other is the Utenzi wa Musa The Epic of God's revelation to the Prophet Moses. Both these poems were unknown, but the Utenzi wa Musa is a major discovery. I knew of its existence but had given up hope of it ever coming to light. I hope to publish it in the near future. The Kutawafu in this ms adds little to our knowledge of the text. It was written by a young, inexperienced scribe who could hardly spell, so that the text is illegible without reference to Allen's edition. The handwriting is clumsy; it was done with a roughly cut kalamu. A few lines only present interesting alternant readings.

c/o M.R. Watkinson J. KNAPPERT 51 Granby Avenue Harpenden, Herts. AL5 5QP (England)