Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations and maps
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The roots of a tradition, 800–1500
- 2 The emergence of a tradition, 900–1500
- 3 A northern metamorphosis, 1500–1800
- 4 Town Islam and the umma ideal
- 5 Wealth, piety, justice, and learning
- 6 The Zanzibar Sultanate, 1812–88
- 7 New secularism and bureaucratic centralization
- 8 A new literacy
- 9 The early colonial era, 1885–1914
- 10 Currents of popularism and eddies of reform
- Notes
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - The Zanzibar Sultanate, 1812–88
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations and maps
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The roots of a tradition, 800–1500
- 2 The emergence of a tradition, 900–1500
- 3 A northern metamorphosis, 1500–1800
- 4 Town Islam and the umma ideal
- 5 Wealth, piety, justice, and learning
- 6 The Zanzibar Sultanate, 1812–88
- 7 New secularism and bureaucratic centralization
- 8 A new literacy
- 9 The early colonial era, 1885–1914
- 10 Currents of popularism and eddies of reform
- Notes
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
So far, this book has depicted the evolution of coastal culture up to the late eighteenth century. Attention has been focused more narrowly on East African coastal Islam as a religion which was fixed in this wider cultural framework. The remainder of this work will demonstrate how this cultural and religious edifice was reduced to relative unimportance in the early history of the modern East African nations. What this entails, especially, is an analysis which centres on one overriding problem: how did the gradual imposition of the Busaidi Sultanate at Zanzibar and European imperialism affect culture and Islam on the coast in the nineteenth century?
THE POLITICAL SITUATION, 1698–1888
To appreciate better the cultural and religious changes which took place under the Busaidi Sultanate, a summary of political developments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is useful at this juncture. However, since such an undertaking is helpful solely as a way of further illuminating cultural and religious history, only the barest description is needed. The reader who is interested in greater (and perhaps more precise) detail is referred to some of the works by Bennett, Coupland, Gray, Nicholls, and Ylvisaker listed in the bibliography.
With the temporary eclipsing of Mombasa in the sixteenth century, Pate became the greatest Swahili power on the coast. Nevertheless, the Portuguese remained as great a problem for Pate as they had been for Mombasa.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Horn and CrescentCultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African Coast, 800–1900, pp. 97 - 124Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987