Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Note on Transliteration and Calendar
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Where have we been and where are we going in the Study of Islamic Scholarship in Africa?
- Part I History, Movement, and Islamic Scholarship
- Introduction
- 1 The African Roots of a Global Eighteenth-Century Islamic Scholarly Renewal
- 2 Muḥammad al-Kashnāwī and the Everyday Life of the Occult
- 3 The African Community and African ‘Ulamā’ in Mecca: Al-Jāmī and Muḥammad Surūr al-Ṣabbān (Twentieth Century)
- 4 The Transformation of the Pilgrimage Tradition in West Africa
- Part II Textuality, Orality, and Islamic Scholarship
- Introduction
- 5 ‘Those Who Represent the Sovereign in his Absence’: Muslim Scholarship and the Question of Legal Authority in the Pre-Modern Sahara (Southern Algeria, Mauritania, Mali), 1750–1850
- 6 Philosophical Sufism in the Sokoto Caliphate: The Case of Shaykh Dan Tafa
- 7 ‘If all the Legal Schools were to Disappear’: ʿUmar Tāl’s Approach to Jurisprudence in Kitāb al-Rimāḥ
- 8 A New African Orality? Tijānī Sufism, Sacred Knowledge and the ICTs in Post-Truth Times
- 9 The Sacred Text in Egypt’s Popular Culture: The Qur’ānic Sounds, the Meanings and Formation of Sakīna Sacred Space in Traditions of Poverty and Fear
- Part III Islamic Education
- Introduction
- 10 Modernizing the Madrasa: Islamic Education, Development, and Tradition in Zanzibar
- 11 A New Daara: Integrating Qur’ānic, Agricultural and Trade Education in a Community Setting
- 12 Islamic Education and the ‘Diaspora’: Religious Schooling for Senegalese Migrants’ Children
- 13 What does Traditional Islamic Education Mean? Examples from Nouakchott’s Contemporary Female Learning Circles
- Part IV ‘Ajamī, Knowledge Transmission, and Spirituality
- Introduction
- 14 Bringing ʿIlm to the Common People: Sufi Vernacular Poetry and Islamic Education in Brava, c. 1890–1959
- 15 A Senegalese Sufi Saint and ‘Ajamī Poet: Sëriñ Moor Kayre (1874–1951)
- 16 Praise and Prestige: The Significance of Elegiac Poetry among Muslim Intellectuals on the Late Twentieth-Century Kenya Coast
- Conclusion: The Study of Islamic Scholarship and the Social Sciences in Africa: Bridging Knowledge Divides, Reframing Narratives
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
16 - Praise and Prestige: The Significance of Elegiac Poetry among Muslim Intellectuals on the Late Twentieth-Century Kenya Coast
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2021
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Note on Transliteration and Calendar
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Where have we been and where are we going in the Study of Islamic Scholarship in Africa?
- Part I History, Movement, and Islamic Scholarship
- Introduction
- 1 The African Roots of a Global Eighteenth-Century Islamic Scholarly Renewal
- 2 Muḥammad al-Kashnāwī and the Everyday Life of the Occult
- 3 The African Community and African ‘Ulamā’ in Mecca: Al-Jāmī and Muḥammad Surūr al-Ṣabbān (Twentieth Century)
- 4 The Transformation of the Pilgrimage Tradition in West Africa
- Part II Textuality, Orality, and Islamic Scholarship
- Introduction
- 5 ‘Those Who Represent the Sovereign in his Absence’: Muslim Scholarship and the Question of Legal Authority in the Pre-Modern Sahara (Southern Algeria, Mauritania, Mali), 1750–1850
- 6 Philosophical Sufism in the Sokoto Caliphate: The Case of Shaykh Dan Tafa
- 7 ‘If all the Legal Schools were to Disappear’: ʿUmar Tāl’s Approach to Jurisprudence in Kitāb al-Rimāḥ
- 8 A New African Orality? Tijānī Sufism, Sacred Knowledge and the ICTs in Post-Truth Times
- 9 The Sacred Text in Egypt’s Popular Culture: The Qur’ānic Sounds, the Meanings and Formation of Sakīna Sacred Space in Traditions of Poverty and Fear
- Part III Islamic Education
- Introduction
- 10 Modernizing the Madrasa: Islamic Education, Development, and Tradition in Zanzibar
- 11 A New Daara: Integrating Qur’ānic, Agricultural and Trade Education in a Community Setting
- 12 Islamic Education and the ‘Diaspora’: Religious Schooling for Senegalese Migrants’ Children
- 13 What does Traditional Islamic Education Mean? Examples from Nouakchott’s Contemporary Female Learning Circles
- Part IV ‘Ajamī, Knowledge Transmission, and Spirituality
- Introduction
- 14 Bringing ʿIlm to the Common People: Sufi Vernacular Poetry and Islamic Education in Brava, c. 1890–1959
- 15 A Senegalese Sufi Saint and ‘Ajamī Poet: Sëriñ Moor Kayre (1874–1951)
- 16 Praise and Prestige: The Significance of Elegiac Poetry among Muslim Intellectuals on the Late Twentieth-Century Kenya Coast
- Conclusion: The Study of Islamic Scholarship and the Social Sciences in Africa: Bridging Knowledge Divides, Reframing Narratives
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
Summary
Introduction
Swahili poetry was used for various functions which included, inter alia, social functions, political activities and inculcating and disseminating Sufi tradition. During the funeral ceremonies of prominent intellectuals, elegiac poetry was recited by their peers paying tribute to their departed fellows. A salient feature of the poetic heritage on the Kenya coast is Muslim women's contribution in composing poems. This chapter explores these poetical trajectories and highlights patterns of poetical heritage on the late twentieth-century Kenya coast.
The main argument of this chapter is premised on the fact that poetic culture, particularly elegiac poems, is considered to be a cultural asset among ʿulamā’ on the Kenya coast. It was transmitted through an intellectual chain that passed from one generation to the next, which ensured continuity of their cultural heritage over time. Elegiac poems composed by learners reflected adoration of their mentors who represented the apex of literary heritage along the Kenya coast. The mentor– learner connection served as a breeding forum to mentor as well as ‘manufacture’ future poets. This chapter shows examples of intellectually linked scholars-cumpoets and illustrates some of their poetical works.
‘Ulamā’ on the Kenya coast, particularly the traditionalist ‘Alawiyya scholars, revered poetic culture that seemed to be part and parcel of their daily intellectual life. This chapter focuses on the poetical works of ‘Alawiyya scholars and their students, who established a scholarly network that formed a constellation of reputed poets linked by an intellectual chain on the Kenya coast giving examples of various poems composed by the ‘Alawiyya ‘ulamā’. These ‘ulamā’-cumpoets were born and bred locally albeit their masterly poetical skills in composing artistic poems of high degree were recognised and admired by their peers along the Kenya coast and beyond. The chapter will highlight the traditionalist ‘Alawiyya poets, who enjoyed considerable prestige in the poetic culture on the Kenya coast. The chapter will illustrate examples of elegiac poems composed by two renowned ‘Alawiyya ‘ulamā’, Sayyid Ali Badawī and Ustāḍ Muḥammad b. Saʿīd al-Biḍ, who are arguably among the most profound writers of poems and prose along the Kenya coast. In addition to the ‘Alawiyya ‘ulamā’, the chapter will also demonstrate the dwindling role of the reformist Salafī ‘ulamā’ in the poetical culture on the Kenya coast.
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- Islamic Scholarship in AfricaNew Directions and Global Contexts, pp. 384 - 406Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021