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Strung Pearls: A Poem from the Swahili-Arabic Text

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

The Swahili poet, Sayyid 'Umar bin Amin bin 'Umar bin Amin bin Nadhir al-Ahdal, Kadhi of Siu, c.a.d. 1856, left a number of poems upon religious themes. These include the best acrostic poems in traditional Swahili literature, e.g. Waji-waji, written in takhmis verse-form.

The title of the present work is given in the last verse: ya dura mandhuma, a Swahili form of the Arabic al-Durr al-Manẓum, or ‘Strung Pearls’. The manuscript copy, pasted on two pieces of cardboard, was written by Muhammad Abubakar bin 'Umar al-Bakariy, better known as Muhammad Kijuma, the well-known Swahili poet and scribe at Lamu, who produced most of his best work in the first two decades of the present century.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1953

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References

1 See my article, ‘A Poem from Siu’, BSOAS xiii. 759.Google Scholar

2 Manuscript No. 53500, Library of SOAS.