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Arabic Materials in the Government Archives of Zanzibar*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2014
Extract
This paper results from two visits to the Archives at Zanzibar in 1975 and 1976, lasting in all approximately three weeks. Access to these archives has not been an easy matter for some time, though more recently a few scholars have been able to secure permission to use them. This paper is an examination solely of the Arabic materials in the Archives, and may be of use to those who intend to use the Archives, particularly non-Arabic-speaking scholars.
The collection was originally housed in the museum of Bayt al-Amānī before it was moved to its present site, a modern building centrally situated on the main road to the airport. There is a large reading room with an open shelf library containing various studies on Zanzibar, Zanzibar government publications, and a newspaper collection. Other documents are available on request from stacks housed in the lower part of the building. Regretably, however, no photocopying facilities are presently available. Copies of an inventory prepared in 1954 may be consulted in the reading room.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © African Studies Association 1978
Footnotes
*
I was afforded the opportunity to use the Zanzibar Archives while a member of the Department of History of the University of Dar es Salaam, to whom I wish to express my gratitude.
References
NOTES
1. Interest on bank deposits is considered by the very devout as equivalent to riba (usury) and is deprecated.
2. The dates on the above letters suggest that the Sultan delayed his reply to the Germans in hopes of first hearing from Smith.
3. Khalifa to Smith, 19 December 1888; ibid to ibid., 20 March 1889; ibid to [ibid?], 22 October 1889.
4. The appellation ‘Maghribī’ illustrates the north African or Mauritanian origin of this scholar. The practice of pilgram-scholars' taking up residence at places other than their original homes was commonplace.
5. Sultan Barghash (1870-1888) had his own press which specialized in printing Ibadi religious and legal texts.
6. This view is expressed by Zanzibaris now residing on the coast. Martin, B.G., “Notes on Some Members of the Learned Classes of Zanzibar and East Africa in the Nineteenth Century,” African Historical Studies, 4(1971), p. 545CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that the Comoro Islands is now almost “a second Zanzibar” since the expulsion of Comorians from Zanzibar in 1968.
7. Cooper, Frederick, “Plantation Slavery of the East Coast of Africa in the Nineteenth Century,” PhD, Yale, 1974, p. 444Google Scholar, refers to a similar corpus of material in the records of the Kenya Land Office in Mombasa. From his description it would seem that the Zanzibar materials are far more abundant.
8. This does not appear to be the general rule for shambas; sometimes in fact even the number of clove and/or coconut trees is given in the documents.