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The East African Swahili
coast was a wealthy and advanced region, which consisted of many
autonomous merchant cities. Wealth flowed into the cities via the
Africans' roles as intermediaries and facilitators of Indian, Persian,
Arab, Indonesian, Malaysian, African, and Chinese merchants. All of these
peoples enriched the Swahili culture to some degree.
The Swahili culture
developed its own written language; the language incorporated elements
from different civilizations, with Arabic as its strongest quality. Some
Arab settlers were rich merchants who, because of their wealth, gained
power--sometimes as rulers of coastal cities. Due to that, and personal
prejudice, many past scholars tried to, whether they believed it or not,
paint the Swahili culture as an Arab invention. What do the facts say?
Was the Swahili culture made of predominantly Arab influence or was that
just an idea invented by Eurocentric historians attempting to influence
an unknowing public?
Between the 10th
and 15th centuries the Muslim World was more advanced
technically, scientifically, and philosophically than any place in the
world. With that in mind the, the
Arab settlers on the Swahili coast would have clearly added beneficial
elements to the E. African coast and culture; yet what was the degree of
their influence?
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Architecture
Ibn Battuata, a medieval world traveler, recorded that the bustling
trading city of Kilwa
is, "one of the most beautiful and best-constructed towns, all
elegantly built."2
By the 14th century stone houses were frequently built, many
of which had two or three stories. The Chinese even recorded that there
were five story buildings.
V.V. Matveiev, a historian
of East African history, wrote, "The Portuguese were impressed by
the towns, the appearance and architecture of which did not fall short of
anything they had at home, and by the wealth of the inhabitants who came
to meet them and were elegantly dressed in rich, gold-adorned clothes and
in silk and cotton cloth. The woman wore chains and bangles of gold and
silver of their arms and legs, and earrings set with precious
stones."3
Arabs brought the use of stone construction to the East Coast, but were
the designs Arab or African?
Twentieth Century
archaeologist, Freeman-Grenville, pointed out that the stone buildings in
the most famous Swahili city, Kilwa, were built in the same style as the
African mud homes, which clearly suggests that the stone buildings were
the work of African architects, not Arabs. Mark Horton of Bristol University
(in the UK)
agrees; he pieced together a clear evolution of mud, wood, and thatch
structures to that of stone.4
Connah concluded that,
"again, this sequence seems to emphasize the indigenous evolution of
coastal culture, as also does the increasing number of sites that now
appear to have an early origin."5
Oxford historian J.E.G.
Sutton wrote, "In its plans and styles for both religious and domestic
buildings, in its masonry techniques…in its dressed stone moldings and
decorative motifs, the architect of the Swahili coast maintained over the
centuries its own traditions distinguishing it from that of Arabia,
Persia and any other Muslim land."6
East African historian
Chittick concluded, "Materially, and especially in the architecture,
the people of the coast evolved a civilization that was in many respects peculiar
to themselves, a civilization which it is best to refer to as early
Swahili."7
"By the 1970's,"
Connah wrote, "the emphasis was changing, as some archaeologists
came to realize the basically indigenous character of the coastal culture
and began to see the cities as part of an ongoing process of African
social and economic change, rather than the result of alien
colonization"8
Connah continued; "We…see the stone buildings as an integral part of
an overall settlement pattern, rather than the major features of
coast-clinging, trading cities of alien merchants, that some might once
have thought them. Moreover, when that settlement pattern is analyses for
location and date, it appears that this supposedly coast-clinging culture
has 30 per cent of the southern Somalinan, Kenyan and Tanzanian sites
located in places that have 'poor or no harbors' (including six that are
actually inland, a clear indication that they were African not
Arab)."9
The Swahili culture's
foundations did not originate from the coast but inland; areas the Arab
immigrants did not settle.10
"It is difficult to
escape the conclusion," Connah wrote, "that mud, wood and
thatch buildings, and the African peoples who built them, contributed
greatly to the East African coastal settlements."11
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Culture
As Chittick mentioned above, the Swahili civilization is one,
"peculiar to themselves."12
Despite Muslim immigration, Islamic culture fused with, rather than
eclipsed, the native culture. By 1150 we find poets writing in Swahili,
which at the time had strong Arab qualities, but later changed into an
entirely separate script. Many people had ceramic lamps, which,
"suggest that the inhabitants probably engaged in reading, writing,
keeping accounts and so forth."13
The Swahili legal system adopted some aspects of Muslim law, but the
indigenous system essentially remained.14
Like other African regions it was an Islam shaped to fit the native
culture. Furthermore, like other African regions it was mostly only the
wealthy merchants and elites who adopted Islam. Furthermore, like other
regions, the conversion was not always authentic; it was often used for
political or trading purposes.15
Many common Africans converted in order to create common ground between
them and the African aristocrats.16
"Swahili culture,"
A.I. Salim, of the University of
Nairobi, explained,
"represented a fusion, in an urban, "melting pot" context,
of the values and customs of many people, both from the African continent
and from other lands bordering the Indian Ocean."17
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Rulers
In the past many people felt that Arabs ruled the Swahili cities, which
that was sometimes the case. Yet even the Arabs who ruled quickly
intermarried with local woman and learnt the African language and
culture. After a short period the ruling Arabs became indistinguishable
from the black Zang, physically and culturally.18
Adding to the confusion is the fact that many black rulers changed their
names to Arab/Islamic forms following their conversions to Islam; some
even decided to trace their genealogy to Arab areas instead of African in
order to claim relation to the Prophet Mohammad. We have written accounts
from the Pate Chronicle and the Kilwa Chronicle of the Swahili Coast that show the real African
genealogy of rulers, which shows a very different genealogy than they
claimed. The chronicles also show that the system of rule remained
African; Succession of power, after the name change, still came only
through African clans and not anywhere else.
A.H.J Prins has found several other examples of African groups tracing
their roots to the mid east, despite having an, "indubitably African
origin."20
The Heritage of World Civilization, a book compiled by Harvard and
Yale historians, confirms that: "Today historians are recognizing
that the ruling dynasties of the Swahili states were probably African in
origin."21
Ibn Battuta recorded that;
"the majority of its inhabitants are Zanj, jet black in color, and
with tattoo-marks on their faces."22
"The population of
these settlements," Salim confirms, "were predominately
African, with initially a tiny minority of Arabs whose numbers increased
substantially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries."23
At the end of the 19th
century J. Strandes trumpeted a theory that there were passive and
influential peoples in history; that notion often held precedence over
archeological evidence. Pushed along by prejudice, the theory had a major
impact on historians studying the Swahilli Coast.
Instead of consulting the written and archeological evidence many
concluded that the advanced culture must be Arab because blacks were
passive players in history. This erroneous idea felt good and
consequently the myth gained some support. Elements of that ridiculous
notion can still be seen in the works of several men in the 50's and
60's, such as J.S. Kirman and G.S.P Freeman-Greenville--who had even concluded
that the stone buildings of the Swahili coast were African in origin.
Other scholars of a more recent date, like archaeologist H.N. Chittick
and the Soviet Union's V.M Miniugin and
V.V. Matveiev, along with African historians like J. Ki-Zerbo and Cheikh
Anta Diop, "affirms the basis of research that the ruling dynasties
in the towns were dynasties of local African origin."24
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Fall of the Swahili coast
There is a common theme throughout history; vulnerable small yet advanced
groups who don't have the means to produce a strong army are eventually
taken over by a smaller, yet rougher militant group, whether that group
be nomadic in origin or coming from a sizable kingdom like Portugal.
"The more civilized," Davidson wrote, "as on many
occasions before and since, were ruined by the less. Nomads triumphed
once again over peoples who were, 'soft and settled."26
The Mongolian--a small nomadic clan--conquests
of China, the
Mid-East, and Russia
exemplify that point. That defines the fall of the Swahili coast.
The Portuguese, sailing
around the coast, took advantage of the, "soft and settled," coastal
cities. Davidson summarized, "Secure in their firearms they did as
they pleased."27
Davidson wrote this of the destruction:
"They sacked and conquered the coastal cities and cut the trading
links which had long bound the east coast--and
its inland customers and suppliers--with the Persian Gulf and India and the Far
East. They pushed into the interior
and used their firearms on this side or on that of dynastic wars and
rivalries, so as to weaken the whole and deliver the power of government
into their ultimate control. Being too weak to hold this power, they left
chaos in their wake."28
The Portuguese attempted to
control the trade between interior Africa, the Swahili coast, and India.
"The mistake" Davidson wrote, "…had been to try and seize
not only the maritime monopoly but also the overland monopoly. The
African coastal cities had learned better than to try to dominate their
inland neighbors…. Their (the Portuguese) captains and commercial agents
would do the same in India
with the same destructive consequences."29
New wars in the interior and the Portuguese cupidity, "damned the
flow of gold," as well as the other forms of trade. The Portuguese
did the same in India,
destroying that prosperous coastal civilization.
There were other factors: a
decreased rainfall upset the water balance and hindered further
development of the coastal towns. The Zimba invasion, an African clan,
also hurt the East Coast. But like most scholars, Matveiev, born in Russia,
believe, "The chief course…was the disruption of maritime trade by
the Portuguese. Being well fitted out, equipped with artillery and built
for the purpose of naval warfare, the Portuguese ships were an invincible
force….the plundering and destruction of the coastal towns, particularly
Kilwa, were all blows from which East African maritime trade never
recovered, and the medieval Swahili civilization perished with it."30
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1Africa from the sixteenth to the
eighteenth century/ editor, B.A. Ogot. (London; Heinemann Educational
Books; Berkeley; University of California Press; Paris: Unesco, 1992),
754
2Davidson, Basil. The Lost Cities
of Africa. Boston: Little Brown, 1959, 209
3Africa from the twelfth to the
sixteenth century/ editor, D.T. Niane (London; Heinemann Educational
Books; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 472
4Connah, Graham. African Civilizations.
Armidale, N.S.W., Australia:
University
of New England,
1998, 169
5Ibid, 170
6Africa from the twelfth to the
sixteenth century/ editor, D.T. Niane (London; Heinemann Educational
Books; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 472
7Ibid
8Connah, 160
9Ibid, 167
10Ibid
11Ibid, 167
12Africa from the twelfth to the
sixteenth century/ editor, D.T. Niane (London; Heinemann Educational
Books; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 472
13Ibid
14Ibid, 469
15Ibid
16Ibid
17Africa from the sixteenth to the
eighteenth century/ editor, B.A. Ogot. (London; Heinemann Educational
Books; Berkeley; University of California Press; Paris: Unesco, 1992),
754
18Davidson, Basil. The Lost Cities
of Africa. Boston: Little Brown, 1959, 206
19Africa from the twelfth to the
sixteenth century/ editor, D.T. Niane (London; Heinemann Educational
Books; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 478
20Ibid, 479
21The Heritage of World
Civilizations: Volume One: To 1650, 4th ed. Editor, Owen, Cralyce. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Simon
& Shuster, 1997, 511
22Lost Cities, 209
23Africa from the sixteenth to the
eighteenth century/ editor, B.A. Ogot. (London; Heinemann Educational
Books; Berkeley; University of California Press; Paris: Unesco, 1992),
755
24Africa from the twelfth to the
sixteenth century/ editor, D.T. Niane (London; Heinemann Educational
Books; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 476
25Lost Cities, 234
26Ibid
27Ibid, 329
28Ibid, 324
29Ibid, 326
30Africa from the twelfth to the
sixteenth century/ editor, D.T. Niane (London;
Heinemann Educational Books; Berkeley:
University
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