Introduction

The history of Islam in East Africa is a long and rich tale stretching back almost to the very inception of Islam. Islam moreover continues to play a major role in social and political developments in East Africa. Insomuch as these contemporary developments are influenced by historical processes, a detailed study of the development of Islam in East Africa may carry not only historiographic value but practical value as well. The purpose of this essay is to provide a brief summary of the history of Islam in East Africa, from the advent of Islam right up to the beginning of the twentieth century. For practical purposes, this narrative will be divided into two sections: the Horn of Africa, and the East African Coast. It should however be kept in mind that a certain degree of overlap existed between them, especially with regards to the external factors that played a role in shaping their destinies.

The Horn of Africa

The Hijra (Migration) to Abyssinia

The earliest presence of Muslims in Abyssinia (or what is now known as Ethiopia) predates the spread of Muslims and Islam out of Makkah to the rest of the Arabian Peninsula itself. Whereas the Prophet Muhammed ﷺ first set out to preach to the people of Ta’if, approximately 60 kilometres away from Makkah, in the tenth year of Prophethood, followed in the next year by the acceptance of Islam by six men from Yathrib (which would later serve as the headquarters of a Muslim state stretching from East to West), a small group of Muslims had migrated to Abyssinia as early as the fifth year of Prophethood.

The first group to make the Hijra to Abyssinia consisted of just twelve men and four women, including ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan رضي الله عنه  and his wife Ruqayyah رضي الله عنه who was the daughter of the Prophet ﷺ. This was later followed by a second migration, consisting of eighty-three men and either eighteen or nineteen women.

The Axum (or Abyssinian) Kingdom was ruled by a Nejashi (or Negus) and had been Christian since the fourth century. As a result, while in Abyssinia, the Muslims enjoyed the protection and favour of the ruler, Nejashi Ashamah, who was reportedly moved by the similarities between his Christian faith and the teachings of Islam, and who professed his belief in the Prophethood of Muhammed ﷺ.

However, once the main body of Muslims had migrated from Makkah to Yathrib (which was thereafter known as Medina) and had defeated the Quraysh at the Battle of Badr, those Muslims who had settled in Abyssinia returned to Arabia to join their co-religionists in the new City of the Prophet. It is thus unlikely that this migration had much of a lasting impact on the Horn of Africa.

The 8th Century – Islam takes Root in Ethiopia and Somalia

Even before the advent of Islam, Arab traders had been frequenting the Ethiopian coast to trade. A popular outpost for Arab traders was the Dahlak Kebir Island off the Ethiopian coast, where, according to some accounts, Islam was embraced as early as the eighth century. Mogadishu, a port city on the Somalian coast that was founded sometime between the eighth and tenth centuries, likewise provided a point of departure for Islam, whereby Arab traders intermingled with local populations and began propagating Islamic teachings among their servants and customers.

The 13th to 15th Centuries – Spread and Conflict

From Dahlak Kebir and coastal towns such as Zayla, Muslim merchants moved inland along trade routes built on the exchange of salt and agricultural produce, thereby carrying Islam ever further into the Horn of Africa. Thus it was that, by the thirteenth century, many Muslim communities were living and trading within Ethiopia, under the protection of the ruling Christian state. At the same time, however, a host of small but independent sultanates had sprung up along the trade routes at the outer reaches of the Ethiopian kingdom. This gradual penetration of Islam into the Horn of Africa facilitated the conversion of large amounts of the nomadic ‘Afar and Somali peoples.

By the mid-thirteenth century, however, conflict began to arise as the Christian Ethiopian kingdom began expanding and vying for control of the trade routes in the hands of the independent Muslim principalities. The Ethiopian kingdom defeated an alliance consisting of several of these Muslim principalities in 1322 and in 1415, defeated the Muslim kingdom of Ifat along with a handful of other lesser principalities.

Not content with defeat, some of the descendants of Ifat’s ruling class founded the new kingdom of Adal on the Somali coast and renewed a Muslim military attack on the Ethiopian kingdom, aided primarily by the ‘Afar and Somali, while also seeking assistance from the Egyptian Mamluks.

The 16th Century – The Jihad of Ahmed Gran

By 1517, the Ottomans had conquered Egypt, and between 1529 and 1543, Imam Ahmed ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, known simply as Ahmed Gran, waged Jihad against the Ethiopian kingdom, conquering most of its land with the support of the Ottomans.

In 1543, at a decisive battle near Lake Tana, Ahmed Gran was shot and killed by a Portuguese regiment that had come to the aid of their fellow Christians. Having been obtained in such a brief period, the conquered lands had not been adequately consolidated, as a result of which the Ethiopian kingdom regained most of its old territories by 1555. Adal retained very little territory and Muslim political authority gradually dissolved into various tribal and village chieftainships.

The 17th and 18th Centuries – Consequences of the Jihad

As much as Muslim political authority had been weakened, however, many coastal towns, such as Harar, did nevertheless retain their Islamic character and continued to attract Muslim traders. Approximately one century later, ‘Ali ibn Dawood founded the Harar sultanate, which relied on trade from across the Red Sea and from the Funj sultanate in Sudan.

Despite his apparent defeat, the jihad of Ahmed Gran was not without lasting consequence. Among these consequences was the fact that during Muslim rule, many Ethiopians had converted to Islam. Almost one century later, a Portuguese missionary placed Ethiopia’s Muslim population at one-third of the total population, proving the apparent permanence of this wave of conversion.

Another equally – if not more – important consequence was the fact that Oromo immigration into the Horn of Africa was facilitated by the weakening of both the Christian Ethiopian kingdom and the Muslim principalities. Many of these Oromo settled in Muslim areas such as Harar, where they gradually accepted Islam and, despite maintaining their own tribal systems and political hierarchies, paid homage to the ruler of Harar. Many others settled in the Christian Ethiopian kingdom and as their influence grew, they played a role in decreasing tensions between the Christians and Muslims.

At the same time, groups of Somalis began to move south, while gradually assimilating the Oromo. By the eighteenth century, they controlled the seaports of Mogadishu and Zayla, which had until then remained almost exclusively under Arab Muslim rule, while paying nominal homage to the Sultanate of Oman.

The 19th and 20th Centuries – Rise of Reformist Sufism and Jihad

While the growing number of Oromo Muslims had initially practised what would more accurately be described as a fusion of Muslim rites and Oromo traditions, leading to a unique blend consisting of shrine veneration, saint worship and tribal customs, the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw a rise in the popularity of reformist Sufi orders who sought to purge Islam of unorthodox beliefs and practices, such as belief in the intercession of saints and the practices of drinking coffee, smoking tobacco, playing the drum, and dancing.

The most notable of these Sufi orders were the Qadiriyya, which was introduced by Abu Bakr ibn Abdullah al- ‘Aydarus of Harar in the sixteenth century already; the Salihiyya, founded by Muhammed Salih of Arabia; the Ahmediyya, founded by ‘Ali Maye Durogba; and the Berdera.

In the late nineteenth century, the Ottoman-ruled Egyptians expanded their territories along the trade routes dotting the Red Sea coast, taking control of Zayla in 1870 and occupying Harar from 1875 to 1885. They did not however make significant inroads into the interior of the Horn, as they had no interest in the interior so long as it didn’t affect activities at the port. The Egyptians were soon driven back to the North when they were defeated by the Mahdi of Sudan. Shortly thereafter, in 1892, the Omani Sultanate began renting port cities, such as Mogadishu and Brava to Italy, which assumed full control of these cities in 1905.

This, amongst other factors, led to the militarisation of several of the Sufi orders at the beginning of the twentieth century. This new Jihad was fought on several different fronts, with the militants internally opposing the practice of cultural traditions by Muslims, and externally opposing both the Christian Ethiopian state and the European imperialists in the form of the Italians and the British.

Most notable among these militarised Sufis was the Salihiyya member, Sayyid Muhammed Abdullah Hassan, who launched his Jihad against the Ethiopian kingdom and the British in 1899. Intermittent fighting between the Sayyid’s forces and the British lasted until 1904, and a peace agreement was signed in 1905. Fighting however resumed in 1908 and lasted until his death in 1920. It may be argued that the Muslim reform movement found both its climax and its downfall in Sayyid Muhammed, for although he remained a thorn in the side of the British for so long, he ultimately failed to unite the Muslims of the Horn, many of whom were against the somewhat extremist attitude he embodied and thus sided with the British in the fight against him.

The East African Coast

The 8th to 11th Centuries – Islam Arrives on the Coast

The East African coast and its islands had been populated by various urban communities organised around agriculture and commerce for centuries before the arrival of Islam, and seafaring merchants from the South Arabian coast had been trading with the Swahili coast from as early as the first century of the Common Era. By the time Islam was born in the seventh century, Arab and Persian traders had already established several trading posts on the East African coast.

Islam was thus soon carried to the East African coast, with archaeological evidence pointing to the presence of Muslim burial sites and the construction of a rudimentary mosque at Shanga, in the Lamu Archipelago, as early as the late eighth to the middle of the ninth century. Muslims had soon settled on the islands of Pemba and Zanzibar, and had by the eleventh century reached the Comoros Islands as well as Madagascar. However, even though the tenth century writer al-Masudi documents the presence of Muslims on the East African coast, or Zanj, as the Arabs knew it, local conversion to Islam was limited, with the tenth century Wonders of India collection and the eleventh century writer al-Biruni describing Zanj as un-Islamic and populated by sorcerers and cannibals. It thus appears unlikely that any significantly large Muslim communities had developed on the coast before the twelfth century. The Muslims al-Masudi mentions were thus most likely small communities of Arabs from Aden, Yemen, Hadramawt and Oman who had settled on the coast.

The 12th to 15th Centuries – Islam Spreads Along the Coast

The twelfth century saw the beginning of the spread of Islam on the East African coast, spurred on in part by an increase in local conversion to Islam. This increase in conversion was gradual, with the native population first adopting the Muslims’ ‘material culture’, followed by their architecture and eventually their religious beliefs. The first mosque in the port city of Kilwa was constructed sometime in the twelfth century, and by the early fourteenth century had been enlarged to 360 square meters to accommodate a much larger congregation, with the new structure being built out of stone rather than wood and clay.

Another factor contributing to the increased spread of Islam was the immigration in the thirteenth century of several Sharif families from Yemen and Hadramawt, who brought with them the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence. Although these Sharifs did not immigrate en masse, they held considerable social and religious influence.

It appears likely that the arrival of these Sharifs was in turn brought about by a gradual increase in the Indian Ocean trade. By the thirteenth century, there were just over thirty trading towns on the East African coast, and between then and the end of the fifteenth century, by which time there were more than forty Muslim settlements and sultanates on the coast and its surrounding islands, these towns exported gold, copper, iron, ivory and leopard skins, among other things, to Arabia, Persia, and Indonesia, from where their merchandise made its way as far as China. Merchandise such as cotton from India and porcelain from China were imported along these same trade routes.

By approximately the fourteenth or fifteenth century Islam had become the dominant religion on the East African coast. It was in the fourteenth century (in the year 1331), that Ibn Battuta visited Kilwa, where he noted the great number and prestige of Islamic scholars and the generosity of the sultan. It is interesting to note that despite the gradual process of Islamization referred to earlier, Ibn Battuta does not mention the presence of any religious syncretism, i.e., mixing of local traditions with Islamic practices. This is in stark contrast to the Oromo of the Horn mentioned earlier and may well have been a result of the contemporary Sharifi influence since instances of religious syncretism did appear later on.

The 16th to 18th Centuries – Arrival of the Portuguese

Intending to gain control of the Indian Ocean trade and spice routes, Vasco da Gama arrived in East Africa on the cusp of the sixteenth century, in the year 1498. In 1505 Vasco da Gama coerced Kilwa into recognising Portuguese sovereignty and into agreeing to pay a tribune of gold, only to have a certain Admiral d’Almeida return to attack the city a mere three years later. The death and destruction wrought by d’Almeida essentially crippled Kilwa and greatly reduced its status on the coast. In the same year, d’Almeida also attacked and looted Mombasa; however, unlike Kilwa, Mombasa was able to recover and thus retained its important status on the coast.

The early sixteenth century was characterised by such acts of Portuguese aggression, resulting in much seizure of wealth from both coastal cities and Muslim trading vessels. By 1530 the Portuguese controlled the entire East African coast, including the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba.

By 1550, the Lamu Archipelago, and Pate, in particular, had become the religious epicentre of the Swahili coast. Sharifs from Pate spread out along the coast, bringing with them not just their scholarly tradition but also a call towards resisting the Christian Portuguese.

By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Portuguese had still failed to establish any significant settlements on the East African coast and had begun to experience increased competition from British and Dutch imperialists in the Indian Ocean, which coincided with increased revolts from the coastal towns.

In 1650, Oman succeeded in expelling the Portuguese from the Persian Gulf, and in 1652 succeeded in conquering the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. The Omanis began assisting coastal rebellions against Portuguese domination, and by 1698 had conquered Mombasa. The Portuguese were entirely driven out by 1728.

Despite a presence of over two centuries on the East African coast, there remains almost no lasting distinctly Portuguese influence on Swahili culture. Nevertheless, by disrupting the traditional trade routes for a period of over two hundred years, the Portuguese effectively disrupted Swahili contact with the larger Islamic world, thereby leading to an increasingly indigenized quality or character of Islam. This hearkens back to the earlier point about religious syncretism.

The 19th to 20th Centuries – Omani Rule and European Colonialism

In 1840, the head of the Busaidi dynasty in Oman, Imam Sayyid Sa’id ibn Sultan, moved the capital of his empire from Muscat to Zanzibar. Although only Zanzibar and Kilwa initially accepted his authority, he gradually expanded his influence and imposed his rule on Lamu, Pate and Mombasa.

The period of Omani rule is associated with an increase in the Arabization of Swahili religious and cultural life. This is demonstrated especially by the increasing adoption of Arabic words into the Swahili language during this time. The Kiunguja dialect of Zanzibar, which was more greatly Arabized, eventually came to replace the Pate-Lamu dialect as the de facto Swahili dialect.

In the religious sphere, this Arabization manifested itself in the court appointment of the Qadi (legal) Office; implementation of Islamic law had previously been informal and unsystematised. Imam Sa’id and his successor both appointed two qadis (judges), one of whom was ‘Ibadi and considered the cases of the Omani minority, and one of whom was Shafi’i and considered the cases of the Swahili majority. This served to bring the East African coast in line with Arab legal systems, and successfully institutionalised and formalised the legal system of the coast.

European influence was however also on the rise in the Indian Ocean, and although he had tried to maintain his independence from the European powers, the third Omani ruler in Zanzibar, Imam Barghash, was by 1875 forced by various internal and external factors to rely on British assistance, thereby opening the sultanate to external interference.

The early years of the 1880s saw a change in German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s attitude to colonialism, and in the year 1885 Germany declared the East African coast and Zanzibar a German protectorate. This resulted in several socio-economic upheavals: British influence in East Africa was effectively challenged, and delicate social dynamics were upset when the German administration appointed Qadis of their choosing, while simultaneously limiting the powers of the Qadi office.

Attempting to regain some of their lost influence, the British began negotiating with the Germans, and an Anglo-German partition agreement was signed in 1886. This agreement left the Sultan with the islands of Zanzibar, Pemba, and Mafia, as well as the Lamu Archipelago and a small strip of land on the mainland. The remainder of the coast was divided into a British sphere of influence in the north and a German sphere of influence in the South. In 1890, a new treaty was signed allowing the British to establish a protectorate over Zanzibar and allowing Germany to buy out the Sultan’s coastal strip of land.

When the British consul-general, Sir Gerald Portal, took office in 1891, he promptly assumed control of the Sultan’s finances and placed all key government offices under European administration. These and other changes wrought by the British also brought about several socio-economic changes, the most important of which was the further limiting of the Qadi office to include only matters relating to family law. In 1986, one of Sultan Barghash’s sons attempted a coup with the intent of ending British rule; this coup was stopped in its tracks by a naval attack on the Sultan’s palace.

Starting from approximately 1905, administrative changes transformed the British consulate into what would more accurately be described as a colonial office, and in 1913 the protectorate was officially transferred to the Colonial Office.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the Swahili coast saw the rise of several different reformist Sufi orders, such as the Qadiriyya, ‘Alawiyya and Shadiliyya. However, unlike the Sufi orders of the Horn and the earlier sixteenth century Sharif movements of the East African coast itself, these Sufi orders did not embody a militant approach to colonialism, instead focussing almost exclusively on reform in the spiritual, ritualistic, and educational spheres of life. Insomuch as these groups were organised along ethnic and racial lines which served to polarise the communities of the East African coast, they may well have been one among many hurdles in the path of a unified coastal response to colonialism.

Conclusion

As the world becomes ever more globalised, it is all too easy to fall prey to the illusion of a shared past of isolation and limited interaction between people and ideas. However, even a cursory study of the fascinating and richly textured history of Islam in East Africa demonstrates that throughout its fifteen centuries and more, the direction of Islam in East Africa was guided by both internal pressures and tensions, and by global interactions and exchanges of merchandise, culture and religious ideas. Understanding these factors enables us to draw a more lucid narrative of history and may well contribute towards better understanding contemporary social and political processes.

By Hudhaifa Karolia

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