Just purchased it. Looking forward to it. Had no idea of the historical richness of a country that "no one cares about". I'm so happy that such a book exists.
Gotta burn the candle at both ends.
White Line Fever and The Myth of Normal fell off the mail truck. Great way to complete the triangle.
So "monsoon" comes from the Arabic mausim, meaning season. The north to south winds helped sea travel November to April, India to East Africa. In reverse during May to October, they make the return trip.
"A mosque presupposes an established congregation of a certain size (individuals would pray at home), and we can assume that this would be an Islamic ruling class, which with time came to include not only Arab immigrants but the descendants of marriages with Africans and Austronesians. However, in a society that depended on slaves not only for labour but for trade, it would have been in the interests of the ruling classes not to encourage conversion among the local population so that they could remain enslaved: Islam prohibits the enslavement of co-religionaries and converts to Islam should in theory be manumitted."
(pp. 37-38).
Shirazi traditions are ubiquitous in East Africa and Shirazi identity—that of a Muslim elite who trace their origins to Shiraz, in southern Iran—has been claimed by the Swahili upper classes for centuries. (p. 38).
The picture is further complicated in the Comoros by the matrilineal character of Comorian society. Traditions that trace the origins of a ruling lineage to a male founder who married a local woman have little traction in the Comoros since the children of this union would belong to the mother’s lineage and not that of the father, thus undermining the whole project of establishing Shirazi legitimacy for the ruling family. We therefore find, on both Ngazidja and Mayotte, somewhat different tales: those of the Shirazi princesses. In the Ngazidja versions, two Shirazi princesses arrived on the island and married local bedja; in accordance with matrilineal principles of descent, the succession followed the female line and the descendants of these two women formed two opposing lineages who, between them, eventually consolidated their control over most of the island. There is some symbolic sleight of hand involved here in order to allow a local man to transfer his title to the children of his daughter, but the outcome is similar to that elsewhere: the lineage obtains a Shirazi identity. (p. 39).
da Gama had forced the sultan of Kilwa to pay a tribute of 1500 meticals of gold to the Portuguese king. The Mozambican currency...
The Comoros, productive, Muslim (and therefore at least not complete savages in the eyes of the English), eager to trade, lying astride the inside passage to India, as the Mozambique Channel was known, and effectively the last port of call before ships struck out across the ocean for Surat or Madras, were perfect. But if reports of the Wangazidja’s attitude towards visitors were ambiguous, the lack of fresh water and lack of a safe anchorage were unavoidable disadvantages, prompting the Europeans to seek another haven. Mwali was their next choice. (p. 55).
But it was the latter’s sister’s daughter, Wabedja, who is particularly remembered in local traditions. In the absence of a male heir, she took the throne, moved into the Singani palace in Ntsudjini and ruled until one of her sons came of age. However, although she had three sons, each of whom inherited the throne in turn, none survived for long, and upon the death of the last of them, Wabedja moved back into the royal palace, eventually ruling for the best part of half a century. Wabedja was particularly skilled at forging alliances, and established a relatively stable peace, marrying her daughters, Nema Feda—who was already ruling the sultanate of Hamahame—and Mmadjamu, to ruling members of the Hinya Matswa Pirusa, the other major clan on the island, which controlled the important northern town and port of Mitsamihuli as well as Ikoni and Moroni. During this period Ngazidja prospered: Wabedja encouraged trade and commerce, the development of agriculture and the establishment of crafts and small industries in the sultanate.... Wabedja’s own daughter, the royal princess Mmadjamu, was renowned as an expert in matters of theology and law as well as being an accomplished poet; her poems are still recited today. (pp. 71-72).
This system dated from 1904, but the administration of justice by the cadis was not properly organised—most cases were heard outside the framework of the French courts—until 1934, when the role of the cadis was formally recognised and a tribunal of cadis was established. The sole admissible text with regard to Islamic law was the Minhaj al-Talibin, a commentary on Shafi’i law written by the thirteenth-century jurist al-Nawawi and long used in the islands.
(p. 117)
This right to eat, and the fact that when a man marries he enters a new nuptial house, provide a man and, by extension, his wife and family with a degree of social security; more importantly, the ãda is the basis for social cohesion, for although those who do the ãda generally attempt to pay for as much as possible themselves, the costs are such that this is impossible for all but the wealthiest individuals. Instead, others in the village, and beyond, contribute to the costs of the ãda, but these payments are not gifts. Rather, they are contributions that they will expect to see returned when the donor performs his or her own ãda, or they are repayments of debts that they themselves had incurred in the past. This cycle of indebtedness is impossible to close, and binds the entire population into an obligation to perform the ãda, since not to do so would be to renege on one’s debts or, worse, deny others the opportunity to repay debts they have incurred. This is the main reason why the ãda continues to exist today, despite constant calls for it to be abandoned or abolished: many feel that the tens of thousands of euros that a family spends on such events could more profitably be put to use elsewhere. (pp. 119-120).
Agricultural development programmes in the post-war period had been explicitly oriented towards cash crops: French policy was, as in so many of its former colonies, to maintain the plantation economy of the colonial period at the expense of self-sufficiency, thus providing the colonial power with food and raw materials for its industries. Resistance to this grew until in 1962 there was finally a shift in orientation towards providing greater support for food production, manifested in the Société de Developpement des Comores (SODEC). SODEC was intended not only to provide training to farmers and attempt to transform customary methods, for example by introducing new crops and by encouraging anti-erosion techniques, but it would also develop the national infrastructure, providing credit and ensuring access to markets. Funding would be provided by FIDES. (pp. 152-153).
Wait. Islam and matrilinearity? Speak of the djinn...
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