Across the Red Sea: Historical and Cultural Connections Between Africa and West Asia

00:00:17: Hello everyone and welcome to the eighth episode of What's Up?

00:00:21: The Africa-West Asia podcast, part of Carpo's West Asia & Sub Sahara African Partnerships in Flux project or What's up for short.

00:00:31: For our first time listeners.

00:00:33: my name is Desiree Custors.

00:00:35: I'm a Project Manager with Carpo and one of your hosts

00:00:38: And My Name Is Yubair Kinko Senior Researcher at Carpo And today we are delighted to be joined by Professor Anna Bang, a historian and scholar of the Indian Ocean world whose work explores the religious intellectuals and cultural connections that link East Africa Arabia and the wider Muslim World.

00:01:01: Professor Anna welcome!

00:01:03: Thank you for joining us.

00:01:05: thank you very much.

00:01:06: it's our pleasure to be with you.

00:01:08: I'm looking forward.

00:01:11: Professor Anna, before we dive into specific historical examples could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us in our listeners how you became interested in studying connections between East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula?

00:01:26: Yes!

00:01:27: So I am now a professor of history at the University of Bergen in Norway.

00:01:35: Actually my title is professor The history of the Middle East and Islamic Africa.

00:01:42: So it's a big scope, but as you mentioned my main work has focused exactly on the relations between let say South Arabia or the Arabian Peninsula And coastal east Africa Broadly speaking actually all the way from Madagascar up to Lamu even parts of Somalia.

00:02:07: But how I got interested.

00:02:09: I come from a port city myself, Bergen is a Hanseatic City.

00:02:14: So the whole idea of there being other cities like us but elsewhere was kind of...I would say natural normal?

00:02:25: We have buildings in our city that were built by others.

00:02:30: we have people living in out city who had different names But are obviously now Norwegian.

00:02:36: they speak no other language and so on.

00:02:39: And going abroad always meant crossing an ocean.

00:02:44: That is logical, so I think that made it kind of natural to me... ...I started out as my title maybe implies in Middle East studies which has tended to be very land-focused you know?

00:02:58: You learn about the big empires and the omoyads and the Ottomans.

00:03:02: all this and its' always focused on land and territory and states And resources on this land, very often water or agricultural possibilities and so on.

00:03:15: So then at some point I read a book...I think it must have been in the nineties by George Hurrani!

00:03:21: It was called Arab Sea Faring in antiquity and the Middle East or something was to title?

00:03:27: Then i thought oh yeah that makes a lot of sense.

00:03:31: That is exactly the thing.

00:03:33: And I also had a general interest in, I would say the Arabian Peninsula.

00:03:38: Exactly because so much of Middle East studies tended to focus on Palestine, Iraq... All varying whatever was high up under political agenda at that time and then thought yeah it's interesting!

00:03:51: That is where corner can work?

00:03:54: Then when i wrote my MA thesis It wasn't Yemen but doesn't take very long to understand that Yemen has whole other world outside of Yemen, whether it be crossing directly over the Red Sea or much further afield like India Indonesia and so on.

00:04:11: So that's how it sort of got rolling.

00:04:13: I would say

00:04:16: It is quite interesting Prof.

00:04:17: That you're ending with this connection between the red sea and Yemen.

00:04:22: And one thing that strikes us in many of the preceding podcast episodes Is Some of the experts have often referred to historical ties between Africa and West Asia, but you know they've rarely spoken about what those ties actually looked like.

00:04:42: From a perspective as an historian looking at the Red Sea on the west Indian Ocean should we be thinking of them as separate regions or do think We should look in their spaces that connected people and societies?

00:04:57: I would say i tend to see ocean, whether it be the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean.

00:05:03: Or the North Sea...or any ocean as a space of connection?

00:05:09: It is a road more than anything!

00:05:13: It's not a barrier in anyway…it's the earliest human transport other then our feet to travel at sea so Obvious to a coastal person for us sitting in Bergen.

00:05:30: The next place is Shetland, that's logical.

00:05:33: That's how it is.

00:05:35: So crossing the sea I would say historically has been much more predictable than crossing land If only for the fact that on the land there are many other humans who can be dangerous to you Who have other objectives then you and so on.

00:05:56: And also the resources are even... It sounds counterintuitive, but it's less predictable.

00:06:04: What you bring on your boat at least you know that you have it right?

00:06:08: So I mean many colleagues have written very evocatively about how The Ocean is a great connecting space and so on which can be almost like romanticizing But i still think its true.

00:06:25: It's true, especially in the case of Yemen and crossing over to the Horn which is a relatively short and easy crossing.

00:06:34: Another thing I always try to emphasize with my students that if you are in Mukalla In South Yemen With your Dao Which is reasonably good steady Dao You know almost surely unless something very unexpected happens That you will be in Lammu to ten days in the good wind.

00:06:57: So it is something that's both cyclical, predictable and with experience also relatively safe.

00:07:06: It's comparable to crossing of the Sahara for example which has other great trade routes.

00:07:14: The crossing at sea is an easier one, so I would also tend to see this as if not necessarily a unit then geographical points intensely closely connected with each other over very long periods of time.

00:07:35: That's not too dismissed that sometimes seafaring can be difficult and dangerous.

00:07:42: unexpected events, obviously.

00:07:44: I think the implication of this is that let's say a person in the seventeen hundred sitting in South Yemen would travel to Malacca or to Mombasa.

00:07:56: They would recognize The urban context more immediately than they probably would some encampment Or city in their own interior.

00:08:08: That is how disconnectivity sort shows up that they become distinctly different from each other, but also distinctly similar.

00:08:18: And one of these similarities obviously then is that there are predominantly Muslim urban settlements.

00:08:27: Yes it's interesting how you describe the ocean as a connected space, but then also the resemblance between port cities on both sides of the shore.

00:08:37: And I'm wondering because your research has focused on Islamic scholarly networks as an example and their circulation Could you tell us maybe a little bit more how scholars, students... ...maybe also religious leaders moved between East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula?

00:09:01: And describe to us this network of knowledge.

00:09:06: Maybe I can step back first because when we look at these urban settlements This is something that we can return too.

00:09:15: but i think We cannot even fully understand them without reference to their overseas connections, this long history behind.

00:09:26: And so obviously these are a very, very long durée and we historians work in different periods... ...and I cannot claim to know every period or constellation.

00:09:41: but yes going into the scholars That is a very, very big question exactly how and when.

00:09:52: But I think i need to return the premise that this cultural exchange happened alongside trade because trading pattern runs the mill here.

00:10:04: After all, this is not set up as a cultural exchange program or even a missionary.

00:10:10: you could think okay that there's an element of Islamic missionary activity but it always secondary to trade going on.

00:10:21: and I try also make students understand.

00:10:26: let say around year seven hundred we see Islam moving out from the Arabian Peninsula.

00:10:34: This has to do with very early Islamization, especially Yemen of course but also Oman shortly.

00:10:43: So these traders are coming.

00:10:45: they're landing for example in Pater in Kenya and then one year They come back.

00:10:50: But now there Muslims There probably aren't even the same people who are doing The Same thing bringing the same goods taking the same Goods Back.

00:11:00: And what does that mean exactly?

00:11:03: I mean, archaeologists have been working in Kenya especially for also Tanzania.

00:11:09: For a very long time showing the very early settlement of mosques... ...I think Tashanga Mosque if i'm not mistaken is dated to the year seven sixty or eighty something.

00:11:23: so it means at this stage there were traders coming and going, but actually communities that had the need to have a place to pray.

00:11:35: It needed sort of basic infrastructure for Islamic society And we can envision this happening in many places not archaeology.

00:11:44: it could only take us so far yet!

00:11:49: And again Shinga was about two weeks away from Mokalla.

00:11:54: So its an easy trip to come and go on the right wind.

00:11:59: But about the scholarly exchanges, we do know quite a bit exactly how this exchange happened.

00:12:07: We can see it very specifically in the Sufi silsilas where people join a Sufi order And then they join along historical line.

00:12:16: In these historical lines are named People whether They Are Exactly Right or Not.

00:12:24: Historians can always discuss, but it certainly shows that at this point in time... ...this was intellectual genealogy.

00:12:32: That had prestige something you would want to join.

00:12:36: We also know pretty well from manuscripts where people note I bought these books and sold them or copied the book.

00:12:48: In East Africa unfortunately we know less because there are fewer manuscripts that predate even eighteen hundred, probably because of climate.

00:13:01: It is not easy in Mombasa to maintain paper over a long time because of the humidity.

00:13:08: but we also know it from many other places like India and of course Indonesia.

00:13:14: so you can also sort of extrapolate here.

00:13:17: And what do see as an exchange?

00:13:20: that yes its coming.

00:13:22: There's actually a very good book out now recently, which is called Mobile Manuscripts by Christopher Balda.

00:13:28: It was actually from India but he shows it clearly with all the little marginal notes in the manuscripts From a very early period even from the fifteenth century.

00:13:40: some of them came from Mecca and they were brought there And then have whole secondary life you know exchange between scholars bought and sold inherited made the work, put into libraries.

00:13:55: So you can sort of trace exactly how these exchanges happened.

00:14:01: Of course in Yemen itself it would be super interesting to do something similar.

00:14:06: that has obviously been very difficult nowadays.

00:14:11: so there are still many unexplored avenues here.

00:14:14: There is also a question on social inclusion which many scholars also have written about because this is not only a scholarly sort of manuscripts and prayers, ritual practices.

00:14:30: It's also basically Islamization.

00:14:34: And how exactly does it happen?

00:14:37: The overall thesis in more like general Islamizations studies that trade again as the forerunner And then people always need to agree upon a legal framework in which to conduct trade, especially when it's long distance.

00:14:54: Then Islam provides exactly that.

00:14:57: so there are incentives for training partners To join Islam and settle their contracts on an equal basis.

00:15:05: There is also intermarriage Which I find particularly interesting but very difficult to trace because you don't often follow the female line here in manuscripts and silsilas, so on.

00:15:21: So hopefully we can find even more because that is I think a very also important driver.

00:15:28: In these port cities the sailors found their wives right?

00:15:33: There's a whole line of how wives became the drivers for Islamization as well.

00:15:41: It's quite interesting, some of the ideas and practices but also the cultural influences that are emerging from your conversation around how mobility across the Red Sea seems to have enabled movement between people traders.

00:15:58: But also Islamization social cohesion intermarriages I'm wondering what other ideas stand out?

00:16:07: have been a result of this mobility.

00:16:10: What other cultural influences or practices might have emerged as the result?

00:16:16: Yeah,

00:16:17: that is very good and big question.

00:16:20: I would say it's almost like you can answer this question specifically on food practises The use certain spices building practises.

00:16:34: This something to see clearly when you visit both the coastal towns of South Arabia, but also obviously East Africa.

00:16:44: The circulation of textiles for example... You can always see that these are actually the same slightly altered for specific customers whether it's in Mokalla or it be in Kulamu say.

00:17:02: So you can answer this question on a very detailed level and many scholars have done tracing textile trade, tracing specific spices.

00:17:15: Or you could do it with specific practices which I think are also perhaps more what i've been doing.

00:17:24: Typically we see how certain Sufi orders are extremely trans-regional.

00:17:31: Yet, again they are constantly in contact historically.

00:17:38: Again initiating new recruits will be a certain set of practices which then become the norm... ...in given location.

00:17:52: So you can really trace this question on so many levels and go all the way up.

00:18:00: perhaps say something like these generates a certain... I saw you use the concept of cosmopolitanism.

00:18:09: I'm not always super happy with that concept myself, but it generates a sort an outlook where openness to otherness is perhaps greater than you would find in locations which wouldn't have the same.

00:18:29: type of contact network so depends where you want to go as a researcher or observer and it also depends I guess on what kind of purpose your study has.

00:18:43: Thank You Professor Anna, i was actually just about ask you the concept of cosmopolitanism that you said, You're not always happy with this concept.

00:18:56: So maybe you can tell us a little bit why.

00:18:59: but in talking about this concept I wanted to invite you to speak a little Bit About your research on Zanzibar because i'm wondering what could Tell Us about This place specifically?

00:19:13: What Place it has taken when looking at ties between the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa.

00:19:21: If you would term it maybe one of the examples... ...of early modern port cities or global cities, Maybe you can tell us a little bit about that.

00:19:32: Thank You!

00:19:34: I can certainly try and return to what we most focus on And i tried to outline.

00:19:44: there are several layers but The thing is first comes to my mind, at least when you study the Zanzibar is a study of identity.

00:19:57: And that for me it's been mostly cultural but also certainly political nowadays especially because Zanziba has exactly this history of being cosmopolitan.

00:20:11: now I'm using inverted commerce here.

00:20:14: It has this reputation a sort of place where people have different religions and cultures, backgrounds.

00:20:26: Statuses has lived together in that sense being an up-port city or global city.

00:20:33: but the reason I'm not completely happy with this concept is because cosmopolitanism implies openness also equality which certainly hasn't always been the case.

00:20:48: that has not been the case for the enslaved populations, both in the nineteenth century into the twentieth century and also before.

00:20:59: The same goes for obviously women.

00:21:02: it is not easy to find historical sources about women even though as I said they have an extremely important role society as the mothers of children, traders or scholars and so on.

00:21:25: I've always struck by a certain source that i think have overquoted it in my own work.

00:21:32: this is from early twentieth century and the british are trying to set up schools like colonial school.

00:21:41: they make their decision about teaching arabic because presumably what people want.

00:21:51: And they only recruit boys and they only recruited elite boys, that meaning sons of Umani Arabs... ...and then they are struck by this fact that none of these sons can speak Arabic at all because they speak Swahili!

00:22:08: They speak the language their mothers and aunties nephews on the mother's side and so on.

00:22:18: So it is not distinct to say that this is exactly a cosmopolitan society, It is layered.

00:22:27: some are more equal than others also in our cosmopoliten world.

00:22:32: but I would still argue That it generates a certain type of identity others.

00:22:44: If that makes sense, if that makes it global is another debate here?

00:22:52: I think the core-the historical core here is the relationship between The Arabian Peninsula and the coast.

00:23:01: whatever comes after Is political!

00:23:05: The Umani rule is political...The British period.

00:23:11: It's definitely political.

00:23:13: But the cultural undercurrent is this long, long, Long centuries of trade.

00:23:20: Not necessarily with Zanzibar because that came later but we'd part there With Lamu later on would kill war and so

00:23:31: on.

00:23:32: You know from your book Zanzibi Muslim moderns Islamic path to progress in the interwar period.

00:23:39: I think our listeners will benefit a lot reading how you explore Muslim intellectuals, how Muslim intellectual civil servants.

00:23:50: Religious scholars as well in colonial Zanzibar navigated and defined ideas of modernity or reform of progress during the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties.

00:24:01: I think a lot of your thinking can be gleaned from that work.

00:24:06: but i want to move the conversation ahead.

00:24:09: Some of your research has highlighted the important role that East African scholars and intellectuals have played in, you know wider Muslim networks.

00:24:18: But how were ideas not only transmitted to East Africa but also produced adapted and circulated from the region to other parts of the Indian Ocean world?

00:24:31: Yes I don't want to jump ahead on my conclusions.

00:24:38: take the starting, as historians we sometimes tend to think that there is like a one big wave in a way.

00:24:49: And when it comes to Islamic studies has tended to be yes-it comes from the Middle East just like you tend to thing that expansion of European colonial empires sort of come form north and we tend forget all kinds other movements across and on the side, diagonally in all directions.

00:25:13: And this is especially when you study... ...the spread of Islam and Islamic practices.

00:25:20: You see it very clearly that smaller centers develop.

00:25:25: Zanzibar definitely one of them.

00:25:27: I mean zanzibars not even small but i suppose relative to let's say Mecca or places that are obviously centres.

00:25:38: And they radiate their own waves or impulses, that draw in other populations and also feed back into the bigger loop.

00:25:54: Typically some of the Sandsibari scholars have written about deeply venerated... ...in Yemen!

00:26:02: In Hadramout itself as they would be in the African interior, Muslim communities there.

00:26:11: And another typical example is the visitation of graves for example on an annual basis.

00:26:19: and you also see very clearly how these draw new populations from the Middle East Yemen or Oman.

00:26:32: so it's sort wanting to look against the grain of this center periphery thinking, which to me gets very much undermined if you look closely at especially societies like Zanzibar.

00:26:51: And inside of Zanziba itself would have other groups let's say Shias, Shia Muslims who are looking in a completely different direction Ismailis, who generate again their own traditions and their own centers that become important within those communities.

00:27:13: So I think the overall thesis here would be it's not as simple a center periphery.

00:27:21: It is much more localized than spread out Generating new trajectories of both movement and intellectual exchange.

00:27:35: Thank you for that answer, maybe to move a little bit more into the current context or debate because often when we discuss Africa-West Asia relations it is centered around themes like investment diplomacy and geopolitical competition.

00:27:54: but what do you think policymakers researchers and practitioners fail to consider, or how do you think they would benefit from looking deeper at these ties that you mentioned?

00:28:06: And looking deeper the details that are overlooked when adopting a very central periphery thinking as you mentioned.

00:28:15: And feel to look at the more localized dynamics

00:28:20: I Think... I mean far be it for me to advise policymakers directly.

00:28:30: But when I read policy papers, especially nowadays of course as you say concern with investment... ...I think there's one element that you don't often see and that is returning again to the issues of identity which goes back to this region or these port cities should they be seen state, you know as a state of port cities.

00:28:59: You could conceivably think about it that but in the modern narratives which are also very much concerned with migration right between Africa and West Asia?

00:29:12: But also between all places and Europe I'm not sure we grasp the concept of identity correctly here because potential political agency and financial agency, for that matter if we are on the investment side.

00:29:31: Because these identities are extremely complex exactly as a result of how they came about but also very fluid And there can be expressed in extremely small variations which you hardly notice unless as simple as the more expressive use of Arabic vocabulary in Kiswahili, as an expression of religious identity or vice versa.

00:30:03: The choice of Swahili vocabulary over Arabic is a political conviction for example.

00:30:11: so there are all these small details that I think generally underestimated because you tend to see The nation, the political system.

00:30:27: Perhaps the religious identity.

00:30:29: if you go that way but don't see all these micro expressions of identity which are and remain within a broader context they're always contested and debated.

00:30:45: There is expectation also has been historical expectations in Europe that you speak of assimilation.

00:30:53: And this process is kind of meaningless in the Sanzibaric context, because yes... Of course everybody's Sanzi Bari!

00:31:02: Everybody is Sanzhi Bari But everybody has a different background and a different history such as the Komorian community I write about in the sanzibari Muslim moderns In policy be it both either Tanzanian, or let's say Gulf nations seeking to invest.

00:31:27: Or European agencies of all sorts.

00:31:32: I think they're not always looking carefully into this and i don't mean that everybody should have a PhD in history.

00:31:40: just the awareness That what you see is much more complex display of identity than What it might superficially look like.

00:31:52: This leads nicely to perhaps, you know the final question that if there were to be one lesson from The History of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean worlds.

00:32:03: That You think policymakers and researchers should keep in mind when discussing African-West Asia relations today?

00:32:12: What would it be?

00:32:17: First To Keep In Mind Now this is a very deep history.

00:32:21: I think it's sometimes forgotten, honestly that these connectivities are not a function of the Umani Empire.

00:32:29: They were there long before.

00:32:31: It is definitely not to function off The British empire.

00:32:36: they where their longed-before and its also no defunction off the wealth of Gulf nations today... ...they were there along before.

00:32:47: So just to keep that always in mind, again because it plays into identity.

00:32:53: But I think a broader lesson... ...that i want.

00:32:58: take the cue from my good colleague Chaksti Larson who is an anthropologist and has worked alot also in Zanzibar.

00:33:06: She says its infact not strange or weird or unusual anyway That people of many different backgrounds live together in a society and still consider themselves Sanseblores or Watualamu, whatever it may be that It is rather a hallmark of a particular form of Society which Is exactly this Port cities, global cities.

00:33:39: Cosmopolitan cities call them what you want?

00:33:44: I prefer to say that they are... Cities always in constant negotiation with a broader world be it the Gulf nowadays and financial terms of course the broader Islamic World The world in general.

00:34:02: so It is not easy for us always in the framework of the modern nation state to grasp this and understand it.

00:34:10: And I think that's something whether we deal with migration, investment policy making or also as historians anthropologists sociologists keep it in mind.

00:34:25: Well, thank you so much for sharing these fascinating insights with us and helping to better understand the historical and cultural foundations that are underpinning West Asia-Africa relations.

00:34:39: Thank you very much!

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00:34:58: Until next time.

00:34:59: thank you for listening!