Philosophising in Mombasa: Knowledge, Islam and Intellectual Practice on the Swahili Coast (International African Library)

305 Pages·2007·2.21 MB·English

by  Kai Kresse

1199 eup mombasa 28/2/07 14:29 Page 1
PHILOSOPHISING IN MOMBASA
KAI KRESSE
KNOWLEDGE,ISLAM AND INTELLECTUAL PRACTICE I.A.I.
ON THE SWAHILI COAST
Kai Kresse
K PHILOSOPHISING
‘The introductory chapter is so good that it could stand alone in a journal arguing for an
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anthropology of philosophy.’
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David Parkin,Professor of Anthropology,Oxford University S
S IN MOMBASA
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‘Kai Kresse brings three traditional Swahili scholars to life as sages in his masterly contextualisation
of their ideas.This is an important scholarly contribution to the debate about the validity of non-
western forms of philosophical engagement.’ KNOWLEDGE, ISLAM AND
Professor Mohamed Bakari,Fatih University,Istanbul,and former African Visiting Fellow,Oxford
Centre of Islamic Studies
INTELLECTUAL PRACTICE
‘Kai Kresse takes us definitively away from the old debates about ethnophilosophy into the new
ON THE SWAHILI COAST
terrain of African philosophy as intellectual practice,as the production of knowledge as wisdom. P
This bold and innovative book charts a new course for a modern anthropology and its H
engagement with the political economy of knowledge production.’ I
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Henrietta L.Moore,Professor of Social Anthropology, O
London School of Economics and Political Science
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‘The subject matter of Kai Kresse’s book is not only timely;his work is a milestone in terms of the P
ground it covers.’ H
D.A.Masolo,Justus Bier Professor of Humanities, I
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University of Louisville in Kentucky
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Philosophising in Mombasa provides an approach to the anthropological study of philosophical G
discourses in the Swahili context of Mombasa,Kenya.In this historically established Muslim
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environment,at the dawn of the twenty-first century,philosophy is investigated as social discourse N
and intellectual practice,situated in everyday life.This is done from the perspective of an
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‘anthropology of philosophy’,a project which is spelled out in the opening chapter.
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Kai Kresse is Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of St Andrews and currently a Research M
Fellow at the Zentrum Moderner Orient,Berlin. B
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INTERNATIONAL AFRICAN LIBRARY S
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Editors
J.D.Y.Peel,Suzette Heald and Deborah James
The International African Library is a monograph series from the International African Institute and
complements its quarterly periodical Africa,the premier journal in the field of African studies.
Edinburgh University Press E
22 George Square,Edinburgh EH8 9LF D
I
Cover photograph by Konny Kilian N
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ISBN 978 0 7486 2786 8 U INTERNATIONAL AFRICAN LIBRARY
www.eup.ed.ac.uk R
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For further details of the International African Institute,London,
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visit their web site at www.iaionthe.net
International African Library 35
General Editors: J. D. Y. Peel, Suzette Heald and Deborah James
PHILOSOPHISING IN MOMBASA
The International African Library is a monograph series from the International
African Institute and complements its quarterly periodical Africa, the premier
journal in the fi eld of African studies. Theoretically informed ethnographies,
studies of social relations ‘on the ground’ which are sensitive to local cultural
forms, have long been central to the Institute’s publications programme. The
IAL maintains this strength but extends it into new areas of contemporary
concern, both practical and intellectual. It includes works f ocused on problems
of development, especially on the linkages between the local and national
levels of society; studies along the interface between the social and environ-
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International African Library
General Editors
J. D. Y. Peel, Suzette Heald and Deborah James
Titles in the series:
1 Sandra T. Barnes Patrons and power: creating a political community in metropolitan
Lagos
2 Jane I. Guyer (ed.) Feeding African cities: essays in social history
3 Paul Spencer The Maasai of Matapato: a study of rituals of rebellion
4 Johan Pottier Migrants no more: settlement and survival in Mambwe villages, Zambia
5 Gunther Schlee Identities on the move: clanship and pastoralism in northern Kenya
6 Suzette Heald Controlling anger: the sociology of Gisu violence
7 Karin Barber I could speak until tomorrow: oriki, women and the past in a Yoruba
town
8 Richard Fardon Between God, the dead and the wild: Chamba interpretations of religion
and ritual
9 Richard Werbner Tears of the dead: the social biography of an African family
10 Colin Murray Black Mountain: land, class and power in the eastern Orange Free State,
1880s to 1980s
11 J. S. Eades Strangers and traders: Yoruba migrants, markets and the state in northern
Ghana
12 Isaac Ncube Mazonde Ranching and enterprise in eastern Botswana: a case study of
black and white farmers
13 Melissa Leach Rainforest relations: gender and resource use among the Mende of Gola,
Sierra Leone
14 Tom Forrest The advance of African capital: the growth of Nigerian private enterprise
15 C. Bawa Yamba Permanent pilgrims: the role of pilgrimage in the lives of West African
Muslims in Sudan
16 Graham Furniss Poetry, prose and popular culture in Hausa
17 Philip Burnham The politics of cultural difference in northern Cameroon
18 Jane I. Guyer An African niche economy: farming to feed Ibadan, 1968–88
19 A. Fiona D. Mackenzie Land, ecology and resistance in Kenya, 1880–1952
20 David Maxwell Christians and chiefs in Zimbabwe: a social history of the Hwesa people
c. 1870s–1990s
21 Birgit Meyer Translating the devil: religion and modernity among the Ewe in Ghana
22 Deborah James Songs of the women migrants: performance and identity in South
Africa
23 Christopher O. Davis Death in abeyance: illness and therapy among the Tabwa of
Central Africa
24 Janet Bujra Serving Class: masculinity and the feminisation of domestic service in
Tanzania
25 T. C. McCaskie Asante identities: history and modernity in an African village 1850–
1950
26 Harri Englund From war to peace on the Mozambique–Malawi borderland
27 Anthony Simpson ‘Half-London’ in Zambia: contested identities in a Catholic mission
school
28 Elisha Renne, Population and progress in a Yoruba town
29 Belinda Bozzoli, Theatres of struggle and the end of apartheid
30 R. M. Dilley Islamic and caste knowledge practices among Haalpulaar’en in Senegal:
between mosque and termite mound
31 Colin Murray and Peter Sanders Medicine murder in colonial Lesotho: the anatomy of
a moral crisis
32 Benjamin F. Soares Islam and the prayer economy: history and authority in a Malian
town
33 Carola Lentz Ethnicity and the making of history in northern Ghana
34 David Pratten The man-leopard murders: history and society in colonial Nigeria
35 Kai Kresse Philosophising in Mombasa: knowledge, Islam and intellectual practice on the
Swahili Coast
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PHILOSOPHISING
IN MOMBASA
KNOWLEDGE, ISLAM AND
INTELLECTUAL PRACTICE
ON THE SWAHILI COAST
KAI KRESSE
EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS
for the International African Institute, London
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To all my parents,
for all their support
and
To the memory of
Henry Odera Oruka
(1944–1995)
© Kai Kresse, 2007
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
Typeset in Plantin
by Koinonia, Bury, and
printed and bound in Great Britain
by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts
A CIP record for this book is available
from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 2786 8 (hardback)

The right of Kai Kresse to be identifi ed
as author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
For other publications of the International
African Institute, please visit their web site at
www.iaionthe.net
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1
CONTENTS
Preface and acknowledgements vii
Sources xi
About the author xii
Maps xiii
Prologue
Approaching philosophical discourse in a Swahili context 1
Part I Coordinates – theory, ethnography, history
1 Towards an ‘anthropology of philosophy’
The ethnography of critical discourse and intellectual practice
in Africa 11
2 The Swahili context
Mombasa, the Old Town and Kibokoni 36
3 A neighbourhood of thinkers
Knowledge, discourse and East African Islam 70
Part II Contextual portrayals of local intellectuals
4 Ahmed Sheikh Nabhany
Swahili poetry and the conservation of cultural knowledge 105
5 Ahmad Nassir’s poetical moral theory
Utu – how human beings ought to behave 139
6 The Ramadhan lectures of Sheikh Abdilahi Nassir
The social critique of a politically minded Islamic scholar 176
Part III Reconsidering ethnography, reconsidering theory
7 Counterpoints and continuities: the younger generation
Intergenerational idioms – experience and perspectives 211
Epilogue
Approach and fi ndings, conclusions and perspectives 231
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vi CONTENTS
Appendices
1 Ahmed Sheikh Nabhany: Utendi wa baraza ya Iddul-l-Fitri 240
2 Sheikh Abdilahi Nassir: Ramadhan lecture, 26 December 1998 247
Notes 251
Bibliography 267
Index 283
MAPS
1 Western Indian Ocean and Swahili coast, with Mombasa xiii
2 Mombasa District and Mombasa Island xiv
3 Mombasa Old Town within city area, with Kibokoni xv
FIGURES
— Rooftop perspective, Old Town, with Mombasa skyline xvi
2.1 Historical background of coastal–upcountry divide 54
2.2 Rooftop perspective, Old Town, view towards Old Port, creek 56
2.3 Street scene, Old Town: Ndia Kuu 58
2.4 Mandhry Mosque, near Old Port 60
2.5 Street scene, children playing 63
2.6 Street scene, Kibokoni: the author’s home during fi eldwork
(top fl oor) 65
3.1 Baraza corner with two young men 73
3.2 Football: David Beckham picture at Manchester United corner 74
3.3 Zefe (festive procession) during maulidi, Lamu 1999 85
3.4 Zefe at maulidi, Lamu 1999, detail with Sharif Khitamy and
Ali Hassan Mwinyi 86
3.5 Sharif Khitamy in front of Habib Saleh’s house, 1999 88
3.6 Sheikh al-Amin Mazrui 90
3.7 Sheikh Abdallah Saleh Farsy 91
3.8 Sayyid Omar bin Sumayt and Sayyid Omar Abdallah 92
3.9 Intellectual genealogy of East African Islamic scholars in the
twentieth century 93
3.10 Sheikh Muhammad Kasim Mazrui 95
4.1 Ahmed Sheikh Nabhany, with his fi rst wife Khadija, 1999 113
4.2 Topical comment on the resignation of Mayor Balala 134
5.1 Ahmad Nassir (Juma Bhalo), 1999 152
5.2 Utu – the cycle of demand and reward 168
6.1 Sheikh Abdilahi Nassir, 1999 184
— Man thinking in a cafe, Lamu, 1999 232
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1
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research project leading to this book has combined many of my study,
research and travel interests over the last fi fteen years or so. It can be linked
back to my MA thesis in Philosophy (University of Hamburg), where I
dealt with Ernst Cassirer’s philosophical anthropology and its relevance for
an intercultural project of philosophy (Kresse 1996); to my MSc thesis in
Anthropology (LSE, University of London), where I discussed the izibongo
genre of Zulu oral poetry and its role for critical discourse in society
(revised and published in 1998); and to my ongoing preoccupation with
African philosophy which started in 1990, when I was a fi rst-year student
of Philosophy and African Studies. In the same year, I had already begun
learning Kiswahili while travelling in East Africa, and then studied it for
over four years in Hamburg under the good guidance of Sauda Sheikh
Barwani. This book is based on my PhD thesis which was examined at the
University of London in February 2002. For the period of my postgraduate
research, I was registered in the Anthropology Department and also the
Africa Department at SOAS.
Fieldwork for this project was authorised by the Kenyan Offi ce of the
President (OP/13/001/28C 115/4) and conducted between early August
1998 and late September 1999. It included a good ten-month stay in the
Kibokoni quarter of Old Town Mombasa, where I lived in a fl at in Nyeri
Street. Several short trips to Lamu and Zanzibar were undertaken within
the fi eldwork period. I was already familiar with East Africa and the Swahili
region due to previous visits: for three months in 1990, 1992 and 1993 (with
a DAAD stipend for a two-month Kiswahili intensive course in Zanzibar)
and for one month in 1995. An HSP3 doctoral scholarship from DAAD,
the German Academic Exchange Service, fi nanced the fi rst two years of this
project and is gratefully acknowledged. From SOAS, I received an addi-
tional fi eldwork award, for which I am also grateful. During my stay in
Kenya, I was affi liated to the Institute of African Studies at the University
of Nairobi and I would like to express my gratitude for that.
At SOAS, J. D. Y. Peel and Louis Brenner, then my supervisors, provided
a fi nely balanced combination of encouragement, guidance and critical
feedback. My sincere thanks for their confi dence in me, and also for their
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viii PHILOSOPHISING IN MOMBASA
reliable support and the seriousness with which they treated this project in
all its stages. From a standpoint of Swahili expertise, Farouk Topan gave me
feedback on several chapter drafts and I thank him for that. Before embarking
on fi eldwork, I also profi ted from valuable comments from Ridder Samsom,
Kit Davis, Susan Beckerleg, Sean O’Fahey, Sheikh Yahya Ali Omar and
Trevor Marchand, among others; the latter two provided further helpful
advice after fi eldwork as did Richard Fardon. I thank Henrietta Moore and
David Parkin for the fruitful discussion of an earlier version of this manu-
script and for their encouragement since. I am also grateful to Mohamed
Bakari for his helpful comments and for generously sharing information. I
also thank the two anonymous readers of the manuscript submitted to the
IAI for their comments and their endorsement of this project.
In Mombasa, there are many people to thank, too many to mention
all those who made my stay as productive, pleasant and homely as it was.
Nawashukuru wote. My gratitude is fi rstly due to the three main characters
of this study who, when introduced to the aims of my research, helped me
in their different ways. Their openness to my research, and their readiness
to discuss with me what I was seeing, hearing, reading and thinking about,
and their encouragements to look, listen and participate in social activities,
were crucial to the realisation of this project. I thank my wazee, Ahmed
Sheikh Nabhany, Ahmad Nassir Juma Bhalo and Sheikh Abdilahi Nassir
for all the support, time and kindness they showed me. In a similar vein,
I thank Sayyid Abdulrahman Saggaf Alawy (Mwalimu Saggaf) for sharing
some of his vast knowledge with me, readily spending many hours on my
questions; and I thank marehemu Sayyid Abdulrahman Ahmed Badawy
(Sharif Khitamy), unfortunately deceased before this publication, for all
his support and friendliness. My gratitude also needs to be extended to the
wives and families of all those mentioned, for their admirable and generous
hospitality.
I fondly remember the early evening hours at Hassan F. Hassanali’s
sweetshop, enjoying the company of Hassan himself, the Sheikh, and
‘Abubakar yake’, Mzee Bashir Chandoo; also Bwana Agil, Mwalimu Iqbal
Gitau, Mohamed Dumila and Bwana Potelo. Talks and discussions with
them were often enlightening and helpful. Thanks also to Swaleh Said, for
much assistance in the transcription of Ramadhan lectures, for many talks
and walks in the Old Town and for being a good friend. For cheerful inspi-
ration and friendship, thanks also to Shoeb Chandoo. Abdulqadir A. Nassir,
for all help offered, links established and thoughts shared, must be thanked
emphatically and with a smile of recognition: utu personifi ed.
Culinary thanks go to Island Dishes in Kibokoni; to Fuad, Farouk,
Abdulkarim and their staff, who made me feel at home during all different
times of the day and provided delicious Swahili food. My helpful neigh-
bourhood included Mzee Abdulkarim (generous with and full of stories),
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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
his son Akasha and family, and my neighbour Hussein. Fuad Muhammad
and (from early on) his wife Bi Nuru Ali Hussein and her family, her mother
and brothers Abbas, Abdallah, Farouk and Ahmed made me (and Joy)
feel as extended family. I also thank Sulaiman and family for friendship
and hospitality. For interviews and conversations, I thank Ustadh Harith
Swaleh, marehemu Mwalimu Jumadari, Athman Lali Omar, Athman
Hussein Athman and Stanbul A. Nassir, but also Ali, Munir, Zainabu,
Hassan, Habibu and Omari. Also Gitari’s company will not be forgotten. I
thank Shabbir Pirbhai for helping me to settle, and Hein Somfl eth for fi rst
introducing me to Mombasa, starting in 1978.
For hospitality at the Islamic University of Mbale, and for feedback and
a good discussion on my project, I would like to thank Prof. T. S. Sengo and
his family, and also his students and colleagues. In Lamu, I owe much to
Ahmed Shuuri and his family and friends for the immediate extension of
friendship ties: asante. Thanks also to Ali and Hashim Bunu, for pleasant
periods of accommodation at Sun and Sail, and to Hashim especially for
stimulating conversations and critical questions. Also, Mahmoud Mau was
very kind and ready to share some of his knowledge and poetic material
with me: shukran. In Zanzibar, I thank Mwalimu Idrisi for providing helpful
information and initial contacts. I also thank Bi Asia Salim Omar and family
for hospitality and information, and for help in translating Utenzi wa Mtu
ni Utu.
For feedback and corrections on earlier versions of the manuscript not
already mentioned above, I especially thank my three wazee, and Abdul-
qadir A. Nassir, Hashim Bunu, Mahmoud Mau, Alena Rettova and my two
anonymous reviewers.
On the side of academic philosophy, I thank Jens Heise for his early interest
in my work and for many inspiring talks informing the philosophical
framework of this research. In Nairobi, when I came for brief but regular
visits, both Gail Presbey and Bruce Janz kindly provide philosophical inspi-
ration through discussions, as well as generous accommodation in their
respective fl ats. The interest in the late H. Odera Oruka’s work had brought
us together, and the spirit of sage philosophy was still alive at the University
of Nairobi where I also benefi tted from stimulating talks with friends and
colleagues such as Oriare Nyarwath, Juma Ndovu, Joseph Situma, Ochieng-
Odhiambo, Wafulah and Owakah. Outside of philosophy, Prof. M. Abdulaziz
and Hassan Mwachimako are thanked for graciously sharing some of their
expertise with me.
Papers and presentations on various chapters and aspects of this manu-
script were given in a number of conferences, workshops, lectures and
seminar talks in London, Nairobi, Mbale, St Andrews, Bayreuth, Mainz,
Kassel, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Ithaca, Binghamton, Evanston,
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