personal memories revolutionary states and indian ocean migrations

1 Al-Rayyis was moved by the Swahili tarab, which, for the ears of an Arab like him, was nothing but
an Arab tarab. This music and the Zanzibari ‘Umm Kulthūm’ performing and singing in both Arabic
and Swahili woke in him, as he said, “my historical senses and moved in me nostalgic sentiments. I
almost forgot that I was half the globe away from Beirut…” Upon leaving this performance, he felt
inside him “a strong bitterness for an Arab Andalusia that Arabs lost in Africa.” Riyād Najīb al-Rayyis,
Ṣahāfī wa madīnatayn: rihla ilā Samarqand wa Zanjabār (Beirut: Riyād al-Rayyis Books, 1997), 192-193.
2 As Mandana Limbert argues in this volume, not all Omanis enjoyed an ‘elite’ social and economic
stature. “Many were considered of lower status than the Omanis who had settled in Zanzibar in the
previous centuries and who had established themselves as an elite, creole community and were known
as Mangan Arabs.” Idem, “Personal Memories, Revolutionary States and Indian Ocean Migrations.”
According to one British official document, Manga Arabs were defined as being “of a wild,
ungoverned nature, turbulent and prepared at all times for any mischief…”, a description different
from that given to the ‘elite’, as shown in this work. PRO CO 618/66/1, 07 February, 1936, 3. (Report
of the Commission of Enquiry Concerning the Riot in Zanzibar on the 7 th of February, 1936).
3 Randall L. Pouwels, Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African Coast,
800-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 191.
4 See, for example, Laura Fair, Pastimes and Politics: Culture, Community, and Identity in Post-Abolition Urban
Zanzibar, 1890-1945 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001), 42.
5 See Francis Robinson, “The British Empire and the Muslim World,” The Oxford History of the British
Empire, eds., Judith et al., vol. 4, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 406.
6 Fair, Pastimes and Politics, 38.
7 Norman R. Bennett, A History of the Arab State of Zanzibar (London: Methuen & Co., 1978), 222-231.
8 This, however, does not mean that each and every member of the Omani elite articulated opposition
to the British and their policies. Omani intellectuals were as critical of the British as they were of other
Omanis who either did not dare to criticize the British or did not hesitate to implement their policies.
In any case, members of the Omani elite who voiced their opposition and adopted an anti-colonial
discourse seem to have dominated Omani intellectual life on the island and to have shaped the
political opposition to colonialism.
9 Engseng Ho uses the term ‘parochialization’ to refer to “the imprint of colonial history, and of
colonial categories which still organize its historiography” in his study on Arabs in the British and
Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia. This, as he observed, occurred at a number of levels, from defining
a political geography that later became a ‘national’ geography, to dividing time into specific historical
periods to, most significantly, creating racial categories out of multi-ethnic conglomerates. Idem,
“Before Parochialization: Diasporic Arabs Cast in Creole Waters,” Huub de Jonge and Nico Kaptein,
eds. Transcending Borders: Arabs, Politics, Trade and Islam in Southeast Asia (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002),
11-35.
10 As Adeed Dawisha indicates, the concept of an Arab world is “a cultural rather than a political
construct, and consequently, there has been considerable shift over time in the conceptual delineation
of the land mass inhabited by ‘Arabs’.” Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From
Triumph to Despair (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 14.
11 The impact of those three elements on defining an Arab-Muslim identity is best captured by Albert
Hourani in his prologue to his seminal work A History of the Arab Peoples, a prologue centered around
the career of ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Khaldūn. Idem, A History of the Arab Peoples (London: Faber &
Faber, 1991), 4.
12 While the Arabic language has always been the basis for defining an Arab identity, ideologues of
Arab nationalism (and therefore Arab identity) were split on the role of Islam in defining that identity.
The secular version of Arab nationalism, as formulated by someone like Ṣāṭi‘ al-Ḥuṣrī for example, did
not accommodate Islam but rather considered it problematic in defining the national identity of Arabs.
See William L. Cleveland, The Making of an Arab Nationalist: Ottomanism and Arabism in the Life and
Thought of Sati‘ al-Husri (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971). However, Arab identity as
defined by Arab Islamists considered Islam as its backbone. This was expressed by Muslim reformers
such as Muḥammad ‘Abduh, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Kawākibī, Rashīd Riḍā, Shakīb Arslān, Muḥibb al-Dīn
al-Khaṭīb and many others. The Arab-Muslim identity and the version of Arab nationalism examined
here is the one that reckoned on both language and religion as propagated not by secular ideologues
such as al-Ḥuṣrī but by those religious reformers mentioned above. See, for instance, William L.
Cleveland, Islam against the West: Shakib Arslan and the Campaign for Islamic Nationalism (Austin: University
of Texas Press, 1985), Ernest C. Dawn, “The Origins of Arab Nationalism,” in The Origins of Arab
Nationalism, eds., Rashid Khalidi et al. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 3-30, Israel
Gershoni and James Jankowski, Redefining the Egyptian Nation, 1930-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge
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