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and the Arab-Muslim communities in East Africa. Their common theme of delving into questions of identity only confirms the uniqueness of ‘frontier’ zones in their defiance, through their hybridity and fusion, of all geographic and disciplinary borders. Those zones rather become tied to boundless geographies and wider histories and invite the curiosity of those who see in crossing boundaries an opportunity to push the limits and craft a new intellectual domain. ENDNOTES 1 Eugene Rogan, “Introduction”, MIT Electronic Journal Middle East Studies 3(Spring, 2003), p. 1. Vol. 5, Fall 2005, © 2005 The MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies 8
C ONSTRUCTING I SLAM A ND S WAHILI I DENTITY HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THEORY Louise Rolingher ∗ . . . there is a different kind of construction, well worth calling social, that occurs when we develop our systematic classifications of and knowledge about people and their behaviour. This has to do with the looping effect . . . Ian Hacking 1 For there to be an identity, society, culture, or ethnic group, it is not necessary for all parties to agree on what defines this culture; it is sufficient that they are able to establish the terms of identity as a problem about which they can debate or negotiate. Jean-Loup Amselle 2 The people of Coastal East Africa, from Somalia to Mozambique, have long been recognized as the bearers of a unique and fluid culture and language— Kiswahili. That culture and language are the product of trading relationships that encompassed the Indian Ocean and extended from Africa, the Middle East and India to as far east as Indonesia and China. Although “Swahili” language and culture have absorbed many influences from visitors to the East African coast over the centuries, it is predominantly based on varying combinations of African and Arab cultural and linguistic forms and religion--Islam. Debates about Islam on the Swahili Coast, and the East African mainland, have centered on the “penetration” of Islam into East Africa—how, when and by whom—and orthodox vs. popular praxis. These debates have frequently borne the mark of philosopher Ian Hacking’s looping effect. Hacking argues that the classification of knowledge has a kind of “feedback” effect in which our categorization of certain kinds of knowledge shapes the object of our study, which in turn influences the way we classify that knowledge. Classification and knowledge are continuously folding back on one another. 3 In this paper, I will discuss some of those loops in the study of Islam in East Africa and then examine some works whose authors have attempted to free themselves from the feedback effect and point the way for future scholarship. ∗ Louise Rolingher is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Alberta. She is working on her dissertation, “In the Zanzibar Household: Domestic Relations, Cultural Mixing and the Making of East African Identities in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.”
Page 2 and 3: FOUNDER/EDITOR Maha Yahya BOARD OF
Page 4 and 5: BOOK REVIEWS REVIEW ARTICLE Leo Str
Page 6 and 7: FRONTIER GEOGRAPHY AND BOUNDLESS HI
Page 10 and 11: Among those scholars who do write p
Page 12 and 13: involved and the view that “Islam
Page 14 and 15: history. Such a focus would indeed
Page 16 and 17: in “conditions of change and cont
Page 18 and 19: “multiple sites.” People in Eas
Page 20 and 21: 43 Cooper’s reading of Sacred Mea
Page 22 and 23: local and personal politics of the
Page 24 and 25: mainland. As most of those who were
Page 26 and 27: spirits, she was accustomed to the
Page 28 and 29: While Ghania was in Zanzibar, they
Page 30 and 31: MEMORY, LABOR AND VIOLENCE Ghania
Page 32 and 33: ENDNOTES In addition to the support
Page 34 and 35: BEING BAYSAR (IN)FLEXIBLE IDENTITIE
Page 36 and 37: Sulayman corrected the slave. He wa
Page 38 and 39: When Tippu Tip (properly Hamed bin
Page 40 and 41: town afterwards, however, and may h
Page 42 and 43: 35 When Wilkinson carried out his r
Page 44 and 45: socialists and anti-Arabs led a suc
Page 46 and 47: Arabs who had been arriving on the
Page 48 and 49: Zanzibar’s printing press provide
Page 50 and 51: especially among Arabs, and galvani
Page 52 and 53: INTERWAR ZANZIBAR: THE IDEOLOGY OF
Page 54 and 55: 1 Al-Rayyis was moved by the Swahil
Page 56 and 57: Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republ
Page 58 and 59:
71 Al-Mughayrī stated that the Ara
Page 60 and 61:
The first Christian missionaries to
Page 62 and 63:
In reality, however, while Steere e
Page 64 and 65:
Farsy wrote that of all the Muslim
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other Steere’s Swahili translatio
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His word, “I will praise the Word
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virtue. The barbarians of Rome and
Page 72 and 73:
miraculous light that appears over
Page 74 and 75:
23 Heanley, A Memoir of Edward Stee
Page 76 and 77:
turned from there, and went toward
Page 78 and 79:
Saudi Arabia, under the title Taqri
Page 80 and 81:
REVIEW ARTICLE Leo Strauss: Philoso
Page 82 and 83:
(pp. 43-46) are apocryphal. To be s
Page 84 and 85:
Eva Hanebutt-Benz, Dagmar Glass, an
Page 86 and 87:
His publications (described in an e
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Lebanese Christians of the middle s
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investigation in a stand-alone form
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journey towards rationality: Ariel
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ambitious title as “Tocqueville i
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consumption. Yet within the context
Page 98 and 99:
had very precise categories, three
Page 100 and 101:
necessarily partial and provisional
Page 102 and 103:
family business in trouble,” disc
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