Shadhiliyya Sufi Order

[Carlito Austin]

TheComoro Islands have historically played a vital role in the commercial and religious history of the south-west Indian Ocean and as a human bridge between the African continent, Madagascar, and the Mascarene Islands. In this paper I seek to examine three aspects of this relationship as it pertains to Mozambique and to stimulate collaborative scholarly research. The first topic examines the intimate trading connections between the Comoros and Mozambique. While much attention has been focused on the slave trade of this circuit in the 19th century, we must not overlook the thriving, complex exchange of foodstuffs that was equally part of the same regional network. These connections underpinned the second and third issues that I discuss in this paper. The second aspect of this relationship focuses on the African diaspora in the Indian Ocean world. 1 examine how displaced African populations were absorbed into their host societies, the ways in which they maintained and transformed their own cultural identities, and the influences that they carried with them into these new historical situations in the Comoros. The third element of this relationship concerns the history of Islam in northern Mozambique, in the 19th and 20th centuries, which is intimately tied to the Comoros.

Une relation complexe : le Mozambique et les Comores aux 19e et 20e sicles. -- Les Comores ont jou un rle crucial dans l'histoire commerciale et religieuse du sud-ouest de l'ocan Indien et en tant que trait d'union humain entre le continent africain, Madagascar et les Mascareignes. Dans cet article, je cherche examiner ces trois aspects par rapport au Mozambique et dans le but de stimuler la recherche collective. Le premier aspect concerne les liens commerciaux troits unissant les Comores au Mozambique. Alors que l'on a jusqu'ici mis l'accent sur le commerce des esclaves au cours du XIXe sicle, on ne doit pas sous-estimer la complexit et la prosprit du commerce de denres alimentaires qui faisait galement partie intgrante de ce mme rseau rgional. Ces relations sous-tendent les deux autres aspects abords dans ce travail. Le second aspect concerne la diaspora africaine de l'ocan Indien. J'analyse la faon dont des populations africaines dplaces ont t absorbes par les socits d'accueil, les moyens qu'elles ont utiliss pour la fois maintenir et transformer leurs identits ainsi que les traditions qu'elles ont apportes avec elles. Le troisime aspect a trait l'histoire de l'islam dans le nord du Mozambique au XIXe et au XXe sicle, histoire qui est intimement lie celle des Comores.

The Comoros have historically played a vital role in the commercial and religious history of the south-west Indian Ocean and as a human bridge between the African continent and Madagascar. In this paper I explore three aspects of this relationship that have hitherto been relatively ignored1.

The first topic examines the web of trading and political connections between the Comoros, Madagascar, and Mozambique. While much attention has been focused on the slave trade of this commercial circuit in the 19th century, we must not overlook the thriving, complex exchange of foodstuffs that was equally part of the same regional network. Both of these are well attested to in Portuguese sources and reveal how normal this traffic would have been regarded by the inhabitants of the coastal areas and islands of the northern half of the Mozambique Channel. These connections provided the foundation for the second and third issues that I will discuss in my paper.

The second aspect of this relationship focuses on the African diaspora in the Indian Ocean world. One of the features of the Indian Ocean diaspora that distinguishes it from the Atlantic world is the forced overseas migration of African labor to other parts of the African continent, including the offshore islands. There are or until recently were identifiable relocated populations from East Central Africa and the Tanzanian hinterland (mainly of "Nyasa", Yao, Makua, Ngindo, and Zigua background) as far afield as southern Somalia, the Kenya coast, Pemba, Zanzibar, the Comoros, and western Madagascar. I am interested in how these populations were absorbed into their host societies, the ways in which they maintained and transformed their own cultural identities, and the influences that they carried with them into these new historical situations. The Comoros are an integral part of this aspect of the diaspora, one that merits closer examination.

The third element concerns the history of Islam in northern Mozambique, which is intimately tied to the Comoros. This connection derives partly from the new commitment to Islamic education that marked the close of the nineteenth century in the face of aggressive European colonialism, but there is good evidence from earlier in the century for an especially tight Islamic network linking the dominant political lineage at Angoche to the Comoros. The critical moment, however, dates to the introduction of the Shadhiliyya Yashruti and the Qadiriyya turuq (sufi orders), both of which had strong Comorian connections, at Mozambique Island a century ago. Moreover, even during the later colonial period, Portuguese authorities looked to the Comoros for adjudication of problems within the Muslim community of Mozambique.

In what follows I attempt a preliminary reconstruction of each of these histories from the sources available to me and seek to identify future questions for research that arise from this initial effort. Above all, I hope to be able to stimulate new research involving collaboration with and among Comorian and other regional scholars on these important historical questions.

There can be no meaningful appreciation of the history and culture of the Comoros in isolation from the human currents of the Mozambique Channel and the wider world of the western Indian Ocean. Towards the end of the eighteenth century these were severely disrupted and then transformed, first by the beginning of several decades of intermittent warfare by Malagasy maritime raiders against both the islands and the African littoral and, second, by the growth of slavery and slave trading throughout the sub-region2. One consequence of the threat of Malagasy raids was the regular exchange of intelligence through Muslim emissaries in the first decade of the new century between the Portuguese authorities at Mozambique Island, the Sultan of Nzwani, and the Queen of Bombetoka, the important trading entrept that was the predecessor of modern Mahajanga3. Although the era of Malagasy raids effectively ended in 1820, a sense of shared political vulnerability and convergence of commercial interests fostered the maintenance of official correspondence between the rulers of the Portuguese colony and the island sultanates for the next decade4. Indeed, virtually all of this correspondence relates either to matters of political intrigue and rivalries on the islands or to trading in provisions. Much of it involves letters between Portuguese officials at Mozambique Island and the Sultan of Nzwani or his representatives; only a few concern either Ngazidja or Mwali, while none are recorded from or to Mayotte5. Portuguese records of ships entering the port of Mozambique Island, on the other hand, record arrivals of ships from all four islands. For example, an early letter from the Sultan of Mwali to the Governor-General of Mozambique was precipitated by war between that island and Nzwani, its effective overlord, in 1828. A year later, the Sultan's assertion that the forces of Nzwani had suffered many more losses than had his own was confirmed by a letter from the Sultan of Nzwani to the same Portuguese official that claims some 400-500 deaths from this conflict. In addition, the Sultan of Nzwani sought to trade with the Portuguese, asking in particular for "some old slaves or small boys for my agriculture" 6. Many of these letters consist of professions of friendship, including offers of one party or the other to provide hospitality and services for the facilitation of trade between Mozambique and the Comoros.

Although the slave trade inevitably attracted most attention from European observers, it would be a mistake to consider that this was the only trade carried on between the Comoros and Mozambique. The islands supplied Mozambique with rice, sorghum, finger millet, some oats, beans, mung or green gram, coconuts, coconut oil, ghee, honey, goats, cattle, and sambo (from ntsambu in Shingazidja; Cyclas circinalis), a form of sago that was used only for feeding slaves7. We know from Portuguese accounts that these provisions were carried to Mozambique aboard vessels belonging to shipowners from the islands. Although most of these records refer only to ships making port at Mozambique Island, some are reported to have touched at the Kerimba Islands, as well8 (Prior 1819: 55; d'Avezac et al. 1848: 117, 120). A French visitor at Mwali in 1828 notes that ships from this island annually traded to both Mozambique Island and Quelimane (Leguvel de Lacombe 1840: 331). This body of evidence also includes one instance of a Portuguese vessel bringing foodstuffs from the Comoros to Mozambique Island and one case of a local Indian trader seeking a license to trade for sambo at Ngazidja (Santana 1974: 981 #160, 15 #15).

Depending on local politics, however, relations were not always cordial; for example, traders from the Comoros were sometimes regarded as a threat to local agriculture by Portuguese officials because of the low price of their provisions. According to one source, Comorian vessels had not been admitted to the Portuguese roadstead before 1821-1822, when traders from Mwali first gained access, while the Governor-General in 1830 strongly opposed the role of Comorian trade at the Portuguese colonial capital (Santana 1967: 337-339 #5/2). In fact, it seems that European traders were no more welcome at Mwali than were Comorians at Mozambique. In 1828, when the French traveler Leguvel de Lacombe was captured at Mwali, he discovered that Sultan Husayn, brother of the Sultan of Nzwani, hated all Europeans because one trader had sailed away without payment for the full cargo of goods he had taken on at Mwali, despite the fact that he had previously accommodated them with supplies of provisions and "slaves that my subjects went to buy for them on the coast of Africa" (Leguvel de Lacombe 1840: 316-317; J. Martin 1983, I: citations in Index). Indeed, in 1831 tensions increased as a consequence of the capture of a Portuguese ship by Arab pirates. A letter from the Sultan of Nzwani to the Portuguese Governor-General in April of that year requests that the latter make peace with the Sultan of Quitangonha, an independent Swahili chiefdom immediately to the north of Mozambique Island, and regrets the Arab seizure of this Portuguese ship. Hoping to re-establish "the former friendship" that existed between Nzwani and the Portuguese, he specifically comments on the differences that existed between the Arabs and the people of Nzwani, "among whom there exists only a community of belief" (Santana 1974: 163-164; for further details, see Dubins 1972: 102-103, 105, 108-109). A month later, the Sultan of Ngazidja, Amad Bun Sahid Sualee (Ahmed b. Said Ali b. Soali, better known as Mwinyi Mkuu (1792-1875)), afforded protection to some of the Portuguese subjects whose vessel had been attacked at sea. According to his letter to the Portuguese Governor-General, the ship had been seized by one Abdallah b. Muhammad b. Suleiman Marzuqui, four of its crew killed, and the remainder carried to the port of Quitanda (Kitanda, Itsandra), which lay beyond his authority on Ngazidja as Sultan of Bambao. The survivers fled to the Sultan's port, which although it is not named would have been Moroni, from which he sought to repatriate them to Mozambique9 (Santana 1974: 159 #121). Whatever tensions and disruption to trade were produced by this incident, reality soon intervened. During a crisis precipitated in 1831 by the culmination of the extended period of devastating famine in south-eastern Africa, the Portuguese establishment at Mozambique Island depended for its very existence on the importation of foodstuffs. Accordingly, in June the Governor-General of Mozambique wrote a series of desperate letters to one of the rulers of Madagascar, the governor of Bombetoka, and to the rulers of Nzwani and Ngazidja, requesting them "to send their pangaios [small sailing vessels] with provisions and cattle to Mozambique". By September the Governor-General could report that the crisis had passed and that Mozambique enjoyed "very good understanding with the kings of Ngazidja and Nzwani" among other regional potentates10 (Santana 1967: 942-943 #9/1-3, 951-952 #15/1).

3a8082e126