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berian Umayyad relations with the Ibāḍī Rustumids and the Ṣufrī Midrārids have not been well understood. After an initial period of Khārijite rebellion against the Umayyads in the 120s/740s, in which Khārijite revolutions in North Africa spilled over into the Iberian Peninsula, profound ties developed between the Umayyad amīrs, and the Midrārid and Rustumid imāms. In the far Maghrib, where ‘Abbāsid power did not reach, trade—especially the trade in human beings—brought these erstwhile political and religious enemies together. Relationships between these groups lasted well beyond the destruction of the Midrārid and Rustumid dynasties in the early fourth/tenth century. This paper re-examines the textual and numismatic evidence for Ibāḍī, Ṣufrī, Iberian Umayyad (and even early ‘Abbāsid) relations in order to propose that strong economic interests based primarily in the slave trade underlay the political ties that developed in the late second/eighth century between these groups.

[Un livre, des collections] Rencontre avec Augustin Jomier, auteur du livre Islam, réforme, colonisation : une histoire de l'ibadisme en Algérie (1882-1962) En partenariat avec les Éditions de la Sorbonne Comment écrire une histoire des temps coloniaux à partir de points de vue d'Algériens et comment penser le réformisme musulman, problème majeur de l'histoire contemporaine de l’islam ? C’est à ces deux questions connexes, aussi centrales qu’irrésolues, que s’attaque simultanément Augustin Jomier dans son étude sur l’ibadisme contemporain, qui vient de paraître aux Éditions de la Sorbonne. La rencontre sera animée par Benjamin Guichard, directeur scientifique de la BULAC, qui présentera en préambule les collections ibadites de la BULAC. L'intervenant : Docteur et agrégé d’histoire, ancien élève de l’École normale supérieure de Lyon, Augustin Jomier a enseigné aux universités du Mans, de Paris-Est-Créteil, à l’EHESS et à l’EPHE. Il a été pensionnaire de la Fondation Thiers (2013-2016), puis lauréat d’une Chaire d’excellence de l’Université Sorbonne-Paris-Cité (2016-2019) et Visiting research fellow au Near Eastern Studies Department de l’Université de Princeton, USA (2018). Il est actuellement maître de conférences à l’Inalco en histoire du Maghreb aux périodes moderne et contemporaine et chercheur au CERMOM. À la jonction entre l’histoire coloniale et l’histoire de l’islam, il s’intéresse aux mutations sociales et culturelles du Maghreb à la période contemporaine, histoire qu’il écrit à partir de sources en langue arabe et en langues européennes. Son premier livre, Islam, réforme et colonisation : une histoire de l’ibadisme en Algérie (1882-1962), Paris, Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2020, enquête sur la question du réformisme musulman parmi les populations ibadites du Mzab, dans l’Algérie coloniale. Le chantier principal auquel il s’attèle à présent porte sur l’histoire sociale et culturelle du livre et de la lecture au Maghreb (XVIIIe-XXe siècle). Il est aussi investi dans un projet intitulé « L'orientalisme en train de se faire », mené à l'EHESS autour des archives de René Basset (1855-1924), fonds d’archives dont il est le responsable scientifique.

Abstract The power of the Al Bu Sa'id Sultans of Oman was widely known as based on delicate balances of forces (and ethnic-social groups), deeply different among them. In fact, the elements that composed the nineteenth century Omani leadership were, and had always been, generally 'divided' amongst three different ethnic groups: the Baluch, the Asian merchant communities and the African regional leaders (Mwiny Mkuu). Within this framework, the role played by European Powers, particularly by the Treaties signed between the Sultans of Oman and the East India Company for abolishing slavery, and by the arms trade was crucial for the development of the Gulf and the Western Indian Ocean international networks They highly contributed to the gradual 'shifting' of the Omanis from the slave trade to clove and spice cultivation – the major economic source of Zanzibar Island – along the coastal area of Sub-Saharan East Africa. The role played by the Omani Sultans – the myth – within the western traditional historiography, which often described them as firmly controlling both the Arabian and African littorals and the major trading ports of the Western Indian Ocean during the nineteenth century, will be reexamined in this paper, taking into account recent research studies and international debates in the topic. The new hypothesis consists of a different perception of the concepts of power and control (political and territorial) of the Western Indian Ocean littorals by the most famous of the Sultans of Oman during the nineteenth century: Saiyid Sa'id bin Sultan Al Bu Sa'id.

Emily Ruete’s Memoirs of an Arabian Princess was first published, in German, in 1886, on the threshold of the nineteenth-century imperialist “Scramble for Africa.” Ruete’s exilic relationship with both Europe and Africa made her an insider-outsider, well positioned to capture the imperial stage of Enlightenment Orientalism in flux and transmit it across the oceans to a public who would have found the life she describes unimaginable. In relaying the story of how Sayyida Salme became Emily Ruete, the Memoirs employs a mode of translation that is simultaneously linguistic, cultural, religious, and material. In Ruete’s case, translation is an embodied act. As a translator, Salme/Ruete critically and comparatively translates Zanzibar, and by extension the “Orient,” for a Western audience by virtue of her body being able to enter into and to pass through multiple social and cultural spaces.

Abstract African Muslim societies were characterised, in the 20th century, by the emergence of reformist movements that have gained, since the 1970s, major social, religious and political influence in a number of countries, including Northern Nigeria, Senegal, Zanzibar and Sudan. These movements of reform are, however, not recent phenomena. Rather, they look back to a history of several generations of reformist endeavour and thought that may have been influenced, to a certain extent, by external sources of inspiration. This contribution shows how the biographies of major reformist personalities such as Cheikh Touré in Senegal, Abubakar Gumi in Northern Nigeria and 'Abdallâh Sâlih al-Farsy in East Africa reflect a number of common features of Islamic reform in Africa, while their programmes of reform were shaped, at the same time, by local frame conditions.

The role of Iranian merchants in the maritime trade of the Indian Ocean basin from antiquity up to the 16th century is often underestimated. From scholarly histories to popular culture the “Muslim sailor” is typically portrayed as being an Arab. In fact, from pre-Islamic times the principal actors in Indian Ocean trade were predominantly Persian, as attested by the archaeological data, local written records, and the names of places and individuals.

Through a multi-sited ethnological lens, this article highlights the influences of political and economic dynamics on the Omani-Zanzibari family construction. It explores the fluid nature of the Omani-Swahili identity, the role of the family institution in regulating morality and sexuality, and the impacts of political events and forces on the development of multiple family configurations. It further analyzes key societal concepts such as marriage, legitimacy, succession, post-forced-displacement adaptation, and evolutionary identity. Through a qualitative study, the author uses fieldwork in Oman and Zanzibar, a range of primary archival sources, dialogues with prominent Omani-Zanzibari personalities, and published and private personal memoirs reflecting key historical periods in the development of Omani-Zanzibari identities to speak to the themes of the Omani polity that are unique to the Gulf.

Abstract The main object of this article is to falsify the common historical portrait of South Asians in Zanzibar and East Africa. Most studies, a-priori, assume the outstanding business success of the Asian minority in East Africa. In explaining this success, they emphasize common explanations and theories for their economic success, like hard work, having a superior business mind, using their ethnic resources for capital accumulation and knowledge of (international) markets. In this article I attempt to explain the success of South Asians in Zanzibar, East Africa, from a historical point of view. My main argument is that South Asians started with a far more favorable socio-economic position as compared to their African counterparts. They were more than Swahilis, accustomed with a money economy and the concept of interest. In addition, they knew how to read, write and produce account books. Finally, they had access to the rulers, and were able to negotiate profitable terms of trade. Nevertheless, many were not successful at all and went bankrupt. Therefore, the success of South Asians in East Africa may be explained as the outcome of a 'trial and error' process. The successful remained in East Africa, whereas others left. India remained a safety net for those who did not make out as well as a source for new recruitment of traders, shopkeepers and clerks.

Abstract The idea of comprehensiveness, which I call 'facing-both-ways' in matters of faith, is unknown, at least for now, in the Global South Anglicanism where the Anglican Church is used to preaching the Gospel plainly and unmistakably. The story of homosexuality in the Anglican Communion came to the spotlight at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, at which the Anglican bishops of the Global South of the Anglican Communion emerged as the most prominent opponents of any form of approval of homosexual practice by the Anglican Church. By asking the hard question as Bishop Frank Weston of Zanzibar did in 1913: Anglican Communion: For What Should She Stand? Anglican bishops of the Global South of the Anglican Communion drew the Communion's attention to the place and role of Global South Anglicanism in the Communion and World Christianity.

Hadrami scholars have long been recognized as well as been influential teachers of East African Islam, especially in the late 18th and early 19th century. is article traces the role of Hadrami teachers and scholars on Islamic education in Zanzibar between c. 1870 and 1930. The article analyses different levels of Islamic education and traces the texts and teachers who came to influence generations of Muslims in the British-Bū Saīdī protectorate.