Khatib M. Rajab
Evolution
Of Nationalism
Nationalism is a
European ideology that demands for
the sovereignty and independence of
the people who live in a nation
defined boundaries under a central
rule which promotes and protects
their secular life and interests.
Among the major manifestations of
such nationalistic sentiment were
the American Revolution leading to
the American Independence in 1776,
and the French Revolution in 1789.
Both revolutions stressed the
principles of human dignity,
equality, fraternity and equal
opportunity. The American
Declaration of Independence, written
by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), a
prominent "Founding Father" of
America, stated that all people were
born equal and that liberty and
equality were inalienable rights of
all. Such a nationalistic struggle
for liberation spread and led to the
rise of the sovereign states in
Central Europe early in the 19th
century and then rose in Eastern
Europe later in that century. This
ideology spread among the Muslims
countries after the abolition of the
Khalifate in 1922 under the Ottoman
Empire (1299-1922) which emerged in
the 15th century as a bulwark
against European colonialism and
expansionism. The abolition of
Khalifate left the Muslim countries
in a state of rampart stagnation
with evolution of secular
nationalism. The Westernization of
educational system led to the growth
of Muslim elites, among them
perpetuate the ideologies of
nationalism and patriotism in Muslim
countries.
Although Zanzibar
nationalism led to the struggle
against the British colonialism for
their independence until the current
century, the resistance to foreign
domination to impose cruel
exploitation and inhuman atrocities
did not need the importation of such
a parochial concept of European
nationalism. Because hatred of any
sort of foreign exploitation is
natural sentiment nourished by
Islam as the Qur'an calls for
the ‘Izzah (self esteem or
honorable) of the Believers (Qur'an;
63:8). The Qur'an not only forbids
surrender to the authority of
infidels (Qur'an; 4:144), but
Muslims must not take the Jews and
the Christians as intimates and
protectors (Qur'an; 5:51), but
Muslims must be the rulers of their
own nation (Qur'an; 4:59), according
to the Islamic Laws (Qur'an; 57:25)
for the best in this life and the
best in the Hereafter. (Qur’an;
2:201).
Since the Islamic
Laws are inseparable from politics,
evolution of Zanzibar nationalism
should focus on Islam unless it is a
Western distortion of a pristine
Islam in Muslim countries. When the
Western hegemony, particularly the
British became increasingly
propitious during the twentieth
century, Islam in Zanzibar inspired
anti-colonialism, political
movements and nationalistic struggle
for independence. The grounds were
cemented by a charismatic Muslim
reformer, Sayyid Ahmad Abu Bakr
al-Sumait (1861-1925), who applied
to resign the post of Qadhi. When
Barghash bin Said bin Sultan, the
then Sultan of Zanzibar (1870-1888)
denied his resignation, Sayyid Ahmed
al-Sumait fled to Istanbul, Turkey
where he was hosted by Sultan Abdul
Hamid (1876-1909) for two years.
Sayyid Abul Ahmed al-Sumait was
seeking for other eminent Muslim
reformers who worked with Sultan
Abdul Hamid in collaboration with
Jamal al-Din al-Afghan (1839-1897)
for Pan-Islamism against Western
imperialism. From Iran, Jamal al-Din
al-Afghan was expelled to Istanbul,
Turkey (1869-1871) before he left to
Egypt (1871-1879) where he taught at
the al-Azhar University but was
later deported and went to India
(1879-1882), asking Muslims to
resist European colonialism under
the spirit of Pan-Islamism, first
advocated by Namil Kamal
(1840-1888), a pioneer of Islamic
revivalism in Turkey. But Muhammad
Abduh (1849-1905) and Muhammad
Rashid Rida (1865-1935), the two
famous disciples of Jamal al-Din
al-Afghan and Salafiyyah Islamic
movement through its international
journal called al-Manar (The
Lighthouse) edited by Muhammad
Rashid Rida, were also responsible
for politics of nationalism and
patriotism among the Islamists from
Cairo to Zanzibar. Muhammad Jamal,
an Egyptian ulama known as
Turkiyyah was famous for promoting
al-Manar in Zanzibar. After
leaving Turkey, Sayyid Ahmed
al-Sumait studied at al-Azhar
University Egypt before he returned
to Mecca for his further studies and
pilgrimage. When he arrived Zanzibar
he taught numerious students,
including Sheikh Muhammad bin Ahmed
al-Mlomry (1873-1936), who later
also studied at al-Azhar under
Muhammad Abduh.
Other famous
student of Sayyid Ahmed Abu Bakr
al-Sumait, was Muhammad bin Muhammad
bin Bakashmar. He was forced into
exile in India in 1889 by the
British colonial government for what
the Councillor Gerald Portal termed
his "narrow minded fanaticism and
his hatred of all things European."
Hence, the ideas of Sayyid Ahmad
Khan (1817-1898), the founder of the
Alighar Muslim Academy in India,
induced Zanzibar Islamists to form
the Zanzibar Muslim Academy, the
first of its kind in East Africa.
When Muhammad Bakashmar returned to
Zanzibar, Islam was not only the
basis for anti-colonial solidarity,
but also Islamic slogans and
terminologies which played important
role in nationalistic movements in
Egypt were replicated in Zanzibar,
the than major ally for the
Islamization and political movements
against the British colonialism in
Africa.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz
Abdul Ghany al-Amawy (1832-1897) so
actively fought against the European
political and cultural penetration
among the Muslims in Zanzibar and
Tanganyika that "the Germans
expressed a feeling that he was in
the habit of thwarting the desires
and acting inimically to Germans
interest in East Africa." The
British, equally distrustful of him,
felt that he was believed on terms
of confidential intimacy with German
consulate. Randall Pouwell stated
that he often was in trouble with
both contenders for power and empire
in East Africa. The Germans
threatened him several times with
deportation to Germany, while the
British Consul, Charles Ean Smith
(1889-1891) in Zanzibar, also tried
to pry Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Amawy
from being a member of Majlis
al-Shura (Consultative Body)
under Sayyid Khalifah bin Said
(1888-1890), the most strict Sultan
of Zanzibar for the application of
the Islamic Law before the evolution
of nationalism and patriotism.
Islam On
Nationalism And Patriotism
Nationalism and
patriotism in Zanzibar were
interpreted by the homegrown Muslim
activists in two different schools
of thought. The first advocated that
nationalism is related to a
particular group of people and is
incompatible with Islam because its
universalistic message draws no
distinction between Muslims except
on the criterion of their
righteousness. Patriotism vaunted in
the twentieth century was not
associated with specific ethnic
groups but the global Dar
al-Islam (The Abode of Islam) as
well as al-Watan al-Islam
(the Islam homeland), analogous to
the Egyptian politics under Mustafa
Kamil (1893-1908), a radical
nationalist and editor of al-Liwa
(The Banner), started in 1900 which
was read by eminent Islamists at
Mosque Barza in Zanzibar.
These Islamists uncompromisingly
asserted that nationalism violates
the very essence of the Qur'anic
injunction which is against
ethnocentricity, promotes
universalism, embraces all aspects
of life, advocates a free society
and inculcates a single ummah
(community) among the Muslims. Allah
tells Muslims in the Qur'an that:
"this is your ummah, one ummah"
(Qur'an; 21:92), it is D�r
al-Islam (The Abode of Islam)
and the rest of the world is
reffered to as D�r al-Harb
(The Abode of War) or D�r al-Sulh
(The Abode of Peace by Treaty).
The second school
of political thought amalgamated
nationalism with patriotism as
wataniyyah, from watan
(nation), althougth is related to
the territorial aspects of national
identity. Because the Prophet
Muhammad (pbuh) said that Hubb
al-Watan Min al-Iman (Love of a
nation is from the faith), they also
believed nationalism or patriotism
can be reconciled with Islam.
According to this school of thought,
love for one's birthplace and
yearning for the place where he was
reared early in his life, is a
natural sentiment. This is not the
same as "nationalism" or
wataniyyah (patriotism), in the
modern context. Because the Prophet
Muhammad (pbuh) and his Companions
who emigrated with him to Medina in
622, missed Mecca badly, especially
during the early part of their stay
in Medina. Some of them, like Abu
Bakr Siddique (573-634) and Bilal
bin Rabah (570-641), fell sick and
they composed poems during sickness
about their longing for homesick of
Mecca, their birth place. Therefore,
the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) prayed
to Allah to inspire them with love
for their new town and to make its
climate as agreeable to them and as
healthy as that of Mecca. This was
centuries before the modern term of
nationalism and patriotism had their
conceptually political developement
in Zanzibar.
Impact Of Islam
On Zanzibar Nationalism.
Before the Second
World War (1939-1945), there were no
active political associations in
Zanzibar except the Islamic
movements, such as the Jamiyyatu
Shubba al-Muslimin (The Young
Muslims Association), founded on
November 25, 1935 by Salim bin
Abdullah bin Wadan (1901-1942), the
editor of the al-Fal�q (The
Dawn) newspaper since 1929. One of
the active member of the Young
Muslim Association (YMA) was
Sheikh Ilyas bin Ali bin lyas as-Sinesry
(1888-1937), who used to commute to
the rural areas to familiarize
Zanzibaris with the Young Muslims
Association and encouraged the
rural people to join it. Eventually,
he started darsa (classes) in
the Simba Mosque at Gulioni, where
he taught Islam under the auspices
of the Young Muslim Association,
reminiscent of the Egyptian Young
Mens' Muslim Association (YMMA)
founded in 1927 with their Muslim
Journal launched in 1929 by Ahmed
Yahya al-Dardiri.
Shortly after the
First World War (1914-1918), other
active political group in Zanzibar
was the Indian National
Association (INA), whose first
president was Yusufali Esmailjee
Jivanjee. But both the YMA and the
INA were not advocating the Zanzibar
independence but protecting their
rights under British colonial
regime. The former was independent
from outside while the later had her
political ties with the Indian
National
Congress under Muhammad Ali
Jinna in British India.
Traditionally, the leadership of the
INA in Zanzibar came from large
families but had the support of the
rank and file of their groups called
Jumui’a (Communities).
When the British colonial government
upheld the Education Commission
based on racial separation in the
professions in 1920, Yusufali
Esmailje Jivanjee ardently demanded
secondary schools should be opened
to all races. He emphasized that the
schools should teach to university
entrance standard, and produce not a
mere automatons but also men of an
independent calibers who would be an
ornament to the state and community
and serve to raise the general
intellectual level in Zanzibar. It
was this time that the Teachers'
Training College (TTC) was opened in
1923 at Raha Leo, but the
British colonialists rejected any
idea of establishing integrated
school in Zanzibar. Therefore in
1923, the colonialists opened
commercial school at Mikunguni
mainly for Indians, and in 1924 an
industrial school for Africans, but
many rural schools started in 1925
such as Chwaka and Makunduchi in
Zanzibar island, and Mtambwe at Wete
in the Pemba, the sister island of
Zanzibar.
After the
partition of India in 1947, the
Indian National Association was
split into the larger association
called the Muslim Association
( MA), led by an Indian scholar
called Shah Muhammad Chowdhary. His
party was sym pathatic with the
Muslim League in Pakistan. The third
group was the Arab Association
(AA) whose first President was
Abdullah bin Sulayman al-Harith, a
direct descendant of the famous al-Harith
family in which the governor of
Zanzibar had been appointed prior to
the establishment of the Omani
Sultanate in Zanzibar under Sayyid
Said bin Sultan. However, this
association was not as much
effective as another ethnic group,
the Shirazi Association (SA)
formed in 1939 under the Presidency
of Sheikh Thabit bin Kombo bin Jecha
al-Shirazy. But this association was
less political until after the
Second World War, when the Zanzibar
nationalism became a dichotomy of
Zanzibarism (Uzanzibari) and
Africanism, known as Ubara
(Mainlandernism), analogous to
al-Misriyyun (Egyptianism) and
al-Urbah (Arabism), a
distinction between native Egyptians
and immigrant Arabs in Egypt,
similar discourse to the African
mainlanders in Zanzibar. Not only
Egypt and Zanzibar were under the
British subjugation, but most of the
radical concepts of nationalism with
Islamic appellation in Zanzibar have
their origin from Egypt. This
discourse started in the late 1940s
when the Shirazis became restless
because of the British colonial
frustration and arbitrary rule which
destabilised their economic security
at Kiembe Samaki near the Zanzibar
Airport, a few miles from the
Zanzibar City.
The threat from
the British colonial government
brought Washirazi (The
Shirazis) together and provided
their militant leadership into
rampart against the British. But as
usual, whenever the colonialsits
were confronted with new militant
evolution of nationalistic
situations, they tended to panic and
resorted to retaliatory crusades,
often with violent if not
Machiavallian or Pharaonic
dictatorship. Several Shirazis in
Zanzibar died and a number of their
leaders were dragged into British
custody at Kinua Miguu. In
retaliation, the Shirazi
nationalists stormed the central
prison at Kinua Miguu and took away
their leaders after they broke in
and overpowered the gurdians. When
the Shirazi Muslims' revolt was
suppressed by massive use of the
British military force, the leaders
were rearrested, charged for
"inciting riot" and sentenced to
imprisonment. Some immediately
became martyrs and others emerged as
authentic leaders of the Shirazi
nationalistic movement. Among these
were Maalim bin Zaid, Miraji bin
Shaaban and Haji bin Hussein al-Shirazi,
a prominent radical for Zanzibar
nationalism.
Source :
http://victorian.fortunecity.com/portfolio/543/islam_and_nationalism.htm |