Anne K. Bang
[RoutledgeCurzon, 280pp, 2003]

Review by RAHMA BAVELAAR

Anne Bang's objective in Sufis and Scholars of the Sea is to explore the history of Islam in the northwest Indian Ocean during the 19th and early 20th century, focusing on the scholarly exchange of ideas between Hadramawt, Yemen, and the East African Coast by looking at the life and works of Ahmed bin Abi Bakr bin Sumayt (1861-1925), the son of a Hadrami immigrant to the Swahili coast and a respected scholar and Sufi in the Yemeni and East African intellectual traditions.

Through an empirical study of his travels to and from his ancestral Hadramawt, the family and scholarly links he forged and maintained, and his work as a Shafi`i qadi (judge) in Zanzibar under the patronage of the British-Omani state, Bang seeks to elucidate several interrelated questions which have as yet received scare attention in Western scholarship: why did members of the Hadrami tariqa`Alawiyya become such important exponents of a new, more literate Islam in East Africa? What did they teach and what inspired their teachings? How did they maintain and expand their scholarly network across time and space? Did changes in these networks occur and, if so, why? How did the content of their teachings relate to simultaneous developments in the wider Islamic world? And what was their relationship to the British-Omani colonial authorities in Zanzibar?

The great strength of Scholars of the Sea lies in its convincing use of what are often considered purely "religious" documents, such as scholarly genealogies (silsilas) and certificates (ijazas), as valuable historical sources that can help elucidate processes of religious change and revival.

Although the overall emphasis of the work is on change, Bang challenges the previously common perspective in Western academia that 19th-century 'neo-Sufism' represented a fundamental break with the classical, supposedly more quietist, mystical tradition of Islam. Her highly detailed description of the historical origins and teachings of the `Alawiyya brotherhood-which closely follows the 'canonical' version taught within the tariqa itself-she emphasizes the continuity of its theological and spiritual tenets (vested in its members' dual genealogical and spiritual claim to descent from the Prophet), in spite of the far reaching institutionalization of its educational practices in the late 19th century. She also points out the continued centrality of classical mystical and legal writings to `Alawi education in the Hadramawt and East Africa.

If institutional changes in educational practices were hardly revolutionary in Yemen, they certainly were in East Africa, Bang argues with reference to the `Alawi scholarly class in Zanzibar, where the Hadramis' emphasis on scriptural Islam and Arabic literacy severely eroded the authority of the Swahili upper class (the Waungwana) and their monopoly, until then, on the primarily oral transmission of Islamic knowledge.

New religious practices, such as public dhikrs (remembrance) and mawlids (celebration of the Prophet's birth), which were introduced by the `Alawis and other new Sufi brotherhoods, greatly widened the general population's opportunities for religious participation but seriously diminished the authority of the Waungwana who had previously monopolized popular religious practices. Bang persuasively argues that new ideas and practices may have radically divergent consequences according to the specific nature of the Muslim community in which they are introduced.

Along the same lines, Bang argues that the association of 'orthodoxy' with 'Arabness' in the East African context needs to be reconsidered: what were considered highly 'orthodox' devotional practices by the `Alawi scholars were obviously perceived as highly 'unorthodox' by the Waungwana, who had considered their own mawlid celebrations to be representative of "proper" Islamic behavior.

Bang's argument for the relativity of such loaded concepts as tradition and reform is further elaborated in her exploration of the influence of modernist and pan-Islamist thought on Hadramawt, and consequently East-Africa. Ibn Sumayt's network connected him with scholars in Hadramawt, its diasporas in Mecca, Indonesia and Istanbul, as well as prominent modernist thinkers such as Mohammed `Abduh and Rashid Rida' in Egypt.

An analysis of the scholarly exchanges taking place through these contacts shows that although modernist thinkers and exponents of the tariqa `Alawiyya shared a strong interest in social and educational activism (da`wah), their intellectual foundations were entirely different. The activism of the `Alawiyya in Hadramawt and Zanzibar was primarily an internal development, deriving its inspiration from late 18th-century Hadrami revivalists. It was expressed in the institutionalization of religious education and an increased drive towards da`wah among non-`Alawis and in the countryside, but otherwise remained firmly within the parameters of `Alawi Sufism. Modernist thought, on the other hand, as expounded by scholars like Mohammed `Abduh and Rashid Rida-as embraced by a large group of `Alawi scholars in Indonesia-had its roots in a much more thorough intellectual transformation, formulated in a context of colonial expansion and severely critical of the more esoteric aspects of Islam.