The Ismaili Imami Shiah Khoja in East Africa Before the Colonial Period
Islam must have been brought down the East African coast by traders
from the Arab peninsula within a century or two of the Hijrah. A
Muslim civililsation was built up in places like Lamu, Malindi, Gedi,
Mombasa, Zanzibar and Kilwa and was flourishing when Vasco da
Gama came by in 1498. Seyyid Akhtar Rizvi of Dar-es-Salaam points
out that inscriptions on the pillar tombs of Malindi suggest that some of
the Muslims settled on the coast were Shiah[8]. Some may indeed have
been Ismailïs but there is no evidence for or against. For many centuries
Indians from the Malabar coast were trading with the monsoon to East
Africa. As Ismaili trader converts moved down from Sind they might
well have joined in the maritime trade; but again, of the nature of the
case, there is no evidence till the nineteenth century. When Sultan
Sayyid Said of Oman and Muscat set up his headquarters at Zanzibar
in I837 he encouraged Indians to come and settle in his domains. He
gave them freedom of religion and protection. Both Hindus and
Muslims seem to have responded to the conditions he created.
It is interesting that Rai Shamsuddïn Tejpar, at that time President of
the Tanzania Ismaili Association, remarked in an interview in 1966 that
the Ismailis were coming to East Africa 'about 125 years ago.' So far as
Bombay Government was concerned they were persons from British
India, their activities brought prosperity to British subjects, they were
given some distant protection. Their religion did not matter much. So far
as Sayyid Said was concerned, he was an Ibadi Muslim. his Arabs and
Swahili were Sunni of the Shafi school, the Indians were a different
cultural, social and linguistic group: it is probable that he took
cognizance that some of the wahindi were more Muslim and less kafir
(unbeliever) than the others, but he was tolerant to all and promoted
undoubted Hindus in his service[9]. As for the Indians in the Sultan's
domains, whether they were Hindu, Ismaili or Sunni, they were one
group with similar customs, from the same area, engaged in commerce,
using the same methods. A strict Hindu finds his religion inhibited by
crossing salt water; a strict old-fashioned Muslim should find his faith
inhibited by the need for usury. It was the bringing by Indians of capital
which enabled the Arabs and Swahili to-equip caravans and begin the
great journeys to the Lakes and beyond; it was the Indians who made
possible the opening up of the routes from the sea through Tanganyika
to Lake Victoria and Buganda, to Lake Tanganyika and on to the
Congo, up the Ruvuma to Lake Nyassa. The European “explorers".
mainly followed those routes opened up by Arabs and Asians. In the
circumstances the Ismailis would do well.
As to their journey from the India coast to East Africa, we have not
yet come upon a written description. As one prominent Ismaïli
remarked. 'our ancestors didn't write much. they even signed with their
thumbs.' But there are Ismailis whom we have interviewed who are old
enough to have traveled by sail in boats owned by their kinsmen before
the stream- and motor-ship stifled the sailing boat traffic. A boat took
many days from Bombay to Mombasa. If they were lucky and the cargo
was rice, they did not rack for food and water. But conditions could be
otherwise[10]. One can imagine that some of the voyages were not as
pleasant and that many died. It must have needed no small courage to
undertake such voyages.
The motives of the Ismailis who faced this voyage and the unknown
in Africa can to some extent be reconstructed. Their homeland was
fertile, but where it faced towards the desert, it was liable to cycles of
drought. Throughout the nineteenth century there was an increasing
pressure of population on the land, though this was more pronounced
at the end of the period. Some have suggested that there was some
persecution of the Ismailis in Gujarat by Sunnis and Hindus; persecution is
too strong a word, there may have been social pressure on Ismailis. It is
significant that a few Gujarati Sunnis (of whom in the homeland there is
no lack) emigrated, and that the 'Patel' (a Hindu group) migration in
force is twentieth century. It might be that the Ismailis looked to Africa
as a place where they could be free to be themselves, as the Puritans
looked to New England. Also, it would seem that in India, East Africa is
looked upon as a land of promise. 'Go west young man.' We find H.H.
Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah regularly recommending emigration to
the inland areas of Africa to the young men: no doubt wise leaders in
the community had seen the wisdom of the emigration from the
beginning.[11]
It bas been possible to gatber some oral biographical material
regarding a few of the Khojas who lived in East Africa in these early
days. A certain Jairam Shivji Bhatia was made Customs Master by
Sultan Sayyid Said soon after he came over from Muscat to Zanzibar.
Jairam already had a flourishing business on the island and he
established agents in the ports of the mainland. His Cutchi relations and
friends came to assist him[12]. Even though he was himself a Hindu
(though one meets Sivjis and Bhatias in East Africa today who are
Ismaili and Ithna-ashari), his associates included Ismailis. An old
Ismaili informant who prefers not be named told Azlz Ismail in
1966 that in those early days it was very difficult for an outsider to
distinguish an Ismaili. He wore the same kind of clothes, had the same
kind of names, kept diwali, sang gits, danced garba and rasda like
anyone else from Cutch and Gujarat. He said that khoja at this time was
used in the sense of 'trader.'
It looks as if rite newcomers usuallv went first to Zanzibar and there
worked in Ismaili firms till they had gained some experience, some
capital and some Swahili. Then they moved over to the mainland and
bartered for African goods brought to the coasts, and sold supplies to
caravans, guns, gunpowder and shot to hunters and local potentates
and leaders who could buy. Those who were really bored went further
inland and we hear of the Indian merchants in places like Kazeh
(Tabora). Careful sifting of oral evidence at Tabora makes it reasonable
to suppose that some were Ismailis.
According to Rai Shamsuddïn Tejpar there is some evidence that the
"Müsa Mzurij' who helped Burton and Speke at Tabora was surnamed
'Kanji.' If so he was very probably of the Ismaili-ithna ashari group.
At Mombasa an old and reliable Ismaili gentleman told .Aziz lsmai1
(in 1965) that Müsa Mzuri had corne from Surat about 1820 to join a
business already established in East Africa by his brother: the two then
penetrated inland.
Sir Tharia Topan who had worked for the firm of Shivji Jairam
Bhatia look over the Customs for a time. He had great influence with
Sultan Sayyid Barghash and helped the British to negotiate the end of
the slave trade. This gentleman was definitely a follower of H.H. the
Agha Khan, for he contributed richly to the legal expenses in the Khoja
case and was rewarded with the title of ‘Vizier' by the Imam[13].
ln the later part of the period under review, mission station records
become available at places like Bagamoyo (Holy Ghost Fathers),
Masasi, Muhesa, Msalibani and Korogwe (Universities Mission to
Central Africa) ln these we hear now and then of the local mhindi or
Indian duka-keeper (shopkeeper). In one case, the U.M.C.A. books for
Magila name a mhindi who keeps coming into the picture -Jetha. He
greatly helped the mission, supplying his needs, making gifts, obliging it
over questions of land. Local oral tradition has it that he was Ismaili[14].
It would seem that as soon as a few Ismailis had gathered in a place
they became conscious of themselves as a jamaat. They met to pray, to
sing, to carry on their business and social life. They met in each other's
houses or in a shelter outside, they would put aside a room as a
jamàatkhana then go on eventually to a building. The natural leaders
among them would begin to function as kamaria and mukhi. It is
difficult to establish when dues began to be sent back to the Imam,
presumably a person paid the same dues as he had paid in India, if
necessary, when he got back to his home jamatkhana. But no doubt
local arrangements were made very early on. We saw that Zanzibar was
paying in 1865, presumably men going to the mailand sent dues to
Zanzibar for forwarding and gradually a territorial organization was
built up. We shall see below how the system was organized later, but we
can be fairly sure that in the early days Zanzibar played a central and
vital role and later arrangements were in a sense a dividing up of
Zanzibar's jurisdiction. Short visits to Zanzibar in 1960 and to Bombay
and Karachi in 1965 and 1971 were sufficient to show that there was a
good deal of' documentary evidence in both places which could give us
fairly full answers to a great number of historical questions[15]. A
personal visit to the Agha Khan in Paris in 1965 elicited the information
that the archives of the Imamat were being reorganized and he hoped
great parts of' them would be made available through a study Institute
he intended to set up. This Institute is at this lime beginning operations
in London, The Zanzibar and Kampala material bas been scattered.
There is also.need for research and preservation work to be done at
places such as Bagamoyo, Tabora, Lamu, Mombasa, Nairobi and
Kisumu.
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