Figure 3
Ustadh Mahmoud Mau at home reading the Texas Review given to him by his American neighbour
1 Introduction
This chapter seeks to provide a brief character portrayal of Ustadh Mahmoud Ahmed Abdulkadir, commonly known as Ustadh Mau. “Mau” is a peculiar nickname, and Ustadh Mau himself has given me two differing accounts of its origin.1 According to the first account, he began being called after Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao for his egalitarian and socialist leanings. According to the second, people in Lamu started using this name for him as they linked his attitude with the activities of the anti-colonial Mau Mau fighters.2 I have known Ustadh Mau for many years, having first met him in 1999 when, as a PhD student, I was based in Mombasa’s Old Town for fieldwork. I went to Lamu to witness the popular Maulidi celebrations, and sought him out specifically to discuss his poem Wasiya wa mabanati (“Advice to Young Women”), which I had come across in Mombasa. Friends in Mombasa had called my attention to this composition as one that offers deep thought and philosophical reflection upon human life and society—which was the central topic of my research then.3 At the time, the poem was popular among Swahili speakers on the Kenyan coast and beyond not only because of its dramatic narrative and meaningful message, seeking to guard young women from downfall and treacherous temptations, but also because of its critique of society, and most of all for its beauty. It was popular as much for its verbal composition as for the particular vocal performance of the recording that was circulating at the time, that of Abdalla el-Shatry from 1996 (there is another recording, from 1977, by Muhammad Kadara).
While I focus on this poem in greater detail elsewhere4 and intend to expand upon this study in the future, my portrayal of Ustadh Mahmoud Mau here draws from my own research biography for its narrative perspective. As an anthropologist interested in knowledge, reflection, critique, and debate in society, I have been in more or less regular, and at times frequent, contact with Ustadh Mau over the years since 1999 (both in person and via letter, email, and WhatsApp).5 My personal narrative is complemented here with further detail and sociohistorical context courtesy of my colleague Kadara Swaleh, who has known Ustadh Mau for many years. Kadara is himself an insider to the Lamu community and son of one of Ustadh Mau’s teachers, the recently deceased Ustadh Harith Swaleh (d. 2020). From such a vantage point, our account here intends to situate Ustadh Mau within the wider social field of intellectual practice in Lamu, and thus within the specific kind of historically grown and transregionally shaped urban Muslim trading environment that the Swahili coast constitutes. Our aim is to convey an understanding of Ustadh Mau as someone who, through the kinds of interactions he engages in both as an imam and as a poet, personally embodies a dedication and commitment to particular sets of ideas and values that are socially acknowledged as moral obligations, grounded and reflected in social interaction.6 His commitment is visible in the ways by which he attends to the needs of the community and the specific individuals around him.
We understand Ustadh Mau as a specific case of a “teacher of (and for) society” (mwalimu wa jamii). This is a generic term for Swahili intellectuals in a communal context that we have taken over from our conversations with the Mombasan scholar Sayyid Abdulrahman Alawy, known as Mwalimu Saggaf (d. 2017). We have found the term useful to work with, as it helps us to think through the intertwined spheres of knowledge, education, and mutual moral obligation recognized among members of society.7 To this end, not only is the discursive sphere relevant; the sphere beyond discourse is crucial as well. The discursive dissemination of advice and insight is obviously a main concern for imams as well as poets, yet any such discursive communication is embedded in forms of social interaction both more widely and more specifically shaped and performed on an interpersonal level in everyday life. The fundamental sense underlying this—that social action (kitendo) and one’s performance of self is (or should) underpin one’s words (maneno)—corresponds to a long-established tradition of social expectation that is illustrated by proverbial expressions, for instance the saying utu ni vitendo (“goodness is action”).8 These expectations, linked to moral (and moralizing) mutual demands and obligations among community members, also (and particularly) apply to knowledgeable figures and intellectual leaders. Those who are truly successful in advising and directing their peers are regarded as “men/women of the people” (mtu wa watu). Their influence manifests itself in terms of what action to take and how to respond to certain pressing social, political, or economic challenges; they manage to do so through the ways they connect and “click” with the community. Acquiring a reputation as mtu wa watu is achieved by artful and persuasive ways of speaking, or by their interactive social performance, showing an embedded and integral (and thus potentially principled, flawless, and unassailable) position within the community. In this sense, Ustadh Mau is clearly and surely recognized in Lamu as a mtu wa watu in how he conducts himself, and works, as a mwalimu wa jamii. The expression mtu wa watu is also applied to popular local and regional leading figures in East Africa more widely, as well as to national and international ones, often politicians who are admired and the same time seen as ‘one of us’ (like Nyerere, Mandela, or Obama).
Prominent Swahili scholars and public intellectuals in recent history can also be seen from this angle—though the ways and means of being embedded and appreciated socially may differ significantly. For instance, the three renowned East African ulama Sheikh Al-Amin Mazrui (d. 1947), Sheikh Abdalla Saleh Farsy (d. 1982), and especially Sayyid Omar Abdalla (d. 1988)—the former director of the Muslim Academy in Zanzibar, who was even known as Mwenye Baraka (the Blessed One)—are commonly referred to by this expression. They were admired for their respective agendas, their writings, speeches, and arguments, and how they managed to connect with ordinary Muslims and address their concerns.9 But let us not overgeneralize and get ahead of ourselves; let us now turn back to Ustadh Mau and the details that matter to our understanding of his contributions.
2 Biographical Trajectories: Education and Scope of Social Engagement10
Born in Lamu in 1952, Ustadh Mahmoud Abdulkadir is a Muslim scholar, imam, and poet based in Lamu town, in the area near the old fort, Ngomeni. Since 1985, he has been the imam of Pwani Mosque, which is Lamu’s oldest mosque still in use, and the second of at least seven Friday mosques currently in Lamu town. At the time, Pwani Mosque was the first mosque in Lamu to switch to the use of Swahili for the Friday sermon, and Ustadh Mau played a crucial role in this heavily contested transition.11 The dispute over the matter escalated and was even referred to the Lamu District Magistrate Court, which ruled in favor of Ustadh Mau’s party in its arbitration. Notably, a main representative of the opponents was Sayyid Hassan Badawy (d. 2007), a former teacher and mentor of Ustadh Mau. Despite their disagreement, however, these two scholars subsequently maintained good relations of mutual respect.12 Sayyid Hassan had been the main teacher, mentor, and role model for the young Mahmoudi. As the imam of Rodha Mosque, he was one of two grandsons of the famous Habib Saleh (d. 1935) who broke away from the Riyadha community that their grandfather had established.13 Sayyid Hassan was nicknamed the “Socrates of Lamu” within the community, both because of his intellectual and critical stance and for his simple lifestyle. He intrigued Mahmoud Abdulkadir, who associated himself closely with him, becoming his student and follower. He felt intellectually inspired and politically sensitized by this highly learned man, who dressed in simple clothes and interacted with everyone without pretension, making a point of being accessible to all.
Beyond his ongoing role as imam, Ustadh Mau was long in charge of a family-owned bakery.14 Baking and selling bread, however, were activities that he abandoned and passed on to family members after some economic struggles at the turn of the new millennium. His paternal grandfather, Abdulkadir Abdulatif (d. 1930), hailed from Kutch, specifically the port of Surat on the Malabar coast, while other branches of the family had already been based in Lamu for a longer time. Ustadh Mau, unlike many ulama in Lamu, lays no claim to masharifu descent.
After completing his general education and seeking further and higher Islamic education, Ustadh Mau sought to leave Lamu to attend a Salafi-oriented school of Islamic education, the Madrasatul Falah, in Mombasa in the late 1960s. From there, he moved on to a similarly oriented college in up-country Kenya, the Machakos Muslim Institute. There, he overlapped with an old acquaintance, Sheikh Ahmad Msallam (b. 1947) from Kizingitini in the Bajuni islands north of Lamu—who at the time was teaching some of the lower classes in Machakos before going to Omdurman Islamic University in Sudan for further studies. This opportunity had been provided to Sheikh Msallam through his former teacher in Kzingitini, the renowned reformist scholar Ustadh Harith Swaleh (d. 2020). Having studied in Omdurman, and before that at Al-Azhar University, Egypt, Ustadh Harith was a highly educated and intellectually superior Islamic scholar, and as an influential teacher became a key figure for reformism in Kenya. Moreover, he was also a highly sought-after healer (mtabibu). Ustadh Harith had styled himself in opposition to the regionally dominant and Lamu (and Riyadha) based Alawiyya masharifu as a young teacher in the Bajuni area.15 When Mau’s returned to Lamu from Machakos, Ustadh Harith, who was now based there too, temporarily became his mentor. He had warmed to his promising young peer, but is reported to have worried that Ustadh Mau was busying himself too much with politics and poetry. Thus Ustadh Harith took him under his tutelage to focus on religion, using him as a junior partner to teach his tafsir sessions at Bawazir Mosque (known as msikiti was bandani) in central Lamu. Ustadh Harith would begin the tafsir classes, pass on to Ustadh Mau midway through, and at the end they would take turns responding to questions raised by the congregation.
Between 1975 and 1978, Ustadh Mau was actively involved in local politics as a poet, taking sides in the election campaigns for the regional member of Parliament. Like Sheikh Ahmed Msallam—who is also a prominent poet-scholar in the region—he supported the local Bajuni candidate Mzamil Omar Mzamil (d. 1998), whom he saw as morally upright and a representative of justice, against an opponent whom he regarded as representing the darker forces of Kenyan power politics under KANU at the time. At this point, he composed a series of political poems under the title of Kimwondo (“Shooting Star”), praising his candidate and criticizing the opponent. These poems were publicly recited and performed, as well as recorded and circulated. They were composed as consecutive, dialogic responses to the rival party, in so-called kujibizana-style verse, consisting of mutual challenges between the two parties.16 The poems became popular both within and beyond the Lamu area as its audio-cassette recordings were widely distributed and circulated. These compositions, in particular, established Ustadh Mau’s reputation as a poet to a wider public.17 It is notable that twenty years later, during my fieldwork in 1999, I was still able to acquire cassette recordings of Kimwondo in a local shop.
On the whole, poetry is a highly relevant and respected skill in Swahili society, as most occasions on the calendar and all special events are commonly marked with a poem. Moreover, poetry is said to acquire more social value when it is used for the public good. In this regard, poets who embody the combined expertise of Islamic knowledge and verbal artistry, as poet-sheikhs, are seen to wield particular influence in the community.18 One can thus say that over the years, Ustadh Mau has been building and cultivating the potential to exert influence within society. In his dual position as both sheikh and poet, he can be seen as using his skills for the good of the community.
There is much more to write and discuss about Ustadh Mau’s poetic career, as the present volume undoubtedly makes clear. The scholarly reception and recognition of his work are still only in its early stages,19 while audio recordings and, to a lesser extent, printed versions (though no proper publications) of his poems have been circulating on the Kenyan coast and beyond. Remarkably, an excellent recent ethnography of Lamu includes three poems of his as illustrative windows onto society and representative discursive samples, presenting them as “interlude” texts between chapters.20 Topic-wise, his poetry covers overarching sociopolitical issues and (often practical) matters of concern to the community. He seeks to educate, “wake up” (kuamsha), inform, and guide his peers through what he says, and how he says it. Thus he can be viewed as seeking to strengthen communal ties of solidarity and mutual support in society. Some of his poems reflect such concerns, such as those on the institution of marriage (ndoa), composed from both a male and a female perspective, or on the human rights of children, which must not be ignored (Haki za watoto).
His poetry also specifically addresses certain groups in society. For instance, he warns girls and young women of the dangers of sexual temptation and seduction, vividly illustrating how this can destroy the lives of individuals and families as established values and forms of respectful interaction are eroded, and Lamu society exposed and subjected to external Western influences and common challenges of the modern world (in the abovementioned Wasiya wa mabanati, composed in 1974). In a similarly engaged vein, his poems also discuss pressing problems like drug addiction, as well as hygiene and different types of illness, including AIDS (Ukimwi ni zimwi). His overall agenda consists of informing, sensitizing, and alerting the community on matters of religion and politics. As sources of inspiration, he points to his local teachers and Muslim scholars from the region (some mentioned above), as well as prominent members of the global umma who have combined intellectual and activist tendencies, religion, and politics, like Hassan al-Banna (1906–1949) and Seyid Qutub (1906–1966), both leading figures of the Muslim Brotherhood (interview, 2019).
Both as an imam and more generally as a town elder (mzee wa mji) representing the community, Ustadh Mau has been engaged in initiatives on the part of concerned citizens that seek to maintain the influence and control of Lamu residents over their own town. On this count, the “Save Lamu” initiative has been successful and effective for several years, and Ustadh Mau and others were invited to India in 2019 on its behalf. During several visits to Lamu, I witnessed Ustadh Mau’s involvement as a respectable elder within certain consciousness-building initiatives, like the recommendation of the use of treated mosquito nets (against malaria) in homes during an event at the fort; or as a participant during a workshop celebrating the recent attainment of Lamu’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Over the years, such initiatives have often unified the urban community across religious and class divides. Their members have stood up and made cases against external interests and pressures in political decision-making on and about Lamu—whether originating from the national government or the external economic interests of Chinese, American, Canadian, or Japanese companies, namely with respect to potential economic projects (often envisaged as gigantic) concerning the natural resources (oil; gas) that have been discovered in the region. This also concerns the recent and now nearly complete Chinese-funded deep-sea port project, LAPPSET, which seeks to provide a new transport route to South Sudan.21 Ustadh Mau, like a few other local elders, is a regular presence within these groups, providing respectability and Islamic education, and acting as an important and well-connected mediating figure disseminating information.
As an imam, he told me, he is careful not to focus on the ideological differences or partisan interests of Muslim subgroups during his sermons, so as not to accentuate divides within the community. This distinguishes him from many other preachers, who often seek and cultivate confrontation. He rather chooses topics of common concern to all Muslims,22 such as: factors in maintaining one’s health and well-being; how to properly manage domestic differences between spouses; what is the proper procedure for divorce; and other issues. These are the recent thematic strands that he has covered in his recent talks—topics that I have heard him speak about live or in recorded sermons. Such a range of topics reconnects us with the field of poetry—as a complementary, distinct, and different form of teaching—where he has made rather similar choices (as we can see above), and arguably for similar reasons. In both his poems as well as his sermons, he is concerned with focusing and reflecting on the general aspects of humanity that come to the fore in exemplary situations of need, plight, and distress (loss of love; loss of life; illness; etc.)—and, to a lesser extent, also situations of love and success. This was illustrated most recently—in April 2020, amid the early impact of the current global corona crisis—by a thematic Friday sermon and another educational poem of his; both explained, in different, genre-specific ways, important facts about the virus and specific precautions to be taken against it (I received recordings of both from him via WhatsApp that same week).23
While little or no research on the reception of his poetry has (yet) been conducted, we find it likely that his own success as a poet in Lamu (and beyond) rests, at least partly, upon the wide-ranging accessibility of the language of his poems, treating the big questions and fundamental issues of human life in a thoughtful and reflexive manner that is at the same time approachable and open to wider audiences of Swahili speakers—not just to members of the social and intellectual elite (who are often already “clued in” to more sophisticated and less accessible styles and codes). For this reason, some of Ustadh Mau’s poems may strike those readers looking for complex wordplay or demanding riddles as relatively straightforward, employing rather simple narrative strategies to the best didactic purpose.
Another level of Ustadh Mau’s social commitment as a poet is shown by the fact that he not only composes poems for other people upon request—which is common for courtship and occasions like weddings and anniversary events—but also declines any payment in return, which is less common.24
We have hardly been able to dwell upon specific examples of his poetry here. However, what can be said is that, just like his sermons that focus on human and all-too-human topics, his poems are also socially embedded, and linked to specific events within the dynamics of society. While commenting and reflecting on such specifics, the composer, through his poetic narrative, is actually reflecting upon humanity itself, inviting everyone in reach to be his audience and think along. And while poetry has different pathways of appealing to people and of reflecting upon being human, different poets are known for their respective individual styles and specific ways of making this happen. While the verbal art of the renowned Mombasan poet Ustadh Ahmad Nassir Juma Bhalo (d. 2019), for instance, has been qualified by one of our interlocutors as having an immediate existential effect of “piercing the hearts” of listeners (maneno ya Ahmad Nassir huchofa kwenye moyo), the poetry of Ustadh Mau is said to reflect his social engagement. His poems “live” in communal life, one could say, and may in turn be kept alive by it. Taking Wasiya wa mabanati as an illustration, we can observe that this poem is still very much alive in Lamu society, more than three decades after this epic advocating for women’s rights and the safety of girls was composed.
Ustadh Mau has long championed women’s rights. In the early 1980s, he established a kindergarten and, building on that, a school (madrasa) for girls that included religious teaching as well as a secular education curriculum. Both were called Thamaratul Jannah (Fruits of Paradise) and operated in the same building owned by his family. The school offered free tuition, while he paid the monthly teachers’ wages out of his own meager proceeds from the family bakery. The kindergarten operated for half the day, and in the afternoon became a literacy center for elderly women with a limited knowledge of Islam. When, over time, the bakery business began suffering, the parents were requested to pay school fees to secure the teachers’ wages.25 In the 1990s, Ustadh Mahmoud helped to establish a “community-based organization” (CBO) for women, named the Annaswiha Women Group, which took over the running of the school and also engaged in community matters, including civic education, public health, and women’s empowerment. When the student numbers increased, this women’s group organized a fundraiser to build a larger school complex (completed around 2015). Currently, this CBO is well grounded and well connected in Lamu society, having become a force to reckon with. It offers a rich calendar of events, including a “teenagers’ week” where both male and female youth are inducted into becoming responsible adults.26 The group runs the administration of the school and related programs, while Ustadh Mau plays an advisory role. This example, too, illustrates how Ustadh Mahmoud can be regarded as a mtu wa watu and mwalimu wa jamii.
3 Mtu wa watu: The Importance of Socializing
Overall, Ustadh Mau is known and can be observed to interact well, actively, and regularly with people of all kinds and backgrounds in Lamu’s urban community. As he told me, during one of our conversations in August 2019, “Knowledge is important—but what is more important is to relate to and interact well with people” (ujuzi ni muhimu, lakini muhimu zaidi ni maingiliano mazuri na watu). Prioritizing matters so explicitly in this way, namely ranking sociability before and above knowledge, is remarkable—all the more so as it is done by a teacher and imam, someone dedicated to education and the dissemination of knowledge as their primary concern. While this statement says quite a lot about the specific dedication of Ustadh Mau, it also says much about the value of socializing in Swahili society itself; indeed, the proverb-like phrasing employed here seems itself to represent some kind of reference to a social consensus that can be taken for granted. Accordingly, to actively concern oneself with community life and the needs and worries of its members, as Ustadh Mau does, is seen by him as a kind of obligation to the community; this applies as much to highly educated and qualified people like himself as to anyone else, regardless of their social status. Yet such an opinion is not necessarily standard among local ulama, as others, due to differences in character, upbringing, wealth, or descent, might not seek to build an open and egalitarian kind of social interaction in the same way.
Ustadh Mau can be seen to live a simple life, as he cultivates social relations with others, amid everyday interactions, on the basis of equality in a community where ideologies of descent and status continue to have strong resonance. Like his former teacher and mentor, Sayyid Hassan, he dresses in simple clothes and is accessible to everyone who seeks his advice. Members of the urban community know, for instance, that he can be found in his library—a study space that is directly accessible, separate from his house and living quarters—during certain hours of the day, when he is willing to be approached and interrupted. In the form, manner, and phrasing of his communication, he takes care to represent and create an egalitarian communicative atmosphere, in which issues of status do not come between people and their interactions. A few years ago, he co-initiated an early morning fitness and swimming group for men, where participants train and socialize at the channel every morning by sunrise after fajr prayers. Thus, we would argue, by means of his soft-spoken and open-minded conduct, his relaxed and measured composure, and his simple self-presentation in everyday life, he presents and conducts himself as a role model for how common interaction among Muslim community members should be performed.
As we have seen sketched out here, and as this present volume is surely set to illustrate and illuminate in detail, an accessible, rich, and manifold set of sources exists on the discursive and artistic work that Ustadh Mau has produced, in his many and wide-ranging contributions to public discussion and communal debate in Lamu. Studying some of these further, with more attention to detail, more context, and more comparison (than could be included here) is on our collaborative agenda for the future, in conversation with other coastal intellectuals and residents. There is much to be explored in, and through, Ustadh Mau’s compositions; there is a lot to be learned about the lifeworld of Lamu, and also about the wider world as it is seen and conceived in Lamu. His speeches and writings pursue different pathways in various genres, including religious sermons and educational talks on the one hand, and different kinds of poetry on the other. Textual resources of his to be worked on (besides the poetry mentioned) also include the Friday sermon recordings provided by Ustadh Mau himself. And while he acts as public speaker at Pwani Mosque every Friday, and has presented religious lectures and talks at prominent national and international venues (e.g. Jamia Mosque in Nairobi and a Sudanese Islamic TV channel), the most remarkable feature of his practice of social guidance still lies in the direct interaction that he seeks and cultivates with his social peers, on the ground. He engages and guides by example, in word and deed.
4 Conclusion
The aim of this brief portrayal has been to convey a sense of how Ustadh Mau pays emphatic attention to the needs, wishes, and desires of the people around him, and how his sensitivity is directed to specific human demands and expectations within the Lamu community. Such attention and sensitivity are at the same time informed and expressed by his writings as well as his social interactions, his words (maneno) and deeds (vitendo). Both are constituent aspects of who he is and how he is to be understood as a poet, imam, and teacher of/for society (mwalimu wa jamii), and thus on the whole as a true and well-meaning human being (mtu).
An important topic not sufficiently covered here is how to properly understand and situate Ustadh Mau within the wider religious demography of Lamu, with all its internal groups and sub-differentiations. For this, we would need to consider the whole range of sub-factions—in all its locally specific (and translocally shaped) internal diversity—which often exist in mutual tension with each other, due to their competing ideologies as much as to personal rivalries. This itself takes place amid a national Kenyan scenario of political marginalization of Muslims,27 as well as within a wider framework of (partly longue durée) transregional connections between the global umma, e.g. with a view to Hadhrami sharif families having long become part of the urban elite28 or to the presence of South Asian traders.29 Most importantly, with a view to the specifics of the local Muslim community, the internal dynamics of Lamu’s religious demography is (and continues to be) mapped—at least in part—onto descent, as well as onto ethnic and linguistic identities of subgroups that have historically established forms and layers of social hierarchies, ascribing certain groups higher or lesser social status in relation to their claims and criteria.30 In public disputes about Muslim unity, however, the divisions between the strong Alawiyya Sufi faction, with Riyadha Mosque as the main base for their wide-ranging East African networks, and the Salafi-oriented reformists, calling themselves ahlul-sunna or Answar Sunna and called “Wahhabi” by their opponents, are the most apparent.31 Such disputes are most commonly about ritual practices, the visitation of graves (ziyara), and especially the performance of Maulidi celebrations, but also about the social status of masharifu families. These have been ongoing and characteristic features of the internal contestations within Swahili Muslim communities for at least about a century now. On the matter of the contested annual Maulidi celebrations of the birth of Prophet Muhammad—which, in their al-Habshi variant from the Hadhramawt that had been implemented by Habib Saleh at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, have been so popular that they have been taken to characterize Lamu itself—the local Shiite community (based at Swafaa Mosque) that has been growing fast over the last decades has sided with the Alawiyya Sufis against reformist “Wahhabi” pressures.32
Somewhat in contrast to the Sufi Alawiyya stance that dominated Lamu through most of the 20th century and remains relevant, Ustadh Mau himself has long identified with a Sunni reformist position that is Salafi-inspired. perspective. However, unlike other Salafi-oriented reformist groups and activists, who are locally called “Wahhabi” and have commonly sought to dominate Muslim publics and impose their stance on others through combative ideology and sharp language (lugha kali), including even takfir (the pronouncement of opponents as nonbelievers)—as we can find in the spoken and written discourses by proponents of Saudi-sponsored scholars, like Sheikh Msallam—is Ustadh Mau has chosen to remain sober and soft-spoken in his speeches and public utterances. Thus he cultivates the stance of what we might call a “soft Wahhabi”. This entails—as we have been able to observe over the years—cultivating a quiet and forbearing attitude in the face of Lamu’s highly popular rituals and events during the Maulidi period, while these include practices that he deems inappropriate or wrong. Over the years, Ustadh Mau has shown patience and confidence in the conviction that the position he has chosen to take would ultimately prevail (as truthful and reasonable). I remember how Ustadh explained to me, back in 1999, that the common Maulidi celebrations in Lamu—that were then so popular that they were taken by many as an unquestionable feature of Lamu’s urban community itself—were actually relatively recent, “only” about a hundred years old. Over time, he indicated, people in Lamu would again cease to perform them. And by then, in retrospect, those kinds of contested Maulidi practices will have simply been a phase within the longer trajectory of regional social history.
In conclusion, we suggest that Ustadh Mau is best understood as a socially sensitive, politically engaged, and practically oriented local intellectual, whose normative horizon is laid out by an interpretation of Islam that is persistent in its critique of society (in Islamic terms, from a particular Salafi-oriented reformist position). His agenda is insistent on social change, yet at the same time, his attitude in pursuing this is calm and patient, informed by a rich understanding of society from within, as a compassionate peer. Mau refrains from seeking to impose his position upon others and instead rather pursues pathways of personal role-modeling and persuasion through practice. Trust in truth and the ultimate prevalence of one’s position, and a steadfast resilience to adhere to it in the face of the current situation—in which other positions dominate—characterize his stance.
Our impression is that a conscious sense of the social value of and need for interacting (kuwasiliana) properly underpins Mau’s position, which further means that an emphasis on egalitarian interaction fundamentally informs and underpins his activities. It is in this sense that an understanding of him as mtu wa watu, a man of the people—someone who is defined by his qualities of socializing with people on an equal level, of being among them—is presented here.
For such a focus on active performance in social interaction as a lead criterion also in terms of the authority attributed to a sheikh, the Swahili terms kitendo and maweko reflect a crucial conceptual importance here. Kitendo (as explained) is an established term denoting an “act,” “deed,” or “performance” that has a strong ethical connotation—in that it is used to contrast “deeds” (vitendo), as illustrative and telling evidence of one’s position, with “words” (maneno), which may often be empty declarations. Maweko (from -jiweka, “to put oneself in a position”; -weka, “to put something somewhere”), then, carries the meaning of “composure” or “self-presentation.” How one’s actions are being presented and carried out in public, before others and in relation to one’s knowledge, verbal expressions, and other qualities, is what matters; this is what people emphasize when they point to the maweko of a person. In conceiving Ustadh Mau’s self-understanding, and his emphasis on the importance of social relationships as a fundamental reference point for his engagement also as imam, we think this is crucial. Next to other dimensions often included or invoked in the assessment of authority, like knowledge and education (ujuzi; elimu) or descent, this term stands for a performative approach that (as such) re-emphasizes social equality and egalitarianism.
Looking at Ustadh Mau as a contemporary example of a locally influential Muslim reformer on the northern Swahili coast, and proceeding from the reflections presented here, one may be compelled to acknowledge that “character matters” as a source of (and for) authority and respect within the community. This captures an insight, or a fundamental principle, that also seems generally understandable and similarly applicable to other lifeworlds across the globe as well, including our own, respectively—whether in the global North or the global South.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank, most of all, Ustadh Mau himself for his ongoing attention to and patience for our interests; he has graciously read and approved the finalized draft of this text. We also sincerely thank marehemu Ustadh Harith, and marehemu Ustadh Msallam, who are both sorely missed; and Ahmed Msallam, as well as all our other conversation partners in Lamu, Mombasa, Nairobi, and elsewhere. We thank Clarissa Vierke and Annachiara Raia for the invitation to contribute to this volume, and Jasmin Mahazi and Joy Adapon for their comments and critical questions, as well as the participants of the Islam in Africa workshop in Berlin. For funding various travels to Lamu and Kenya over the years, Kai Kresse acknowledges the support of the DAAD, SOAS, University of St Andrews, DFG, BMBF, Columbia University, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, and Freie Universität Berlin.
This chapter is based in part on Kai Kresse’s many (mostly informal) conversations with Ustadh Mau and on information he collected on research visits to Lamu between 1999 and 2019; Kresse’s perspective supplies the main narrative voice of this text. It is also based on Kadara Swaleh’s long-term familiarity and many informal conversations with Ustadh Mau. Swaleh also interviewed several of Ustadh Mau’s former students as well as his former mentor, Ustadh Harith, by phone in early April 2019. Kadara is Ustadh Harith’s son and comes from Lamu himself, and has known Ustadh Mau for many years. This contribution is part of a wider joint collaborative research project—one we seek to pursue further—on Swahili scholars, thinkers, and regional intellectual culture. Here, we draw in part from a joint paper on Ustadh Mau and other Swahili Muslim thinkers from the Lamu region presented at an international workshop on Islam in Africa in Berlin in October 2019; the workshop was organized by Benjamin Soares and Terje Ostebro (University of Florida, Gainesville), John Hanson and Ron Sela (Indiana University), and Ruediger Seesemann (Bayreuth University). Ustadh Mau himself read, checked, and commented on the text in April 2020.
On these two takes on the nickname, albeit with a somewhat different twist, see also Timammy Rayya, “Shaykh Mahmoud Abdulkadir ‘Mau’: A Reformist Preacher in Lamu,” Annual Review of Islam in Africa 12, no. 2 (2015): 85–86.
Kresse, Philosophising in Mombasa: Knowledge, Islam and Intellectual Practice on the Swahili Coast (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007); “Enduring Relevance: Samples of Oral Poetry on the Swahili Coast,” Wasafiri 66 (2011): 46–49.
Kresse, “Enduring Relevance.”
On visits to Lamu in 1999; 2005; 2006; 2007; 2010; 2012; 2015; 2017; 2018; and 2019.
This builds on earlier work on the intertwined nature of knowledge and social obligation and the ongoing relevance of mutual acknowledgement of others in social interaction. See Kresse, “Knowledge and Intellectual Practice in a Swahili Context: ‘Wisdom’ and the Social Dimensions of Knowledge,” in “Knowledge in Practice: Expertise and the Transmission of Knowledge,” ed. K. Kresse and T. Marchand, special issue, Africa 79, no. 1 (2009): 148–167; Kresse, Swahili Muslim Publics and Postcolonial Experience (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018), chapter 1.
Kai Kresse held formal interviews and informal conversations with Mwalimu Saggaf in Mombasa between 1998 and 2016.
Elsewhere, I have worked in depth on the social understanding of utu, and, in relation to that, on its philosophical interpretation as articulated by the poet Ahmad Nassir Juma Bhalo (d. 2019) in his poem Utenzi wa mtu ni utu; see Kresse, Philosophising in Mombasa, chapter 5.
On Sheikh Al-Amin Mazrui, see the foreword by Alamin & Kassim Mazrui in Guidance (Uwongozi) by Sheikh Al-Amin Mazrui: Selections from the First Swahili Islamic Newspaper, ed. Kai Kresse, trans. Kai Kresse and Hassan Mwakimako (Leiden: Brill, 2017); Nathaniel Matthews, “Imagining Arab Communities: Colonialism, Islamic Reform, and Arab Identity in Mombasa, 1897–1933,” Islamic Africa 4, no. 2 (2013): 135–163; and R.L. Pouwels, “Sheikh al-Amin bin Ali Mazrui and Islamic Modernism in East Africa, 1875–1947,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 13, no. 3 (1981): 329–345.
On Sheikh Abdalla S. Farsy, see the obituary by Sheikh Abdilahi Nassir 1982 in Sauti ya haki, no. 8 (summarized in Kresse, Swahili Muslim Publics, 137); and sections in Justo Lacunza Balda, “Translations of the Qurʾan into Swahili, and Contemporary Islamic Revival in East Africa,” in African Islam and Islam in Africa, ed. D. Westerlund and E.E. Rosander (London: Hurst, 1997), 95–126, and R. Loimeier, Between Social Skills and Marketable Skills: The Politics of Islamic Education in 20th Century Zanzibar (Leiden: Brill, 2009).
On Sayyid Omar Abdallah, see M. Bakari, “Sayyid Omar Abdalla (1919–1988): The Forgotten Muslim Humanist and Public Intellectual,” in The Global Worlds of the Swahili: Interfaces of Islam, Identity and Space in 19th and 20th Century East Africa, ed. Roman Loimeier and Rüdiger Seesemann (Berlin: Lit-Verlag, 2006), 363–388; M. Bakari, The Sage of Moroni: The Intellectual Biography of Sayyid Omar Abdallah, A Forgotten Muslim Public Intellectual (Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau, 2018); and a summary portrayal in Kai Kresse, “On the Skills to Navigate the World, and Religion, for Coastal Muslims in Kenya,” in Articulating Islam: Anthropological Approaches to Muslim Worlds, ed. M. Marsden and K. Retsikas (Amsterdam: Springer Press, 2013), 77–99.
Our biographical sketch here is by no means meant to be comprehensive, leaving aside some important aspects of his family history, his experiences in becoming a poet, the specifics of his engagement in Muslim organizations, and other biographical details; for instance, he was also based in Dar es Salaam for two years as a petty trader before returning to Kenya and pursuing Islamic higher education. For fuller coverage and details, see e.g. Timammy, “A Reformist Preacher in Lamu,” and Vierke, this volume.
Timammy, “A Reformist Preacher in Lamu,” 87.
Communication by Kadara Swaleh and Ustadh Khattab Khalifa Abubakar, April 6, 2020. Khattab is a graduate of Riyadha Mosque College Lamu, and for some time assisted Ustadh Mahmoud in running the Friday ritual at Pwani Mosque.
The other one was Mzee Mwenye (Sayyid Alwy bin Sayyid Ahmad Badawy, d. 2008), who went on to found Swafaa Mosque in 1975, which from the 1980s onward became the main base for Shii Ithnashari Islam in the Lamu region, attracting a significantly growing constituency. Habib Saleh, i.e. Sayyid Saleh Alwy Jamalail (d. 1935) was the founder of Riyadha Mosque in around 1892; see Anne Bang, Sufis and Scholars of the Sea: Family Networks in East Africa, 1860–1925 (London: Routledge, 2003), and A.H. el-Zein, The Sacred Meadows: A Structural Analysis of Religious Symbolism in an East African Town (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1974).
Wade Huie, “This Fine Poet from Lamu Bakes Bread That Is Tamu,” Daily Nation (February 8, 1980).
Kadara Swaleh “Islamic Proselytising between Lamu and Mozambique: The Case of Kizingitini Village.” Social Dynamics 38, no. 3 (2012): 398–348.
Ann Biersteker, Kujibizana: Questions of Language and Power in 19th- and 20th-Century Poetry in Kiswahili (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1996), and Ridder Samsom, “Tungo za kujibizana: ‘Kuambizana ni sifa ya kupendana,’ ” Swahili Forum 3 (1996): 1–10.
Assibi A. Amidu, Kimwondo: A Kiswahili Electoral Contest (Vienna: Afro-Pub, 1990).
On this, with a particular view to such dualism of power in the Somali context, see Ahmed Jimale, “Of Poets and Shaykhs: Somali Literature,” in Faces of Islam in African Literature, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow (London: James Currey, 1991), 279–309. On Sheikh Ahmad Msallam, see also Kadara Swaleh, “What Does Philosophy Want: A Swahili Poem by Sheikh Ahmad Msallam of Lamu, Kenya.” Annual Review of Islam in Africa 12, no. 2 (2013/2014): 79–84. On the wealth of poetry in Swahili society and its relevance, there is abundant literature.
E.g., Kresse, “Enduring Relevance” and Timammy, “A Reformist Preacher in Lamu.”
The three poems are Mila yetu hufujika (“Our Traditions Are Being Destroyed”), Kiswahili; and Tupijeni makamama (“Let’s Embrace”); see Sarah Hillewaert, Morality at the Margins: Youth, Language, and Islam in Coastal Kenya (New York: Fordham University Press, 2020), 41–45, 114–120, and 187–190. The latter two poems are also found in this volume.
Lotte Knote, “The Promise of the Lamu Port: An Island Facing Change at the Margins of the Kenyan Nation” (MA diss., Freie Universität Berlin, 2018).
Interview by Kai Kresse, Lamu, August 2019.
The sermon was delivered on April 3, 2020, in the near-empty Pwani Mosque, and shared via video link; this was already the third week that no congregational Friday prayers had been held there due to the situation. The sermon was filmed by the Lamu Youth Alliance and made available on their YouTube channel on April 6, 2020, under the title “Friday Preach on COVID19”:
It is not uncommon among Swahili poets to find authors advocating a particular cause in their poetry, while in reality, the composer does not necessarily have a commitment to the subject he is treating. The whole composition process thus becomes a mere composition exercise, either for pay or for the sake of composition itself.
Telephone interview with Mwalimu Zainab Abdala Bathawab (Kidege) by Kadara Swaleh, April 8, 2020. Kidege is a disciple of Ustadh Mahmoud Mau and was among the early teachers at the kindergarten until 2007.
Telephone interview with Sheikh Muhammad Abdallah Swaleh by Kadara Swaleh, April 8, 2020. Sheikh Muhammad is a disciple of Ustadh Mahmoud Mau, a student chaplain at the University of Nairobi, and also gives darsa (preaching sessions) at Jamia Mosque, Nairobi.
Kresse, Swahili Muslim Publics; Hassan Ndzovu, Muslim in Kenyan Politics (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2014).
Bang, Sufis and Scholars of the Sea; Hillewaert, Morality at the Margins; el-Zein, The Sacred Meadows.
C. Salvadori, Through Open Doors: A View of Asian Cultures in Kenya (Nairobi: Kenway Publications, 1989); We Came in Dhows, vol. 1 (Nairobi: Paperchase Kenya Limited, 1996).
See e.g. Sarah Hillewaert, “ ‘Whoever Leaves Their Tradition Is a Slave’: Contemporary Notions of Servitude in an East African Town,” Africa 86, no. 3 (2016): 425–446; Jasmin Mahazi, “An Anthropology of Vave—A Bajuni Farmers’ Ritual on the Swahili Coast” (PhD diss., Freie Universität Berlin, 2018); Patricia Romero, Lamu: History, Society, and Family in an East African Port City (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1997); and Kadara Swaleh, “Islamic Proselytising between Lamu and Mozambique: The Case of Kizingitini Village,” Social Dynamics 38, no. 3 (2012): 398–348.
Elsewhere, I have written in more detail on the internal dynamics and transformations of the coastal Muslim community since the 1970s or so. This includes pointers to account for an initial rise of “Wahhabi” influence and a subsequent sense of solidarity between Sufis and Shiites in response. Kresse, “The Uses of History”, in E. Simpson and K. Kresse (eds), Struggling with History: Islam and Cosmopolitanism in the Western Indian Ocean (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008).
On debates about and arguments for and against established ways of maulidi celeberations, see also Kresse, “Debating maulidi”, in R. Loimeier and R. Seesemann (eds), The Global Worlds of the Swahili (Berlin Lit-Verlag, 2006), as well as Kresse, Swahili Muslim Publics.
References
Figure 4
The District Commissioner awards Ustadh Mahmoud Mau a medal for his outstanding commitment for education on the Kenyan Jamhuri Day
Amidu, Assibi A. Kimwondo: A Kiswahili Electoral Contest. Vienna: Afro-Pub, 1990.
Bakari, M. “Sayyid Omar Abdalla (1919–1988): The Forgotten Muslim Humanist and Public Intellectual.” In The Global Worlds of the Swahili: Interfaces of Islam, Identity and Space in 19th and 20th Century East Africa, edited by Roman Loimeier and Rüdiger Seesemann, 363–388. Berlin: Lit-Verlag, 2006.
Bakari, M. The Sage of Moroni: The Intellectual Biography of Sayyid Omar Abdallah, A Forgotten Muslim Public Intellectual. Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau, 2018.
Bang, Anne. Sufis and Scholars of the Sea: Family Networks in East Africa, 1860–1925. London: Routledge, 2003.
Biersteker, Ann. Kujibizana: Questions of Language and Power in 19th- and 20th-Century Poetry in Kiswahili. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1996.
Hillewaert, Sarah. “‘Whoever Leaves Their Tradition Is a Slave’: Contemporary Notions of Servitude in an East African Town.” Africa 86, no. 3 (2016): 425–446.
Hillewaert, Sarah. Morality at the Margins: Youth, Language, and Islam in Coastal Kenya.New York: Fordham University Press, 2020.
Huie, Wade. “This Fine Poet from Lamu Bakes Bread That Is Tamu.” Daily Nation (February 8, 1980).
Jimale, Ahmed. “Of Poets and Shaykhs: Somali Literature.” In Faces of Islam in African Literature, edited by Kenneth W. Harrow, 279–309. London: James Currey, 1991.
Knote, Lotte. “The Promise of the Lamu Port: An Island Facing Change at the Margins of the Kenyan Nation.” MA diss., Freie Universität Berlin, 2018.
Kresse, Kai. “Debating maulidi”, in R. Loimeier and R. Seesemann (eds), The Global Worlds of the Swahili. Berlin Lit-Verlag, 2006,
Kresse, Kai. Philosophising in Mombasa: Knowledge, Islam and Intellectual Practice on the Swahili Coast. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
Kresse, Kai. “The Uses of History”, in E. Simpson and K. Kresse (eds), Struggling with History: Islam and Cosmopolitanism in the Western Indian Ocean. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
Kresse, Kai. “Knowledge and Intellectual Practice in a Swahili Context: ‘Wisdom’ and the Social Dimensions of Knowledge.” In “Knowledge in Practice: Expertise and the Transmission of Knowledge,” edited by K. Kresse and T. Marchand. Special issue, Africa79, no. 1 (2009): 148–167.
Kresse, Kai. “Enduring Relevance: Samples of Oral Poetry on the Swahili Coast.” Wasafiri 26, no. 2 (2011): 46–49.
Kresse, Kai. “On the Skills to Navigate the World, and Religion, for Coastal Muslims in Kenya.” In Articulating Islam: Anthropological Approaches to Muslim Worlds, edited by M. Marsden and K. Retsikas, 77–99. Amsterdam: Springer Press, 2013.
Kresse, Kai, ed. Guidance (Uwongozi) by Sheikh Al-Amin Mazrui: Selections from the First Swahili Islamic Newspaper. Translated by Kai Kresse and Hassan Mwakimako. Leiden: Brill, 2017.
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Alamin & Kassim Mazrui. “Foreword.” In Guidance (Uwongozi) by Sheikh Al-Amin Mazrui: Selections from the First Swahili Islamic Newspaper, edited by Kai Kresse, translated by Kai Kresse and Hassan Mwakimako, IX–XII Leiden: Brill, 2017.
Lacunza Balda, Justo. “Translations of the Qurʾan into Swahili, and Contemporary Islamic Revival in East Africa.” In African Islam and Islam in Africa, edited by D. Westerlund and E.E. Rosander, 95–126. London: Hurst, 1997.
Lamu Youth Alliance. “Friday Preach on COVID19.” April 6, 2020. YouTube clip, 19:09. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7PpAmiU72E.
Loimeier, R. Between Social Skills and Marketable Skills: The Politics of Islamic Education in 20th Century Zanzibar. Leiden: Brill, 2009.
Mahazi, Jasmin. “An Anthropology of Vave—A Bajuni Farmers’ Ritual on the Swahili Coast.” PhD diss., Freie Universität Berlin, 2018.
Matthews, Nathaniel. “Imagining Arab Communities: Colonialism, Islamic Reform, and Arab Identity in Mombasa, 1897–1933.” Islamic Africa 4, no. 2 (2013): 135–163.
Ndzovu, Hassan. Muslim in Kenyan Politics. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2014.
Pouwels, R.L. “Sheikh al-Amin bin Ali Mazrui and Islamic Modernism in East Africa, 1875–1947.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 13, no. 3 (1981): 329–345.
Romero, Patricia. Lamu: History, Society, and Family in an East African Port City.Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1997.
Salvadori, C. Through Open Doors: A View of Asian Cultures in Kenya.Nairobi: Kenway Publications, 1989.
Salvadori, C. We Came in Dhows. Vol. 1. Nairobi: Paperchase Kenya Limited, 1996.
Samsom, Ridder. “Tungo za kujibizana: ‘Kuambizana ni sifa ya kupendana.’” Swahili Forum 3 (1996): 1–10.
Swaleh, Kadara. “Islamic Proselytising between Lamu and Mozambique: The Case of Kizingitini Village.” Social Dynamics 38, no. 3 (2012): 398–348.
Swaleh, Kadara. “What Does Philosophy Want: A Swahili Poem by Sheikh Ahmad Msallam of Lamu, Kenya.” Annual Review of Islam in Africa 12, no. 2 (2013/2014): 79–84.
Timammy, Rayya. “Shaykh Mahmoud Abdulkadir ‘Mau’: A Reformist Preacher in Lamu.” Annual Review of Islam in Africa 12, no. 2 (2015): 85–90.
Zein, A.H. el-. The Sacred Meadows: A Structural Analysis of Religious Symbolism in an East African Town.Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1974.
