AfricaIs aCountry

Al-Andalus in East Africa

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Al-Andalus in East Africa

By
Boima Tucker

The clear signs of African influence on the Arabian Peninsula and the cultural fluidity that exists throughout the Indian Ocean.

A dhow in Zanzibar (Public Domain image).

The English edition of Al-Akhbar has published an article by Amal Ghazal, author of the book, Islamic Reform and Arab Nationalism: Expanding the Crescent from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, 1880s-1930s.   The article, like the book, provides an accessible historical review of the Omani empire (perhaps skewed a little to the Omani perspective), and its former capital Zanzibar, on the east coast of Africa that Omanis refer to as their version of Al-Andaluz. I have to say that one of the things that impressed me the most during several visits to the Arabian or Perisan Gulf over the past couple of years are the clear signs of African influence on the Peninsula. It made me think a lot about constructed notions of African vs Arab identity, and the cultural fluidity that exists throughout the Indian Ocean in general.

That’s the kind of history that isn’t generally celebrated or even taught in schools in the West, and I got the impression that folks on the Arabian peninsula weren’t so used to celebrating their African heritage themselves. So to learn that in Zanzibar there were nationalist efforts to erase such histories doesn’t come as a huge surprise.

On a related note: while many Muslims from West Africa live in Saudi Arabia and throughout the peninsula, in light of a history of forced separation, it’s fascinating that the majority of African immigrants I run into in Dubai were Christians from East Africa. Globalization wins again I suppose.

About the Author

Boima Tucker is a music producer, DJ, writer, and cultural activist. He is the managing editor of Africa Is a Country, co-founder of Kondi Band and the founder of the INTL BLK record label.

Further Reading

The people want to breathe

In Tunisia’s coastal city of Gabès, residents live in the shadow of the phosphate industry. As pollution deepens and repression returns, a new generation revives the struggle for life itself.

After Paul Biya

Cameroon’s president has ruled for over four decades by silence and survival. Now, with dynastic succession looming and no clear exit strategy, the country teeters between inertia and implosion.

Leapfrogging literacy?

In outsourcing the act of writing to machines trained on Western language and thought, we risk reinforcing the very hierarchies that decolonization sought to undo.

Repoliticizing a generation

Thirty-eight years after Thomas Sankara’s assassination, the struggle for justice and self-determination endures—from stalled archives and unfulfilled verdicts to new calls for pan-African renewal and a 21st-century anti-imperialist front.

The king of Kinshasa

Across five decades, Chéri Samba has chronicled the politics and poetry of everyday Congolese life, insisting that art belongs to the people who live it.

Drip is temporary

The apparel brand Drip was meant to prove that South Africa’s townships could inspire global style. Instead, it revealed how easily black success stories are consumed and undone by the contradictions of neoliberal aspiration.