6 - The Zanzibar Sultanate, 1812–88

Summary

So far, this book has depicted the evolution of coastal culture up to the late eighteenth century. Attention has been focused more narrowly on East African coastal Islam as a religion which was fixed in this wider cultural framework. The remainder of this work will demonstrate how this cultural and religious edifice was reduced to relative unimportance in the early history of the modern East African nations. What this entails, especially, is an analysis which centres on one overriding problem: how did the gradual imposition of the Busaidi Sultanate at Zanzibar and European imperialism affect culture and Islam on the coast in the nineteenth century?

THE POLITICAL SITUATION, 1698–1888

To appreciate better the cultural and religious changes which took place under the Busaidi Sultanate, a summary of political developments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is useful at this juncture. However, since such an undertaking is helpful solely as a way of further illuminating cultural and religious history, only the barest description is needed. The reader who is interested in greater (and perhaps more precise) detail is referred to some of the works by Bennett, Coupland, Gray, Nicholls, and Ylvisaker listed in the bibliography.

With the temporary eclipsing of Mombasa in the sixteenth century, Pate became the greatest Swahili power on the coast. Nevertheless, the Portuguese remained as great a problem for Pate as they had been for Mombasa.