Dr. Chembea Suleiman Athuman and Dr. Franz Kogelmann on female Islamic poetry in Zanzibar
Media records
Abstract
- Abstract
- In this episode of the Cluster Conversations Dr. Franz Kogelmann talks with Cluster fellow Dr. Chembea Suleiman Athuman about his project "Poetry (Qasidah) and Women’s Bodies in the Creation, Dissemination of Islamic Knowledge and Cultural Identity in Zanzibar". The study examines how active involvement of women in Islamic poetry (qasidah) helps (de-)construct traditional dynamics in the production and dissemination of Islamic knowledge and creation of cultural identity(-ies) along the East African coast. While Islamic knowledge production and dissemination was largely associated with male ulama (clerical class) in textual and religious spaces, advancement of media technology has caused a shift where qasidah not only support religious themes but also provide variations in the creation and transmission of knowledge and religious community identity. This shift, though rapidly gaining currency across Muslim communities, is explored within the microcosm of Zanzibar to understand how performance of poetry presents an avenue through which Muslim women engage with religious discourses in the region.
People & roles
Origins & context
- Title
- Dr. Chembea Suleiman Athuman and Dr. Franz Kogelmann on female Islamic poetry in Zanzibar
- Language
- English
- Podcast series
-
Cluster Conversations
- Date
- March 22, 2024
Rights & access
- Extent
- 28 minutes, 30 seconds
Identifiers & sources
Further details
- Episode number
- 17
Full text
- Transcript
-
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Speaker 1: Cluster Conversations, a podcast by Africa Multiple.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, this is the latest edition of the Cluster Conversations. And our special guest is Sulaiman Chembia, Doctor Sulaiman Chembia from Kenya. My name is Franz Kogelmann. I am one of the cluster members. I am the managing director. My academic background is in Islamic studies. That's why Sulaiman Chembia, Doctor Sulaiman Chembia is now here in Bayreuth. Welcome, a warm welcome to Sulaiman.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much for the warm welcome and hello viewers and listeners. I'm happy to be part of this conversation.
Speaker 2: Sulaiman, your doctorate title is according to your CV is from the University of Bayreuth. You're an alumnus of the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies. So that means you are not a total newcomer to this esteemed university. So could you elaborate a bit about your academic past and then we talk about the future?
Speaker 3: Oh thank you. It's true, I'm not very new to Bayreuth and Germany as a whole. I'm an alumnus of the University of Bayreuth having begun here in 2014 for my PhD program. But my relations with the host who is now happens to be my colleague, Doctor Franz started way back in 2010 when I took part in a summer school here where we met for the first time. We exchanged some ideas and we conceptualized this PhD program that became my research interest which incidentally also is his area of specialization on Islamic endowments. So he helped me to co-conceptualize this project and in 2013 we met again at the Zedema in Berlin for another summer school where we polished the project and eventually I got a fellowship, a scholarship under the German-Kenya DAAD PhD program to study here in Bayreuth from 2014. So from 2014 to 2017 I was a student here under the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies where I did my PhD and studied Islamic endowments in Kenya with Kogelman as my supervisor and Professor Rudi Gassieseman as my mentor until that period I was awarded a PhD in Islamic Studies under the very able mentorship of my present host. Then I've also remained in close contact with the University of Bayreuth because even after going back to Kenya in 2018, I started joining the cluster in 2020 under a project funded by the cluster hosted at Moi University coordinated by Professor Hassan Zobu on mediatization of Islamic knowledge which I took part and after that project I also got another funding from the cluster which is now my present project on popular culture and Islamic knowledge production all under the Africa Cluster of Excellence under the University of Bayreuth. So I've been on and off and so much into the University of Bayreuth to regard myself as a Bayreutian so to speak.
Speaker 2: Okay, you as a Bayreutian, you have well a long history, a long history of linked to the University of Bayreuth. Now you're for half a year, for six months as a fellow at this university and you have applied for this program successfully and you've chosen a certain topic which sounds to non-Islamic studies scholars a bit, I would say okay.
Speaker 1: What's that? It's about poetry and women's bodies. So could you elaborate on that a little bit? So that's why that's the one of the main reasons you're here. Not because you are an alumnus of the University of Dar es Salaam, but you applied for this actively and successfully.
Speaker 2: Uh thank you. My present project on poetry and women's bodies in religious knowledge and cultural identity in Zanzibar examines the role of women, so regarded as marginal actors in Islam, uh with regard to knowledge production. Um the premise being that Muslim women are generally considered to be marginal actors especially when it comes to so many areas in predominantly patriarchal societies. Uh the East African coast and Zanzibar in particular being no exception. So mine is to see how women Muslims in Zanzibar use religious poetry to negotiate the public space, especially in the area of Islamic knowledge production, uh cultural identity formation as well as economy. Um there are three or four to speak basic areas that I'm exploring uh using poetry as an entry point. One are the premises on the formal knowledge production dynamics in Islam, uh generally being documented as a male dominated sphere, taking into consideration that the contribution of women is largely muzzled and nobody talks about women. This is not to say that Muslim women are not making any strides in Islamic knowledge production. Contrary to that opinion where they are looked as passive participants in Islamic knowledge production, I am looking at their immense contribution into Islamic knowledge production through poetry as uh as an art or a performative aesthetic. So Islamic knowledge production is regarded to be male-dominated in formal uh areas of the mosques for example, the madrasas, uh where they are only mostly dominated by male ulama with young people and women being as passive recipients of Islamic knowledge. But I am kindly kind of arguing from the point that yeah much as it is the case, but there is a new development especially uh with the help of media technology that has made the entry of women into knowledge production very successful. And they are not only following the old uh formal spaces of the mosque and the madrasas, but with the help of the media technology now, they are using poetry to bring a new dynamic in the knowledge production because through poetry which is not strictly uh on specific topics, then they can they are also using poetry to advance Islam, that is da'wah because the topics that are being discussed in poetry...
Speaker 1: But that's the official way.
Speaker 2: That's the official way. The official and both unofficial because um I want to to maintain here that Zanzibar being a predominant Muslim society, uh is a society or a community where religion encompasses all aspects of life. There's often a very thin line between the official, the unofficial, between the religious and the non-religious in the Eurocentric context. So in the Zanzibar context, um there is a very thin line between the official and the unofficial. So the normative for example would have been knowledge Islamic knowledge production in the mosques and the madrasas by by by Muslim men or ulama. The unofficial now in this case in quotes would mean or would be Muslim women who were once regarded as marginal actors...
Speaker 1: Using poetry to produce Islamic knowledge.
Speaker 2: But why are they using poetry? Not ordinary blogs or newspaper print media or whatever. Why are they using this, what it's called, the qasidas, the poetry. Why are they using this medium?
Speaker 1: Poetry has a very long history in Islam as a whole. You start it very low, very long, it has a long history. Many scholars have written about this. The likes of Amnon Shiloah and the likes. I mean, they are talking about poetry as part of the Islamic knowledge or Islamic culture. Africa and African Muslims as well have imbibed and used poetry for different reasons. For knowledge production, for entertainment and so on and so forth. So the medium of poetry now becomes relevant in advancing knowledge. Knowledge in the sense that not necessarily strictly spiritual as you would want to see it as such. But where I said in a community where religion encompasses every aspect of human life. So this turns out that whatever you teach, whatever you propagate, must or will definitely have an element of religiosity in it. So poems and poetry are only but one of the mediums that are now turning out to be very effective and women are taking this route because formerly you would expect them that they don't have enough spaces in the formal spaces where they are dominated, the formal spaces where they are dominated by male ulama in the mosques for example. It's very rare to have a woman imam for example. Although there are women madrasa teachers. They are there. There are also cases where you'll have women preachers. But because of the notion in the minds of the majority of Muslims of the East African coast and most of the patriarchal Muslim societies, the notion of aura, nudity or shame where women are shamed, women bodies, women voices are shamed and being looked at as potential sources of instigating and arousing even feelings in men and therefore they are not given freedom to take active role in such formal engagements like in the mosques and in the madrasas to make an impact in knowledge production. So because poetry has been used since time immemorial for entertainment, for passing out some knowledge.
Speaker 2: But that's much more than entertainment.
Speaker 1: Yes. Now this is where I'm saying because it has been used on those aspects, now it is also now getting prominence. It is gaining prominence in the traction of knowledge production. Because if you listen to the poems that are now trending by young Muslim women, you realize that there is a lot of religious knowledge being passed through in these poems. And this is where now you get to extract the message being passed through the religious poems that I am talking about.
Speaker 2: But where does this religious knowledge come from? So you mentioned that from an outsider, the role of women in Islam is very marginal. You mentioned that. But where does this, while this religious knowledge come from? Are they self-educated or do they attend madrasas? You mentioned that that they are passive members or disciples or students of madrasas. But well.
Speaker 1: Many of the Muslim poets that I am dealing with are graduates of local madrasas.
Speaker 2: Okay. Okay.
Speaker 1: The aspect of knowledge seeking in Islam is a form of ibadah. It's compulsory and it's obligatory upon us.
Speaker 2: What does it mean ibadah? For the esteemed listener, what does this mean? It's an Arabic term.
Speaker 1: Seeking knowledge is a form of worship in Islam. And therefore women and men are all obligated to seek knowledge. In the formal madrasas, women also go to these madrasas as young girls. But because of that notion of shaming, the aura and the nudity aspect, immediately when they get to maturity, they tend to be cut off.
Speaker 1: Majority of them are cut off from these madrasas immediately they attain the age of maturity. So, from that background of having learned in the madrasas before they get to that point of being mature women and they are withdrawn from the madrasas, some get to a level of having memorized the entire Quran. Some have been exposed to all the Islamic knowledge sciences like hadith, the traditions of the prophet, sirah biographies of the prophet among other subjects among other knowledge in Islam. So, these are some of the knowledge that they also use and they yeah I mean it comes out very prominently in their poems as they now sing to the public.
Speaker 2: Okay. But that sounds very traditional. So, they have the right to seek knowledge and they even they have to seek for knowledge. And then after maturity, after certain age, they are cut off. And and this is well times are changing and you mentioned that via this new media, it's possible not so maybe the traditional way is seems to be reformed, seems to be modernized in a certain way but the content is more or less the same.
Speaker 1: I would say so. For example, in the various madrasas that I have worked with in Zanzibar, you'll be surprised to learn that they train in poetry production, poetry singing and dancing right from that point. So they have poem groups or poetry groups trained by the formal teachers who are mainly male in the madrasas. So the madrasas have their own poem groups or poetry groups. Then from that level of the madrasas having their poetry groups, these established poets now after they attain the age of maturity, when they now pull out of madrasa either to be married or to establish their own careers now as poets.
Speaker 2: Uh-huh. So that that's nowadays it's a profession. You can start you can start a career as poet.
Speaker 1: In fact, this is where I'm bringing in the aspect of employment and economy because it's a career like any other career. Women are getting involved in poetry production. They are gaining a lot. They are paid royalties. They are producing and documenting their performances in VCDs, in TVs. They are paid royalties by the government and even in social media handlers like YouTube, WhatsApp and whatnot where they gain a lot of royalty.
Speaker 2: So they are influencer.
Speaker 1: They are influencers so to speak. That's one and very obvious. And this is a new dynamic that never was thought about in the past that young women or young men and women could take an active role in Islamic knowledge production outside the formal spaces of madrasas and mosques. And by recording these poems and poetry in songs sorry in VCDs and DVDs and YouTube, they are also giving an opportunity to other media technology well informed people to gain a living. So we talk of let's say photographers. We talk of sound coaches. We talk of costumiers. We talk of drivers in the whole poem industry so to speak that have now gained a living out of the active involvement of women in religious poetry.
Speaker 2: Certainly man, that sounds like these poets become pop stars. Some sort of a pop star.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are they are they are so to speak on their own right. On their own right. But I want to think that they maintain still the Muslim image because they have to play by the rules of the game or what is expected of them as women or Muslim women in a predominantly Muslim society. So yes, they are influencers. They are pop stars because they have become the talk of every household. Their poems are sung in every household, in social halls, in weddings and they have now so to speak largely replaced the Swahili taarab as well as the popular bongo popular bongo music which is regarded to be un-Islamic, to be Western influenced and to be immoral.
Speaker 1: Oh. Yeah. Okay, you mentioned Arabic taarab. Taarab. Swahili taarab. Enchantment. Yes, but while the language they use, it's religiously inspired, but it's not Arabic, I guess. Or do they, do they, the poets, the poems are in Arabic or in Kiswahili?
Speaker 2: The poems are largely in Kiswahili.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: With some code switching here and there in Arabic and English. Why? The largest pro, uh the largest consumers are Swahili. And this is where the question of cultural identity comes in. When we talk of Islam and Muslims in the, uh, in the mainstream media, for example, uh, we tend to ignore the African Muslim.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Largely. I mean...
Speaker 1: On the fringes, the margin, marginalized.
Speaker 2: On the... They are not marginal. They are there. So the cultural identity here comes in very strongly in that by using Swahili, the message being sent out there is, there exists a community or there exist a people who are non-Arabs and incidentally, they are also Muslims. They have their own identity. Not this, um, exclusive Islam and Muslims being peddled in the mainstream media. That when we talk of Islam and Muslims, what comes into mind is the Arab Muslim, is the Asian Muslim and so on and so forth. What comes prominently again when we talk of Islam in Africa, we talk of the Maghreb.
Speaker 1: Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Full stop.
Speaker 2: The MENA. I mean, full stop. Very little is talked about Muslims in East Africa. Very little is talked about Muslims in South Africa, for example, and other areas outside Arabia and the MENA. So, the exclusive narrative of Islam and Muslims is also being debunked.
Speaker 1: By MENA, by MENA, sorry to interrupt you. By MENA, you mean Middle East, North Africa?
Speaker 2: Yes. The Middle East and North Africa as the predominant Islam and Muslims. But that's not the case. So the cultural identity here, I think the poems are bringing out is the question that there is Islam and Muslims beyond the MENA. They are stamping their positionality as Muslims. And that's the question of the use of Kiswahili.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Different from the lingua franca of Islam, Arabic.
Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, what's your approach? Do you, do you buy, do you, are you surfing on the web and targeting your favorite poet or you talk to them, you knock at their doors, say hello, I'm Sulaiman, I am a researcher from Kenya. Can we talk about your poems?
Speaker 2: Not only from Kenya, but also from Germany and Bayreuth.
Speaker 1: Ah, okay. Sorry, I forgot that. Okay. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, so, um, I do ethnographic studies.
Speaker 1: Do they know that you are researching them?
Speaker 2: Well, at some point, yes. At some point, no. Because you have to play very safe. Um, because of the question of terrorism in East Africa. Sometimes, uh, when you present yourself as a researcher, there are a lot of suspicions that come into mind. Are you a government spy? Are you an agent? Are you an, uh, I mean, have you been sent to spy on us and so on and so forth? Are you taking this information to the government so that we can be victimized and profiled and so on and so forth? So, there are times when you need to be very open and say who you are. And there are times you just disappear into the crowd. And being a native speaker of Swahili, uh, I use my advantage as a native speaker, as, uh, as an insider to get so much information. So, other than ethnography where I do a lot of interviews with the poem artists themselves, with the ulama, both male and female, and the consumers of poetry, I also do contextual and textual analysis of these poems. They are readily available in the YouTube, other than the VCDs and CDs that they produce, which I also buy, uh, for...
Speaker 1: close analysis when I retreat into my writing times. So other than the listening, of course, there is the interviewing which I do frequently with my sources in Zanzibar.
Speaker 2: Okay. One one maybe well for this interesting topic of course that's not the last question but maybe for this little session now why Zanzibar?
Speaker 1: Um thank you. Why Zanzibar? Zanzibar is very key uh in the East African coast because it has a long history of this tradition of poetry. The Swahili tarab is strongly established in Tanzania and Zanzibar in particular. So this medium and this poetry aspect is also very strong in Zanzibar compared to other areas of the East African coast.
Speaker 2: Compared to Mombasa Lamu whatever Pate Kismayo and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: There is an established so to speak um a sector of Islamic poetry in Zanzibar compared to these other areas. And what interests me most is the involvement of women Muslims in this medium where I seek to argue that yes women are there they are making a very eminent contribution to Islamic knowledge production, they are making a very eminent contribution to culture, they are also making a very important contribution to economy as a whole because they are taking it up as a source of income and a career.
Speaker 2: Okay. So it's the poetry the poems business of Zanzibar made in Zanzibar.
Speaker 1: Yeah made in Zanzibar so to speak and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2: Okay. I think this was an eminent contribution to the knowledge production of the cluster of excellence Africa Multiple. Thanks for tuning in and we are looking forward to the next podcast then in the series of the Cluster Conversations. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Thank you and bye-bye.
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