Buffalo and lions roamed the periphery of the swampy lands, that were uninhabited except for the meeting of the Kikuyu and Maasai peoples, who occasionally brought their cattle to graze. Wet, infertile and with a high-altitude, the Maasai called it Enkare Nyorobi – ‘the land of cool waters’. This area was never meant to be a settlement, but in 1896, the Lunatic Express arrived. The builders of the railway line set up a small depot and a camp on the plains. There was no plan beyond that; Nairobi was merely one link in a chain of such supply depots.1
One colonial officer wrote that “Nairobi must remain what she was…a slatternly creature, unfit to queen it over so lovely a country.”2 But then that creature, against all expectations, developed a life of its own. By 1900, the town was composed of a single street, driven by commerce as South Asian railway builders settled in tin shacks on the plain.3 Nairobi had become somewhat of a ‘wild west’ of the African interior. Eccentric characters from all corners began to flock to the blossoming new town.
Immorality was abound. In her academic study, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi, Luise White, demonstrates how the world’s oldest profession helped the city in its nascent years maintain a labour force, by providing companionship to the bachelor migrant labour.4 Racist segregation too, began to take shape. By 1908 segregation laws became codified,5 reserving the best land in the region for European settlers, and leaving the rest to the Indian (including Muslim) railway force and any remaining portions to the native Africans. Disease plagued the swampy settlement. In 1902 a bubonic plague erupted in the town.6 In 1903 Dr Moffast, a principal medical officer of the East Africa and Uganda Protectorate, called Nairobi dangerous and defective. Another plague broke out in the following year. In 1913 alone, 14,000 new malaria cases were reported in Nairobi.7
There were also other issues brewing, along religious lines. Of the Indian Muslim labourers, the vast majority were Sunni, but during this period, missionaries from a new movement started to preach their variant doctrine on the frontier. They claimed a new prophet was sent to them in India.8 By 1917 these preachers had formed associations preaching this doctrine, converting many Muslims to their way.
It was in this environment, marred by disease and religious strife, that a luminary emerged.
Sayyid Abdullah Shah
On October 11, 1898, a ship docked in the Swahili port city of Mombasa; on board was Sayyid Abdallah Shah, who hailed from an Afghan family, descended from the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).10 After a life of pursuing sacred knowledge, he like many others from his part of the world, ventured to East Africa, but with the purpose of dawah (proselytisation) in mind.
He ended up in Nairobi, where he set about debating the heterodox preachers of the new doctrine11 and helped bring many to Islam due to his knowledge, piety and charisma.
Numerous tales are also told about his gift of miracles. One such story, preserved through oral accounts, recall a time when Sayyid Abdullah Shah called the leaders of the heterodox movement to a public gathering in the city of Mombasa. He then made dua, praying that whoever of the two groups are on the rightful guidance, will not be harmed by poison. To the astonishment of the crowd, he then drank a vial of poison but remained unharmed, whilst the heterodox preachers cowered from the challenge.
A first-hand account from 1942 tells us of how one ‘Hakam Bibi’ (who was the eye-witnesses mother) from the city of Nairobi became ill and uncontrollably vomited blood. Her chances of survival were all but written off since two prominent physicians were unable to find a diagnosis for her malady. However, Sayyid Abdallah is reported to have given her a light prayer amulet and told her to sleep. Upon waking, all her symptoms had disappeared, but the amulet had increased in weight.12
As his name began to spread, more and more Muslims started to frequent the new Jamiah Mosque where he served as imam to seek his aid. He would ascribe prayer amulets, as well as advice and reminders to the budding Muslim community.13 Thus, Islam in this young, blossoming town, found a safe anchor. Sayyid Abdallah was visited not only by the Indian Muslims of the new settlement, but by Muslims of other races also, and, during a time of racial segregation, treated all with respect and dignity. The Jamiah Mosque offered classes in Urdu, Arabic, Swahili, and Somali – a progressive step that won many new converts and adherents to the masjid and to religious learning. Sayyid Abdallah set up a large library, consisting of his own collection of Islamic literature that would become the first centre of religious learning in the city. Today, the mosque library has grown to offer computer classes to the very poor and disenfranchised of the city.
Both the mosque and Sayyid Abdallah became the locus of Islam in Nairobi. A writer, Mohammad A. Quraishy remarked in 1974 that “The Jamiah Mosque became a landmark in the heart of Nairobi; a living symbol of Islam in East Africa.”14
During his life, Sayyid Abdallah was known for his asceticism; he lived in a hujra (small dwelling associated with a pious person) near the mosque and slept on the floor.15 Though he devoted himself to the worship of God, he was not unaware of the world around him. Besides debating new heterodox movements, he was also up to date with current affairs and had a morning newspaper delivered daily. A devotee by the name of Mohammad Hussein Paracha,16 who worked for the East African Standard newspaper, would personally carry the daily newspaper to the Sayyid hot off the press and would read it to him. Every evening, after prayers, he would be taken for a drive around the new city. By having a finger on the pulse of the world, he understood the needs of others even outside the Muslim community.
momin’.
Every morning, several Hindu fruit merchants would deliver baskets of fresh fruit to Sayyid Abdallah, pay their respects and seek his intercession.17 He always ensured visitors left his home with some food, keeping none for himself. Another devotee who worked at the colonial dairy18 would frequently send over a large container of milk, which would then be poured into a cauldron in preparation of tea, for all those who visited Sayyid Abdallah.
A wealthy businessman by the name of Sayyid Imtiaz Ali Shah, a friend and devotee of Sayyid Abdallah, also left his mark upon Nairobi, one that is intimately tied with that of Sayyid Abdallah. (Read about his life in part four of this series).
Such was Sayyid Abdullah’s piety and service to Islam that he undertook the Hajj a total of 27
times taking Muslims from the new colonial settlements with him.19 Hajj during this period was no easy feat, and to complete no less than 27 times speaks volumes of Sayyid Abdallah’s commitment, patience and reliance on God. A newspaper column from the time, speaks of ‘High Priest’ Sayyid Abdullah Shah’s Hajj endeavours- a curious story for a colonial era newspaper to report.
After a lifetime dedicated to service of the Muslim community, during his final illness, Sayyid Abdallah expressed desire to be taken to Medina and buried in the jannatul baqi cemetery. After his passing, on Easter weekend in 1952, Sayyid Abadallah was accompanied by several acquaintances (photographed below), in a tiny aircraft owned by a European pilot. Due to its small size, the plane halted for refuelling in Kisumu (Kenya), Soroti (Uganda), Juba, Malakal and Khartoum (Sudan).20 Each time it halted, the European pilot would turn the plane towards Mecca, as crowds of Muslims would come to say the funeral prayer, lined up facing the plane21 for the Indian saint of Kenya.
Sayyid Maulana Abdullah Shah reached Medina on Friday morning, 18th April 1952. Thousands attended his final rites, after which the great cleric was laid to rest in jannatul baqi, and according to an oral account, near the grave of Sayiduna Uthman ibn Affan.
May Allah have mercy upon the soul of Sayyid Abdullah Shah, and may he be reunited with a grateful Kenyan community behind the banner of the Prophet ﷺ on the Day of Resurrection.
***
The story of Sayyid Abdallah Shah shows us how one man of God can impact an entire city. Nairobi continued to prosper and grow, becoming the busiest city in East and Central Africa today. Among the people of Nairobi, the name Sayyid Abdallah Shah is synonymous with piety, orthodoxy and religious commitment, and his masjid is seen as a beacon of Islam not only in the city, but the wider region also. His efforts to aid his community were not in vain.
The heterodox movement did not establish a foothold in Kenya after Sayyid Abdallah’s time, and though it would have been easy to give in to the chaos of modernity and godlessness that the colonial project ultimately created, perhaps it was through the efforts of those such as Sayyid Abdallah that Muslims were able to prosper in ‘the land of cool waters.’
“Exalted be He Who makes His Saints known only in order tomake Himself known and Who leads toward them those whom He wishes to lead toward Himself.”
– Ibn Ata’illah Al-Iskandari
This article is part of the Saints of the Savannah Series. Read part one, The Punjabi Labourer.
Footnotes
1 Owaahh and John Kamau, “Nairobi: The City That Was Never Meant to Be” in The Elephant, 6/12/2019.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi, University of Chicago Press, 1990.
5 Owaahh and John Kamau, “Nairobi: The City That Was Never Meant to Be” in The Elephant, 6/12/2019.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Cynthia Salvadori, Settling In a Strange Land: Stories of Punjabi Muslim Pioneers in Kenya, Park Road Mosque Trust, 2010, p 14 and 102.
9 Ibid, 103.
10 KUMBUKUMBU, Historia ya Sayyid Abdallah Shah (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTjtr2Ef5uY).
11 Ibid.
12 Cynthia Salvadori, p 98.
13 Ibid.
14 Steven Nelson, “Nairobi’s Jamia Masjid and Muslim Identity”, in Indiana University Press, Issue 119, 2016, p 66.
15 Cynthia Salvadori, p 98.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid, 100.
18 Ibid, 99.
19 Ibid, 98.
20 Ibid, 100.
21 Ibid.
