Throughout the Islamic world, poetry has played a significant role, not only as an expression of personal love, emotion and devotion to one’s faith, but also as a record of history.
While some Muslim poets, such as Rumi and Hafez, are household names, few can name African Muslim poets, despite the rich poetic history of the continent. East Africa’s Swahili poets in particular are renowned in the region for their classical Islamic poetry.
Today, the island of Lamu remains the literary centre for Islamic scholarship in East Africa. It is also the hub for Maulid celebrations in the region, which revolve around poetry competitions and recitals in celebration of the birth of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. But even within these communities, female poets are often overlooked.
The little recognition received by female East African poets is often attributed to the emphasis on prominent male figures in African cultures, and societal perceptions of women’s roles in Islam, or the lack of adequate female scholars. However, often forgotten is the role of gender and racial segregation in limiting the awareness and impact of black women in creative and literary spaces.
Gendered and Segregated Spaces
For many years, women in East Africa were not allowed to attend madrassa, mosques, or public spaces. While this was the same in most communities across the world, even in non-Islamic or non-African cultures, the segregation was much more pronounced in East Africa due to the combination of racial, class, and gender segregation. East Africa faced new norms of female segregation imposed by Arab Muslim migrants, a class bias from the Omani slave trade, and racial bias from European colonialism.
Unlike in West Africa, colonial powers and Arabs chose to settle in East Africa. As such, East African natives had to deal with the direct racism, oppression, and introduction of new patriarchal and racist norms as a direct consequence of living with their masters. This dissolved many of the historic matrilocal and matriarchal cultures that existed in some communities. The cumulative effect of both gendered and segregated spaces was therefore much more prominent in East Africa.
As a result, East African Muslim women had limited access to educational spaces and consequently had fewer skills in writing and Islamic education. The lack of access to these spaces also left many women at the disadvantage of being unable to tap into the networks of scholars and academics that would allow them to share and spread their knowledge further.
The factors mentioned above have meant that the majority of female poetry in East Africa was either orally conveyed or written in native languages.1 This led to its neglect by academic and traditional Muslim scholarship, since oral records were much harder to trace and record in a time before technology. The lack of known poetry by women in East Africa is therefore not an indication of its absence, but rather points towards the effect of limiting factors influenced by cultural and gender dynamics in transmission of knowledge and records at different points in history.
Swahili in East Africa
Among East African communities, the Swahili have a long history of oral transmission of poetry. The Swahili are a Bantu community located from Somalia to Mozambique, and populate many of the islands of the Indian Ocean. Traders from Arabia, India and Persia used to follow the monsoon winds to trade ivory, mangrove, sesame and slaves along the coast for centuries.
Traders were often forced to wait up to six months during the monsoon period before they could return home, and thus many ended up assimilating into the local culture either through marriage or cultural integration. This resulted in a unique and diverse culture along the shores of the coast with independent city-states. The diverse Swahili ethnicity remained independent from the Arabs for several centuries until Oman took over many of the city-states in the 17th century.
The Swahili consist of 15 recognised sub-groups. Prior, the community often referred to themselves based on their geographic points of origin such as Waamu from Amu, Wapate from Pate, Waunguja from Unguja, Wangazija from Ngazija, Wabarawa from Barawa, among many others with their own unique dialect. The word Swahili only came into use after the arrival of the Arabs. It is said to be derived from the Arab word sawahel, meaning ‘coasts’ in Arabic.
The integration and assimilation between Africans, Arabs, Persians, and Indians along the Swahili Coast made it very difficult for them to be distinctly placed as black or otherwise. Furthermore, due to the active Arab slave trade on the East African coast, many Swahili also opted to shed their African identity to be able to access better rights and freedoms, thus complicating their ethnic identity.
While the Omani didn’t succeed to ‘de-Africanise’ the Swahili, they left remnants of their culture behind, including gender and racial segregation. One of the consequences of this was that black women were left with limited access to public spaces, and prevented from openly sharing their experiences. These women however found a new way to express themselves and cross gender and racial barriers: through poetry. Poetry was an apt means of social expression as it required only creativity and oratory skill, and female poets did not need to interact with men or others from the outside world. In most cases, these poems were recited at women-only events such as weddings, circumcision and other religious ceremonies. However in many cases, women opted to write their poems anonymously.
The Hidden Voices
Swahili was originally written using a script adapted from Arabic (known as Ajami), which was taught in Islamic schools known as vyuo. With the integration of Islamic perspectives in East Africa, the link between the Swahili language and Islam was inseparable. This gave birth to some of the greatest classical Islamic poets in East Africa.2 Swahili poetry therefore was rich in religious themes, including some of the oldest written verse found in East African such as Utenzi wa Tambuka (The Poem of Tabuk) from 1728 that centres around the war between the Byzantines and the Muslims, and the Hamziya (Qasīdat al-Hamziyya) a Swahili rendition of the thirteenth-century ode praising Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, among others written mostly by men.
Many Ajami writings were lost by either plunder or intentional destruction. During colonial rule, one of the biggest archives of Swahili writings was burned down. When the British won the war against the Witu Sultanate in today’s Lamu, they torched the Sultan’s palace that was housing the records of the Pate Sultanate dating back centuries. Unfortunately many Ajami writings were also never properly analysed and often wrongly attributed as Arabic. Without suitable translators, we will never know what became of those that were plundered by the British and taken to Europe.
The stories of the “natives” were therefore long forgotten and remained preserved mostly through oral tales passed down through generations, often using poetry. Since women could not attend learning institutions, it meant few could write down the poems they composed. In most cases, those who could write were nobles who had private teachers. Among these were Mwana Kupona binti Sham, from Pate, Kenya, and Dada Masiti from Barawa, Somalia.
While Dada Masiti needs not be reintroduced, very few know of Mwana Kupona’s poetry who gave us the only known written classical Swahili didactic poem composed by a woman, Utendi wa Mwana Kupona. Both these women are considered to be part of the broader group of Swahili from the East African Coast, Pate, and Barawa, respectively. While they are the best known poets in mainland East Africa, there is still research ongoing to uncover more classical female poets in other parts of the region.
Often, female poets would request a man with good oratory skills to read their poetry in public spaces on their behalf. Unbeknownst to most, many of the poems recited during the Maulid even today were written by women. I personally know of several female writers who submit poetry during the Lamu Maulid Festival poetry competition and split the prize with the men who perform it for them when they win.
In Swahili culture, talented male and female poets were, and still are, contracted or requested to compose poetry on behalf of others, to give as gifts or for special events. As such, the identity of the author is almost completely unknown in classical Swahili poetry.3 It is unlikely that we will ever know the identity of the women who wrote much of the poetry still recited today. In fact, some poems thought to be by famous male Swahili poets were actually composed by women, as related to me by the Collection Manager of Lamu Museums, Mohammed Ali, during my research to uncover forgotten female poets.
In Umbuji wa Kiwandeo, a book published by renowned poet Professor Ahmed Sheikh Nabahani and Ibrahim Noor Shariff, Pate women are mentioned to have helped Nabahani compose several poems. Both Nabahani and Shariff consider themselves to be Arab, providing a clear example of how African women’s voices remained hidden in authorship unlike their Arab and male counterparts. This context of subdued female voices along the Swahili Coast partly explains why the writings and works of Dada Masiti and Mwana Kupona binti Sham are not as well known as male and non-African poets.
Mwana Kupona Binti Sham
Mwana Kupona was born in Pate in 1810.4 She later got married to Mohammed Is-Haq Bin Mbarak, also known as Sheikh Bwana Mataka, who was the ruler of Siyu in Lamu. In this regard, Mwana Kupona could be considered as the ‘Sultana’ of Siyu. Bwana Mataka is renowned for being the last leader of the Swahili city-state to lose his territory to the Omani in the late 19th century. He is famed for giving Oman the highest number of soldier casualties outside of its borders to-date. When they say behind every successful man is a woman, they’re talking about women like Mwana Kupona.
Mwana Kupona wrote a famous didactic poem, dedicated to her 14 year old daughter, Mwana Hashima. She wrote it while unwell, in the form of motherly advice. Since this poem was a personal gift, Mwana Hashima, her daughter, must have played a pivotal role in sharing the poem and ensuring its preservation. No other poem by Mwana Kupona has been discovered yet.
Utendi wa Mwana Kupona not only gives her daughter advice, but also consists of praise of Allah that is written as a prayer. Considering that Mwana Kupona wrote it in preparation for her death while she was sick, one can imagine the effort and difficulty that must have been undertaken in order to complete it. As a widow without a male guardian, not only did she raise her daughter alone in a conservative Swahili-Islamic culture, she also managed to leave a great legacy of literature behind.
Translation of the first 12 verses:
1 Come close to me my daughter,
and listen to my advice;
young though you are,
perhaps you will pay attention to it.
2 I have been ill
for a whole year
and have not had an opportunity
to talk properly to you.
3 Come forward and sit down
with paper and ink.
In my heart I have something
that I want to say to you.
4 When done, start by writing
In the Name of God;
send supplications to the beloved
together with his Companions.
5 When you have recorded
the Name of Almighty God,
now we pray for His bounty
and God will be pleased with us.
6 Man is nothing
and the world does not belong to us;
there is none
that shall endure.
7 My child,
accept my admonition
and God will preserve you
and keep you from ill.
8 Take the amulet that I give you;
tie it firmly with cord;
honour it and
pay attention to it.
While some critics claim that Mwana Kupona’s advice to her daughter could be deemed sexist in today’s standards by reinforcing patriarchal roles and the subservient role of women, we have to read the poem in its historical context and the social framework of that time. As such, the poem provides us with a retrospective analysis of that period to better understand the circumstances women were living in; a time when unmarried women were not expected to leave their homes and the only roles available for girls were either in the kitchen, or caring for children.
The poem seeks to promote religious and marital harmony by asserting both the cultural and Islamic roles of the woman.
85 I, Thy feeble servant,
pray to Thee in my troubles to ease them;
lighten them,
Lord, for me.
86 I pray Thee hasten to do for me blessings
beyond my reckoning;
grant me all good fortune
and deliver me from evil.
87 Lord, finish for me
that which I cannot manage;
matters which even my heart
never expected to come to pass.
88 Lord, make me happy,
grant me good things;
put evil away from me,
so that we do not meet.
89 Keep me in this world
in the company of the blessed;
that when I die I may go to Paradise,
the dwelling of the saved
Learning and Sharing the Hidden Stories
It is interesting that both Mwana Kupona and Dada Masiti’s poetry were both inspired after periods of sorrow and confinement. Dada Masiti faced isolation after she was abused and imprisoned like a slave by her husband, and Mwana Kupona after being widowed and suffering from a terminal illness that confined her in her home for almost two years. Confinement in these hidden spaces didn’t limit these women’s poetic religious expressions, but instead inspired them.
There are many other Swahili poets like Mwana Kupona and Dada Masiti who perhaps we will never come to know of and who remain in confined hidden spaces: from those that write for men behind the scenes to those whose poetry never saw the light of day. As black Muslim women, we must follow in the footsteps of Mwana Kupona and Dada Masiti to learn, write and share our own stories.
As Mwana Kuponas’ poem reads in the end: “I have composed it in illness, and without great understanding, but read it, Muslims, when you help one another on the way….My reason for composing it is not that I am a poet or an expert; but I have an immature daughter, whom I wish to instruct…Read it all women and perhaps you will understand, and be blameless before Almighty God.”
It is therefore our collective responsibility, or else the books will always glorify the hunter.
Full translation of Utendi wa Mwana Kupona available here.
Footnotes
- Declich, F. (2001). Sources on Islam composed in the vernacular: Somali women’s religious poetry. Islam in East Africa (Archives. Manuscripts and Written Historical Sources. Oral History. Archaeology) ↩︎
- Timamy, R. and Swaleh, A. (2013). A Thematic Analysis of Utendi wa Mwana Kupona: A Swahili/Islamic Perspective. Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1735 ↩︎
- Kitula, King’ei (2001). Aspects of Autobiography in the Classical Swahili Poetry: Problems of Identity of Authorship. Folklore Electronic Journal of Folklore 16. ↩︎
- Werner, A, and Hichens, W. (1934). The Advice of Mwana Kupona upon the Wifely Duty. Translated from the Swahili Texts. Medstead: The Azanian Press. 9 ↩︎
