Chapter 3 Ibadhi Schools and Their Transnational Networks

Islamic Education in Zanzibar

Schools such as those funded by Istiqaama that maintain ties to the Middle East or the “Arab” regions (Sw. sehemu za kiArabuni) appeal to students and parents as they boast newer buildings and facilities, can recruit foreign-trained teachers, maintain low acceptance rates, and benefit from transnational religious and economic networks that enable greater social mobility. Sociologist Simon Turner noted that the liberalization and privatization of schooling in Zanzibar coincided with a global Islamic revival. “Since the 1980s wealthy individuals from the Gulf States have funded mosques, madrasas [Islamic schools], health clinics, secondary schools, teachers’ training colleges and universities in Zanzibar, and young Zanzibar men have been given scholarships to study in Medina, Khartoum and elsewhere.”⁵ The rise of private Islamic institutions of education during this period further enabled the dissemination of religious literature in the form of textbooks and pamphlets from abroad in addition to “CDs and DVDs [and now social media] in Arabic, English and Swahili” both in and beyond formal schools’ structures.⁶ State actors in Zanzibar frequently denounce new religious activists who studied in North Africa and the Arab Gulf and promote foreign religious literature as the work of “fundamentalists,” “radicals,” or “Arabcentric.” This in turn has led some Muslims to lose trust in state institutions,⁷ even those tasked with representing Muslim interests in Tanzania and Zanzibar, such as BAKWATA and the Zanzibar Mufti’s office.

A similar education movement began in Zanzibar in the Istiqaama School established in the old Ibadhi mosque of the Al-Lemki family of Oman. When he returned from Oman, Maher, from chapter 2, began teaching at the school and in the Istiqaama mosque in Baghani. As enrollments increased and more funds became available, the Istiqaama community built a new campus that comprised a K–12 school and institute for advanced Arabic and Islamic Studies in the lush island village of Tungu, which is about a thirty-minute drive east of Stone Town. In the school’s early years, students from the mainland would first go to Pemba to study at Istiqaama in Chake Chake. Maher explained that students in Zanzibar typically were at a higher level (Sw. kiwango cha juu) in their Arabic and religious studies than students from the mainland (bara), who had to pass through Pemba to learn the basics first. After studying in Pemba for two or three years, some of the students would go to Unguja to study in the institute at Tungu, where the staff there would place them in the appropriate class level. On graduation, high-performing students would receive opportunities to study at the College for Shariʽa Studies in Muscat. Other students from Pemba would get opportunities to study at another Ibadhi institute in Algeria called Maʿhad al-Hayah (see chapter 4).

In addition Istiqaama hosts several free religious studies and Arabic lessons for adults in local mosques. Students at the K-12 ma’had in Zanzibar do pay tuition. According to Ayman, from chapter 1,

We are looking for funding, one that supports food and another that supports teachers’ salaries, another supports the building of things. So, there are small projects. Then there is the third element, a school where everyone studies. An integrated school that supports (skuli ya integration inasupporti) all studies. Meaning there is a school, the syllabus of the ministry of education in Zanzibar, then there are a few periods when the costs are high . . . but together with that, the jumuiya contributes . . . it is 8% that they give . . . 50% without minding whether he is Ibadhi or not Ibadhi. So many who study are not Ibadhi. Many who study in all these organizations are not Ibadhis. The Ibadhis are a small percentage⁸

He claimed that there was no way to know precise numbers of Ibadhis as “it is not permitted by the government to do our census.”⁹ He estimated that there could be up to twenty-four thousand students studying in Istiqaama schools and only a quarter of them Ibadhi. Moreover, most of the students who attend the schools are from families who are members of Istiqaama and therefore participate in the organization’s elections or serve on its councils and committees. However, lack of membership does not preclude local students and their families from receiving charity (sadaqa) in the form of scholarships for students to attend Istiqaama schools or the care of orphans. When we met for the second time in 2016, Ayman told me that the Unguja branch of Istiqaama paid the school fees for 161 orphaned and impoverished students.¹⁰

The Istiqaama Institute in Zanzibar

The school uniforms at Istiqaama are noticeably Islamic. Female teachers and older girls wear long black robes (Sw. buibui or Ar. abaya). The male teachers also dress conservatively in kanzus and embroidered prayer caps distinctive of the different Ibadhi communities of Oman and Algeria. The teachers often joke among themselves that their journey back and forth between the separated girls’ and boys’ sections of campus is like running between the two hills of al-S.afa and al-Marwah, a ritual that Hajj pilgrims perform annually when visiting the sacred enclosure in Mecca. This ritual commemorates the Islamic matriarch Hajar’s desperate run in search of water when abandoned in the desert with her young son, Ismaʽil. Students at the Istiqaama Institute learn to pray at the small campus mosque and can conduct research at two school libraries that contain volumes of legal and theological texts written by modern and classical Ibadhi authorities. The library has a collection of student theses that serve as the basis of a growing archive of local Ibadhi and Islamic knowledge. Many of the books in the library are publications of the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs in Muscat and are donated to the library by Omani investors and visitors to the school. The library books offer advanced students opportunities to deepen their knowledge of Islam and Arabic after they have completed a series of introductory courses in grammar, Islamic education, and reading comprehension. These subjects are taught through a series of imported textbooks from Oman donated to the schools for use in the religion and Arabic language classes.

According to Salim, a former Sunni Muslim chemistry teacher at Istiqaama, students from families that cannot afford to pay the monthly fee of approximately TZS65,000(US$30) receive scholarships from the Istiqaama school board in Zanzibar. Salim explained that the scholarship opportunities provided through Istiqaama enable greater economic and racial diversity at the school because most students receiving financial aid are from non-Arab Swahili backgrounds. On an island where the estimated average annual income is around US$250, most parents on Zanzibar would find the cost of attendance at the Istiqaama Institute prohibitively expensive.¹¹ Students who excel at the Istiqaama Institute may receive scholarships to study at the College of Shariʽa Sciences in Muscat after they graduate, where they deepen their knowledge of Islamic law and Arabic. Istiqaama recruits many of its teachers and school administrators from the college. Religious studies are not a compulsory subject in public schools in Zanzibar and Tanzania, but community members may teach them on an ad hoc basis. In most private Islamic K–12 schools in Zanzibar, religion is compulsory, but the secular courses taught at these institutions, such as math and science, follow the curriculum set by the Tanzanian government. Students at the Istiqaama maʿhad also take the national O-level and A-level exams, which determine entrance into high school and university. The religious studies curriculum at the school is presented as nonsectarian, and Ibadhism is only visible in times of prayer, in the Omani kanzus worn by some students and teachers on Fridays, and in the numerous volumes of scholarship written by Ibadhi scholars in the girls’ and boys’ libraries. Ibadhism also appears in subtle ways in the Istiqaama religion textbooks that are imported from the Ministry of Education in Oman.

Omani Textbooks in Zanzibari Schools

The first textbook, Tarbiyya, is from a series entitled Islamic Education (or al-Tarbiyya al-Islamiyya). It is a primary school–level guide to Islamic ritual practice and norms and is similar in content to a series by the same title used in the national religious studies curriculum in Oman. (See Limbert 2007) This textbook is printed by the Ministry of Education in Oman and bears the printed Istiqaama Tanzania name and logo. The series, first published in 1998, has six sections: Qur’ān, prophetic hadith, ʻaqīda, acts of worship, biography of the prophet (sīra), and ethics and good manners (akhlāq). Anthropologist Mandana Limbert’s study of equivalent textbooks in Oman explores the ways in which the books used by elementary school students serve “in the production of good citizens” and instill a sense of “personal piety and seriousness of purpose” from an early age.¹² According to Limbert, the Ibadhi orientation of the textbook writers and the primarily Omani audience is detectable only in several references to prominent Ibadhi figures, in stories about succession disputes and tribal politics in early Islamic Arabia, and in pictorial representations of distinctively Ibadhi prayer practices.

The Sultanate of Oman is never mentioned explicitly in the Tarbiyya, but images depicting “typical” Omani landscapes and dress and features of a stereotypical middle-class lifestyle of modern toilets, homes, and public buses serve as representations of what the ideal modern state should look like. These “wish-images,” Limbert explains, are as much a part of Oman’s particular modernist vision and state-building narratives as they are of preexisting notions of behavioral propriety and civil obedience. As ideals, however, they are often in tension with the realities of daily life.¹³ The Tarbiyya used by Istiqaama describes ritual practices with emphasis on neighborliness and cleanliness and includes scenes of Omani domestic life and physical environment (e.g., desert landscape, Omani houses, craggy mountain ranges, and water canals).

As the literal meaning of its title suggests, the Tarbiyya (Sw., malezi) focuses on topics related to the “upbringing” or “guidance” of Muslim youth and its audience is children in primary school or the early stages of development. It seeks to impart “social skills” related to Islamic ideals and norms concerning physical appearance, family, neighborliness, and gender roles. In the series images demonstrating how a child should pray are of men and boys, while those depicting household chores such as cooking and cleaning are of young girls wearing hijab and colorful housedresses. Ibadhi women in Zanzibar and Tanzania typically perform their daily prayers at home; however, mosque attendance among women is growing in regions with newer mosques that have designated women’s prayer halls. The textbook ideal that suggests the duties of the Omani Muslim woman lie primarily in the domestic sphere is at odds with Istiqaama’s or, for that matter, Oman’s many initiatives to promote education for its female students, for example, at the Istiqaama maʿhad in Zanzibar.

The religious studies textbooks printed by the Omani government make no explicit reference to Ibadhi Islam, although Ibadhi-centered narratives and demonstrations of prayer are discernible.¹⁴ In fact, if one were to remove the Istiqaama Tanzania logo from the book’s cover, little would distinguish the series from those described by Limbert as the basis of Oman’s religious studies curriculum. The presence of the logo suggests some degree of Omani governmental investment in, or at least awareness of, its role in the Istiqaama’s educational efforts in Zanzibar and Tanzania. Oman’s role in educational development in East Africa appears, on the surface, to be unidirectional and absent of collaborative pedagogy, or dialogue, between the writers of the donated textbooks and their recipients. The textbook audience at Istiqaama is a Swahili-speaking and non-Arab, coastal, East African Muslim community who do express discomfort with the wholesale adoption of Arabic and Islamic studies textbooks that appear to privilege Arab Muslim and Arab nationalist discourses. Coinciding with this discomfort is an attitude of indifference that suggests the textbooks serve only a practical objective—to teach Swahili-speaking students from Zanzibar the basic principles of Islam and Arabic language—while the rest of the content is superfluous and does little to change students’ perceptions of their physical or social selves. The willingness to accept the gift of unmodified textbooks from Oman points to two things: First, that material constraints and lack of expertise in the relevant subjects do not allow the East African branches of Istiqaama to produce their own textbooks or contribute to the modification of the books to reflect the local environments in which they learn. Second, the religious authority of Oman within Ibadhi circles in Zanzibar is clear because of the Ibadhi community’s strong kinship ties to the ancestral homeland. This authority is also linked to charismatic figures such as Mufti al-Khalili, who is often credited with the vision to establish the transnational Istiqaama Charitable Society.¹⁵

Student and Teacher Perspectives on Imported Learning Materials

Students learning Arabic and Islamic studies at neighborhood Ibadhi mosques in Stone Town also use the Istiqaama textbooks donated from Oman. One student, Jalali, attended the evening classes during his school days and, at the time of our interview, was pursuing a degree at a local college in Zanzibar Town. Jalali’s mother is Zanzibari of Indian and Sunni heritage and his father is a member of a well-known Omani family in Zanzibar Town. Jalali and several other Ibadhi students attended evening classes funded by Istiqaama at an Ibadhi mosque from the ages of eight to fifteen while also attending school full-time at the Cutchi Indian Sunni madrasa (Islamic school) in the Mkunazini neighborhood. The madrassa is large and has a distinctive facade of white walls with leaf-green trim. It sits in a prominent location across from the island’s main branch of the CRDB bank. The Sunni madrasa is a private school, but like the K–12 school located within the Istiqaama campus, it follows the Tanzanian national curriculum in which religion appears as only one subject out of many and English is the primary language of instruction. Jalali explained that the religious education offered in the school is from a completely “Sunni perspective.” Moreover, students who are not Sunni are obliged to conform to mainstream Islamic ritual practices while in school, and they learn about Islam from exclusively Sunni sources.¹⁶ In the evening, however, Ibadhi students enter a new epistemological sphere at an Istiqaama school that privileges Ibadhi norms and practices. This phenomenon of cross-cultural appropriation and subject formation is strikingly like Jalali’s description of a school life that compelled him to be Sunni by day in the Cutchi school and Ibadhi by night in the Istiqaama one.

Former students and teachers in the Istiqaama schools explain that the Swahili language permeates all aspects of Arabic language pedagogy and mediates between the ideal of Omani-Arab nationalism portrayed in the imported Istiqaama textbooks and the cosmopolitan context of the Istiqaama classroom. Like the Tarbiyya, the Istiqaama Iqrā’ textbook series designed for Arabic language pedagogy is also replete with reading passages and pictures drawn from an Omani context and projects an identifiably more nationalist tone. When asked about his experience studying religion and Arabic from the Istiqaama textbooks printed in Oman, Jalali explained that while he was generally comfortable with the Omani examples and pictures, the centrality of the Arabic language to the Istiqaama curriculum was an adjustment.

Well to me it [the textbook’s depictions of life in Oman] was normal. You know, my family, from when I grew up . . . so many of them were Arab so . . . going into these classes it was easy for me to adapt. Although it was difficult to learn [the material] because of the language . . . because I did not know Arabic very well . . . I grew up talking Hindi a lot more than Arabic. So, I did not understand Arabic. You know, I understood a little bit, but it was not my language, so it was difficult for me to adapt for some time. Then days passed and it became normal, so it was like an everyday situation . . . but at first it was difficult, but it became normal.¹⁷

Jalali’s experience of growing up in a multicultural but patrilineal Muslim society of Zanzibar, in which children of Arab heritage typically assume the religion and tribal identity of their fathers, was good preparation for the digestion of the Omani customs presented in the textbook. However, like most Omani-Zanzibari children of his and his parents’ generation (born in the fifties and sixties), knowledge of the Arabic language and Arabic script consisted of that learned in Qur’an classes or a few key religious phrases and greetings while Swahili (and in Jalali’s case, Hindi) served as the dominant mode of communication. This is in contrast to a long history of local Swahili writings using Arabic script—a cultural and intellectual practice that British colonial officers and missionaries disrupted and transformed by enforcing the romanization of Swahili as part of a broader civilizing mission to make the language and its speakers “legible” to Europeans.¹⁸ Other narratives suggest that the loss of Arabic-language abilities on the island is a partial result of the anti-Arab and Zanzibari nationalist policies adopted by the government in the years following the revolution.¹⁹

The experience of several formative years spent in a bilingual, dual confessional, and multicultural Zanzibari educational milieu is likely to produce occasional moments of confusion. In this postcolonial context, where independence and revolution came from both European and Arab imperial powers, such conflict persists in the Muslim student’s attempt to navigate between a local Swahili African culture heavily influenced by Arabic and Islam and the idealized Arab Islam presented in the textbooks. Like any subject, learning Arabic is something that takes time, sustained exposure, and discipline until it becomes an everyday situation, a habit, or something normal. Inculcating a sense of normalcy in Arabic is among the distinguishing factors of the Istiqaama school curriculum in relation to that of other similarly faith-based educational institutions in Tanzania’s primarily Swahili- or English-speaking educational context. The cultivation of Arabic language skills within the Istiqaama association also bestows the minority Muslim group with a degree of religious authority in a religious playing field in which knowledge of Arabic often means greater access to higher truths and symbolic capital.²⁰ This capital affects not only campus life but also one’s ability to accumulate material wealth on graduation as it enables access to trade networks in Arabic-speaking countries such as the United Arab Emirates or Dubai.²¹ Yet, the emphasis placed on Arabic as a prestige language is not without its critiques; some religious elders, such as Sheikh and Ramadan lecturer Abdilahi Nassir of Mombasa, caution against mistaking “appearance for substance.”²² Functionality in the language of Islam is different from having knowledge of Islam.²³

Given the competition that Istiqaama faces from other Gulf-funded institutions and actors in Zanzibar and Tanzania, it is no wonder that Arabic is at the core of the group’s current educational initiatives. Despite the high premium placed on knowledge of Arabic in the region, Zanzibar’s Istiqaama teachers (several of whom attended college in Oman or studied at the maʿhad) frequently employ Swahili in their classrooms to facilitate the process of foreign-language acquisition. Jalali expressed his admiration at the intelligence and skill of his teachers at Istiqaama who, he explained, attended college in Oman. They were non-Arabs—he referred to them as “Swahilis” and then clarified that they were “Africans.” Jalali said, “It was not like they [the teachers] were talking Arab, Arab, Arab, no no no. He would read a passage or a story and then translate it into Swahili, and that helped me a lot to understand the words and how Arab is used.”²⁴ This dual-language pedagogical approach adopted by the Istiqaama teaching staff demonstrates a sensitivity to and awareness of the various learning needs of their primarily Swahili-speaking student body.

The fifth lesson in the fourth part of the Iqrā’ textbook focuses on the “Omani armed forces” and their role in the Omani Nahḍa, which began in the 1970s under Sultan Qaboos. The lesson includes patriotic pictures of the armed forces, including a plane from the Omani air force and a military march in front of a building bearing the Omani crest, two crossed ceremonial swords, and a ceremonial dagger (khanjar) (Ministry 1997: 44). The passage reads: “[The Nahḍa] realized major successes in the way of building powers aimed at the spread of peace and tranquility in the souls of the citizens in [every] corner of the Sultanate and the protection of the dear homeland [al-waṭan al-‘azīz].”²⁵ The passage also discusses the various branches of the Omani military (the army, the air force, the navy, and the sultan’s guard) and their phases of development, along with the various academies established by the sultan for the training of those aspiring to join the forces. The appearance of military propaganda in a primary school textbook apparently intended for students in Omani government schools and madrasa systems at home and abroad is an indication of the vast reach of the country’s vision for modernization and the intersection of different sites of development—military, education, language, and religion. Moreover, the textbook links Oman’s achievements in modern development (al-tanmiyya al-ḥadītha) to the intellectual acumen and military might of the former sultan.

Textbooks published by governments for use in their public schools, in Oman as elsewhere, frequently contain nationalist rhetoric.²⁶ It is also not uncommon for students studying abroad to return home influenced by the rhetoric and the images espoused in their host country’s curriculum and public discourses, such as occurred with many of the leaders of modern Saudi-inspired Wahhabi or Egyptian- and Sudanese-inspired Salafi movements across coastal East Africa. What is less clear is how the content of such textbooks influences student perceptions of their own national history and culture vis-à-vis that imported from abroad and how local students process, filter, and interpret the content of these books. To what degree do students and teachers in Zanzibar actively engage the textual and pictorial narratives displayed in the textbooks and to what degree is the foreign textbook just a means to a very practical end—acquiring the ritual and linguistic knowledge required for being a “good” Muslim? Jalali described his own experience with the Tarbiyya and Iqrā’ textbooks as one of passive engagement with the “foreign” nationalist message imbuing the textbooks.

We didn’t go beyond what we were reading, or we were discussing. It is kinda like, you read the passage and then you answer the questions, you understand what was taught—that’s it. Because if you go beyond, it is different from our traditions, you know? They are Omanis and we are Zanzibari. And we are taught things very differently, you know. Our traditions, our customs, it is very different, so it is something like that. But the main thing, the main thing was to understand Arabic. It doesn’t matter what we were talking about . . . [or] whether they were talking about the [Omani] air force, or the port, or something like that. The main thing is just to understand Arabic. That is, it. How to pronounce the words, how to do the tadrībāt, you know, how to answer the questions. How to do the iʽrāb. That’s it, nothing more.²⁷

From this perspective the Omani textbooks were, in a very practical sense, drills (tadrībāt) for improving one’s knowledge base and not a replacement or competitor for Zanzibari students’ hearts and minds. Jalali makes clear that the two cultural contexts are distinct—despite the familiarity of Zanzibari Arabs with Omani customs and traditions. It also appears that the Istiqaama teachers, though they previously lived and studied in Oman, were very conscious of not engaging in any dialogue with students that might touch on issues of political sensitivity in Zanzibar, such as the virtues of the sultan and his armed forces. Still, it was striking the degree to which even years later a student from the maʿhad could remember very acutely the themes of the passages and the images of the textbooks, suggesting a degree of passive learning that transcended the acquisition of merely technical knowledge. However, this can also be understood as a form of resistance to the imposition of foreign cultural values, like political philosopher Frantz Fanon’s call for decolonization through the rejection of colonial culture and a recognition of the pitfalls of nationalist power structures.²⁸ The Istiqaama students may maintain a sense of their own distinct cultural identity and traditions, even as they are exposed to external influences. This tension between foreign influences and local cultural identity is a key aspect of the struggle for Zanzibari self-determination and autonomy vis-à-vis Oman.

This lack of motivation and engagement with the Omani curriculum in Zanzibar could stem from a variety of factors. Firstly, the absence of a national exam on the material may make it seem less important or relevant to students who are not required to demonstrate their knowledge in a formal setting.²⁹ Additionally, the fact that the textbooks used in Zanzibar are essentially the same as those used in Oman, suggests a lack of consideration for the cultural and social context in which they are being used.

Furthermore, the religious knowledge students receive in school is only one small component of the religious socialization they encounter elsewhere through the various print and electronic media, Friday sermons, and daily conversations with friends, families, and teachers outside the official classroom.³⁰ The broader religious environment may shape their beliefs and practices more significantly than the formal education they receive. Jalali explained that during his time in the dual-learning environment of the Cutchi madrasa and Ibadhi classes, he and his fellow Ibadhi students would often engage in debates with their Sunni classmates over the merits of the different schools of thought in Islam.³¹

The experience of Jalali in engaging with Sunni classmates highlights the complexity of religious identity in Zanzibar. Students like him may feel compelled to defend their beliefs in the face of criticism, indicating the importance of personal conviction and understanding in navigating diverse religious perspectives. Ultimately, the disconnect between the formal curriculum and the lived experiences of students in Zanzibar indicates the limits of formal education in shaping religious identities.

Arabic as a Prestige Language

Accompanying the heavily Gulf-influenced social environment at the Istiqaama Institute is familiarity with the Arabic language that students come to embody beginning in nursery school. Nuhu—a dark-complexioned Zanzibari university student who recently graduated from Istiqaama in Tungu—explained that for many students at Istiqaama who studied in a madrasa prior to enrolling in the school, learning religion and the Arabic language from Omani textbooks is not at all strange. “For me, it was simple because since a long time ago I had started to study Arabic . . . For me, I saw that it was only normal, it was good, because I already understood something that was written, and it was easy to understand.” Similarly, students who come to campus quickly learn that knowledge of Arabic is essential to their success in and outside of the classroom. “It is the rule for everyone to speak Arabic, and they know it.”³² The physical and social environment of the school appears as a lusher version of the idyllic Omani village scenes represented in the textbooks from which the students learn Arabic grammar, reading comprehension, and the behaviors befitting a good Arabic-speaking Muslim.

Like the students, few of the teachers who come from Omani families at the Istiqaama schools are native speakers of Arabic. Moreover, Arabic is only their second or third language after, in most cases, Swahili. Even the Algerian teachers who have a more natural command of Arabic from the Arab nationalist context, in which they originated, are ethnically Amazigh and speak a mix of Arabic and Berber dialects among themselves. Former students and current teachers at the Istiqaama schools have noted that the cultural and linguistic diversity present among the teaching staff and student body impacts the translation and interpretation of the curated image of Islam and Muslims that is presented in Omani educational materials. Nuhu explained that some teachers would draw on examples from the cultural context with which they themselves were most familiar (e.g., Algeria) when teaching religion or Arabic reading comprehension. “Others stick to this [Zanzibar’s] environment, they teach about this or that stream, meaning, they use [examples] of different kinds.”³³ This observation underscores the teachers’ awareness of the diverse learning needs of their students and highlights the fact that the Omani textbooks are just one set of tools among many in their pedagogical toolbox. It is utilized alongside other approaches, reflecting the adaptability and responsiveness of teachers at the ma’had to effectively communicate knowledge of Arabic and religion at Istiqaama.

Bi Aida, a longtime teacher and administrator at Istiqaama, explained that as a private institution of learning, the school affords teachers relative freedom to select classroom materials and experiment with a variety of pedagogical methods.

As for teaching, the teacher is not required to focus on just one book. We are a private school [skuli binafsi], but we received permission from the Ministry of Education [Wizara ya Elimu] that we can import skills—other skills—that we think can help advance the education of our students. So, the Omani and Arabic books are used because there are some things that must be taken from there. They [the Omanis] do well in Arabic, so we want to do as well as them. So, we use their books as supplementary books so that our students can be at that same average as the students that do well over there in Oman.³⁴

From this perspective, it is only natural that Zanzibari students would learn from textbooks printed in a country where Arabic is the official language, if not always the primary mode of communication. The question is not necessarily one of Omani or Arab supremacy but one of utility: How can we use the various materials at our disposal to enhance the pedagogy of our teachers and address the learning needs of our students? The association Bi Aida makes between knowledge of Arabic and being from Oman invokes a deeply ingrained assumption in Zanzibar that the Gulf countries are home to the “pure” Arabic language and culture to which young Muslims must aspire. A successful Istiqaama student is the one who achieves the same level of Arabic as their Omani counterparts who attend the national school system in Arabic. This does not consider that many students of East African heritage or the Zinjibari diaspora in Oman are themselves struggling to navigate between their Arab and African linguistic and cultural heritage. For example, some students may grapple with the expectation of being fluent in the standardized Swahili taught in schools, though their home dialects may differ drastically from the Tanzanian standard that uses a roman orthography and flattens some of the guttural sounds characteristic of Arabic and Islamic vocabulary.³⁵

At the Istiqaama Institute in Tungu, math and science teachers tend not to use Arabic. Salim, who left the maʿhad to teach chemistry in a government school, explains: “However there are some books written in Arabic for science, but we do not use those. For example, I, myself, cannot use Arabic books to teach. I can read Qur’an [that is all].”³⁶ While there are some science textbooks in Arabic available in the school library, English and Swahili is the preferred method of communication for these subjects. Salim’s experience is an example of the distinction made between English as a language of industry and Arabic as the language of Islam and Arab culture that also serves the socioeconomic purpose of maintaining business and kinship ties with the Gulf. Salim further gestures to a desire to immerse students in what many view as the primary language of Islam; this is also a primary reason for which Zanzibari parents may send their children to study at the maʿhad. According to Salim, because of Istiqaama’s success in graduating students with high marks on national exams—Ibadhi and non-Ibadhi, Arab and non-Arab—parents and teachers alike aspire to send their children to the Istiqaama-supported schools to learn Arabic and the behaviors and cultural practices befitting a virtuous Muslim. “I am sorry, but to me, Arabic is the best language. However, I do not speak it. But it is my first language. Because . . . even the poems, when they sing songs, they are very nice even [more so] than English songs or Swahili. Sometimes Swahili [becomes] nice because of some Arabic words. So, I want my children to know this. To me [myself] now it is not important but for my children it is important. And I prefer them to know English, and when they are there, they will speak both languages.”³⁷

These comments are reminiscent of a perception held by visitors, archaeologists, linguists, historians, and ethnographers to the East African coast that the main aspects distinguishing Swahili as a prestige language, in comparison to the indigenous African languages and cultural traditions of the mainland and interior, are its Arab and Persian influences. These perceptions map onto a longstanding practice among coastal residents of “emphasizing their descent from immigrants from Shiraz in Persia and from Arabia who had come centuries earlier to the African coast to trade and who stated to settle, build coral towns, live a sophisticated urban life, and rule.”³⁸ Despite these claims, however, historical linguists such as Derek Nurse and Thomas Spear have made convincing arguments against the centrality of Arabic to Swahili language and culture, emphasizing the language’s Bantu grammar structure and sound system. While Swahili remained an important language of trade, oral and written culture, and social life, the establishment of the Omani sultanate in Zanzibar during the first half of the nineteenth century saw greater emphasis placed on the role of Arabs and Arabic in trade and economic life on the coast. It was during this period that merchants and scholars from noble lineages (ashrāf/shurafā’, sing. sharīf) in Hadramaut became “prominent community leaders” and harbingers of Islamic reform in Zanzibar, in line with trends that were already underway in Arabic-speaking lands.³⁹ Even after the process of emancipating enslaved persons began in 1897, knowledge of Arabic and one’s ability to demonstrate Arabness through lineage, dress, and manners became the measure of the civility and gentility on the islands.⁴⁰

Over a century later, Salim, who himself claims distant Omani heritage but is Sunni, articulates the importance of early Islamic education and Arabic in ensuring the social standing and respectability of his children. Just as Swahili is sometimes viewed as the language that distinguishes Muslim coastal residents from their non-Muslim counterparts, he views Arabic as a prestige language that yields more symbolic capital than his native Swahili. His insecurity is shared by many of the island’s educated Muslims: that failure to learn or lack of opportunity to study Arabic in depth deprives them of a certain symbolic capital and religious authority that would enable greater integration into Arab economic and social circles in Zanzibar and the Gulf. Parents may transfer this anxiety to their children, who have the burden of mastering Arabic for its religious value and English for the opportunities it affords Zanzibaris in achieving success in education, the local tourism industry, and international business, among other sectors. Parents in Zanzibar choose to send their children to private religious schools, like Istiqaama, to increase their earning potential but also to improve their social standing in a local context where virtuous Muslim behavior is still strongly linked to regular attendance at prayers, knowledge of Arabic, modest dress, and knowledge of Arab culture.

Conclusion

This chapter has examined the place of Ibadhi private schools in postrevolutionary Zanzibar through the lens of educational materials imported from Oman for use in religion and Arabic-language classrooms. The schools discussed here are housed under the Istiqaama Muslim Society of Tanzania and Zanzibar, which emerged as a collaborative effort between Ibadhi leaders in Oman and members of the East African diaspora in the 1980s and 1990s. The chapter has further shown that while Istiqaama supports the use of educational materials designed for an Omani national audience, Zanzibaris affiliated with Istiqaama make clear that they view donations from Oman as mere tools for social and economic advancement. Zanzibari relations with their former rulers remain contentious in public debates; however, state institutions such as the mufti’s office approve of educational collaborations between both states. The Istiqaama schools reveal that Tanzania-Oman relations since the revolution are driven by economic development, knowledge exchange, and religious activism. Indeed, Istiqaama is a primary example of how religious institutions are today influencing power relations between the formerly colonized states and their colonizers and between institutions of the global south. These relations extend beyond the Indian Ocean to North Africa, where Istiqaama sends students to and recruit teachers from Algeria. These crosscontinental ties are in part a reflection of the pan-African solidarity that has endured between Algeria and Tanzania since at least the 1950s when both countries were engaged in a struggle for independence against European colonial rule.

Stuart Hall’s theory of representation illuminates the educational environment at Istiqaama, in analyzing how cultural and religious identities are constructed and perceived in the transnational Islamic school setting. According to Hall, representations are not direct reflections of reality, but rather constructions that are shaped by social, historical, and cultural contexts. They are produced through cultural codes and norms that are influenced by power dynamics and ideologies, which may include religious to nationalist discourses.⁴¹ The materials donated to Istiqaama from Oman reflect a particular representation of Arab culture and religious identity, which may not fully resonate with the experiences and identities of Zanzibar students. By incorporating local Zanzibari culture and language in the learning environment, teachers at ma’had Istiqaama are engaging in a process of re-presentation. This can disrupt the dominant representations found in the donated materials and provide a more nuanced and inclusive understanding of culture and identity for the students.

Though associated with a religious and ethnic minority in contemporary Zanzibar, the Istiqaama Institute in Unguja has managed to position itself as one of the most sought-after K–12 Muslim schools in Tanzania. The school’s success is due, in part, to its modern educational resources and rigorous learning environment but also to its direct ties to Omani-Arab society and culture, which once served as a standard for respectable Muslim behavior in Zanzibar. In this way, Istiqaama differs from other Gulf-supported Muslim private schools whose founders are not so directly entangled in Zanzibar’s complex histories of imperialism, Arab landownership, class-based and racial discrimination, and revolution. More than any other cultural project spearheaded by the Omani government or private actors in Zanzibar today, the faith-based Istiqaama organization and educational networks it has established across Tanzania have been critical to reimagining the Ibadhi-Omani diaspora as a locally rooted, inclusive, and bilingual Muslim community.

Notes

1. 1. In Swahili, “Maahad Istiqaama Zanzibar.”
2. 2. An earlier version of the arguments and materials presented in this chapter can be found here: Kimberly T. Wortmann, “Ibadi Muslim Schools in Post-Revolutionary Zanzibar,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 92 (2022): 249–64.
3. 3. See for example: Anne K. Bang. Sufis and Scholars of the Sea: Family Networks in East Africa, 1860-1925. Indian Ocean Series. London: RoutledgeCurzo, 2003; Amal N. Ghazal. Islamic Reform and Arab Nationalism: Expanding the Crescent from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean (1880s-1930s). Culture and Civilization in the Middle East. Taylor and Francis, 2010.
4. 4. See for example: McMahon, Elisabeth. Slavery and Emancipation in Islamic East Africa: From Honor to Respectability. 1st ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
5. 5. Simon Turner, “‘These Young Men Show No Respect for Local Customs’—Globalization and Islamic Revival in Zanzibar,” Journal of Religion in Africa 39, no. 3 (2009): 238.
6. 6. Ibid.
7. 7. Ibid.
8. 8. Ayman, interview with author, February 24, 2016.
9. 9. Ibid.
10. 10. Ibid.
11. 11. Salim (former Istiqaama teacher), interview with author, Stone Town, Zanzibar, May 31, 2018.
12. 12. Mandana E. Limbert, “Oman: Cultivating Good Citizens and Religious Virtue,” in Teaching Islam: Textbooks and Religion in the Middle East (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2007), 103–4.
13. 13. Ibid., 121.
14. 14. Ibid.
15. 15. Kimberly T. Wortmann, “Omani Religious Networks in Contemporary Tanzania and Beyond” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2018).
16. 16. Jalali (former Istiqaama student), interview with author, Skype, August 15, 2017.
17. 17. Ibid.
18. 18. Caitlyn Bolton, “Making Africa Legible: Kiswahili Arabic and Orthographic Romanization in Colonial Zanzibar,” The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 33, no. 3 (2016): 61–78.
19. 19. Roman Loimeier, Between Social Skills and Marketable Skills; The Politics of Islamic Education in 20th Century Zanzibar (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2009).
20. 20. Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
21. 21. Akbar Keshodkar, “Who Needs China When You Have Dubai? The Role of Networks and the Engagement of Zanzibars in Transnational Indian Ocean Trade,” Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development 43, no. 1/2/3 (2014): 105–41.
22. 22. Kai Kresse, “The Uses of History : Rhetorics of Muslim Unity and Difference on the Kenyan Swahili Coast,” in Struggling with History: Islam and Cosmopolitanism in the Western Indian Ocean, eds., Edward Simpson and Kai Kresse (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 240.
23. 23. Ibid., 240–41.
24. 24. Jalali, interview with author, August 15, 2017.
25. 25. “Iqrā’: Lil Saff Al-Rabi’ Al-Ibtidā’ī, al-Taba’a al-‘ashira,” Ministry of Education in Oman, (Istiqaama Muslim Community of Tanzania, 1997), 47.
26. 26. Eleanor Abdella Doumato and Gregory Starrett, Teaching Islam: Textbooks and Religion in the Middle East (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2007).
27. 27. Jalali, interview with author, August 15, 2017.
28. 28. Frantz Fanon and Philcox Richard. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 2004, 97–144.
29. 29. James A. Toronto and Muhammad S. Eissa, “Egypt: Promoting Tolerance, Defending against Islamism,” in Teaching Islam: Textbooks and Religion in the Middle East (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2007), 47–48.
30. 30. Ibid., 47.
31. 31. Jalali, interview with author, August 15, 2017.
32. 32. Nuhu (former Istiqaama student), interview with author, Zanzibar, May 31, 2018.
33. 33. Ibid.
34. 34. Bi Aida (Ma’had Istiqaama administrator), interview with author, Tungu, Zanzibar, May 29, 2019.
35. 35. Sara Hillewaert, Morality at the Margins: Youth, Language, and Islam in Coastal Kenya (New York: Fordham University Press, 2019), 79.
36. 36. Salim, interview with author, May 31, 2018.
37. 37. Ibid.
38. 38. Derek Nurse and Thomas Spear, The Swahili: Reconstructing History and Language of an African Society, 800–1500 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1985), 4.
39. 39. Ibid.
40. 40. Laura Fair, Pastimes and Politics: Culture, Community, and Identity in Post-Abolition Urban Zanzibar, 1890–1945 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001).
41. 41. Hall, Stuart. “The Work of Representation.” In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, 13–64 (London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1997).