Abstract
Reading Bishara’s book is like coming home. We can feel the warm, as well as the cold, breeze of the Indian Ocean; of that ‘sameness’ together with ‘otherness’ well described by A. Sheriff in his many books and essays. The methodological approach starts from the classical interdisciplinary use of archival, oral, and bibliographical sources. Nevertheless, the use of special documents, testimonies, and private papers such as the waraka (debts) papers reveals the ample breath of this open research issue: how to restudy – and hopefully understand – the deep and dynamic relationships between Islamic law and economic life in vast and complex regions such as Arabia and East Africa in the Indian Ocean.
This is the first time that some important aspects of the economic life of the many different communities in the Indian Ocean have been studied and explained from an inward looking perspective, and not only with (Eurocentric) capitalism in mind, but with Islamic rules and laws. The book is divided into eight chapters, guiding the reader through a growing explanation of the trade and of the similarities between communities across continents such as Asia and Africa, but also explaining the differences with the too traditional western approach to the same region from British official testimonies and documents. Law in the Indian Ocean was both everywhere and nowhere (p. 9). This is a clear consideration inside Bishara’s fresco, who chose to start his book with an Indian – Kutchi – merchant arriving in Muscat from Gujarat in 1780: Sewji Topan. And the life of this Indian merchant offers a non-imperial lens to the history of the Indian Ocean. During the nineteenth century, the Arab powers of the coasts created numerous flourishing markets between the ports of South-Western Asia and the Arabian, Western Indian and East African coasts; it was the red flag of the Omani Sultanate that formed multiple economic ties between the Omani enclave of the port of Gwadar in Makran-Balochistan, the principal ports of Oman itself, the East African coast and the island of Zanzibar through the movement of peoples, ideas, and merchandise. Oman’s international activities across nearly two centuries – 1780 to 1950 – saw numerous waves of political leaders, seafarers, merchants and adventurers in a competition between leaders and merchants from every part of Asia and Africa as well as of Europe and the newly United States. The history of Omani financial interconnections with East Africa had been linked mainly to the maritime routes across the Indian Ocean: sailing the Gulf and the Indian Ocean had always been dependent on the fact that the winds occur in an annual sequence with great regularity. After centuries of relative prosperity, the traditional thalassocratic system that had developed along the shores of the Indian Ocean was modified by the Europeans, who started to extend their mercantile and territorial ambitions, pursued from land (terra firma), to the seas.
Ahmad bin Sa’id (r. 13 March 1793–20 November 1804) was one of the small A1 Bu Sa’id group who, at that time, was governor of Sohar. After having overcome the Ya’ariba family and their Ghafari supporters, he was elected Imam and founded the present A1 Bu Sa’id dynasty. Although Ahmad bin Sa’id Al Bu Sa’id had succeeded in uniting Oman under an Ibadi Imamate, the religious nature of his family’s authority did not last long. His son, Saiyid Sa’id bin Sultan Al Bu Sa’id (r. 14 September 1806–19 October 1856), was elected to the Imamate after him. The growing importance of the Indian Ocean as a watering highway was soon to becoming the focal point of world politics, making the region the pivot of world affairs. The Indian merchant Sewji soon became a banker to Sultan bin Ahmad bin Sa’id Al Bu Sa’id. Since the end of the eighteenth century, the Al Bu Sa’id empowered the mercantile expansion towards the oceanic coasts of East Africa, reaching the Great Lakes region; therefore, within the Indian Ocean developed economic and cultural connection represented by continuous migratory flows.
During the nineteenth century, the dominions of Muscat consisted of the island of Bahrain, the coast of Makran, some areas along the Persian coast such as Chah Bahar, the island of Socotra, the islands of Kuria Muria, the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba and adjacent ports of the East African coast from Cabo Delgado to Cape Guardafui. And it was in this very period that the presence of many economic opportunities on the East African littorals was a potent factor that led the Omanis more and more towards Zanzibar. The elements that composed the nineteenth century Omani leadership were generally divided amongst different groups: the Baloch, the Asian merchant communities, and the African regional leaders (Mwiny Mkuu). The main factors of the rise of a mighty maritime trade network were constituted by the expansion of the spice trade, especially by the cultivation of cloves in Zanzibar and the Pemba islands, by the slave trade, by ivory exportation, and by their implications with the European powers of the nineteenth century. On 19 October 1856, Saiyid Sa’id bin Sultan Al Bu Sa’id died on a dhow that was taking him from Muscat towards Zanzibar. The gradual and progressive process of eroding Omani-Arab power in East Africa had begun, and British predominance was to increase still further. While previous studies affirmed that probably Zanzibar was not that rich and the Omani Sultans did not benefit that much from the trade, Bishara’s book explains the role of trade and of private properties among Indian Ocean communities analysing the debts that did gradually erode the richness of this sea, creating a patchwork of different territorial jurisdictions (p. 161). Starting in 1842, the presence of Omani political leaders on the Eastern African coasts did lead to numerous intersections between regional and international interests where Britain often played a role of turning realities into new political scenarios also concerning questions of extraterritoriality. Not only maritime historians will benefit from this legal history of economic life in the Indian Ocean, but it could be interesting and stimulating for simply curiosity driven scholars.