In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

CHAPTER 2 M. N. PUlrJ(!n ThiS ch~ptcr ~cscribcs the role of the Indian Ocean, and more specifically the western corridor or sector of this ocean, the Arabian Sea, in the spread and continuance of Islam in eastern Africa. It will begin by sketching some salient characteristics of this vast entity, looking first at "deep structure" matters like winds and currents and topography.l The account moves on to consider connections across these waters, looking at matters like trade and the dissemination of crops and disease. It then focuses on the circulation, via the ocean, of religion, with particular reference to the role of seaborne Muslim religious specialists and ideas. However, in what follows I will aim only to write about external matters in the wider Muslim world that affected Islam in eastern Africa. What happened when these influences arrived in our area is the concern of several other chapters in part 3 of this book. At first glance, it may seem that one would expect few connections across and around the Indian Ocean before our modern era. We are often told that the world today is far more integrated than ever before-that we live in a global village. Yet there was, as we will see, copious interaction over long distances across the Indian Ocean for at least the last two millennia. A matter that may seem to hinder communication is the sheer extent of the Indian Ocean. This is an ocean that stretches from 28 degrees north latitude in the far north at the head of the Red Sea to around 26 degrees south latitude in the far south of Mozambique. Indonesia is in longitude 95 to 140 east, as compared with about longitude 38 east for Mozambique. By comparison , the continental United States occupies only from 50 to 30 degrees north latitude, and from longitude 125 to 75 east. The coast with which this chapter is most concerned, that is the west coast from the head of the Red Sea to southern Mozambique, stretches for more than five thousand miles. A direct passage from east Africa to Indonesia is more than four thousand miles. Again by comparison, the United States at its greatest extent is fewer than three thousand miles from east M. N. Pe"lrJoJ1 coast to west coast. Consequently, travel times in this ocean area were very large: often some months to go from one major entrep6t to another. Yet people were able to overcome these difficulties, helped in part by particular deep-structural factors. The pattern of winds in the Arabian Sea is familiar enough. Many authorities stress the divide of the coast at Cape Delgado. As a rule of thumb, down to Cape Delgado is the region of one monsoon, from Arabia and India; south of there is the region of two. The northeast monsoon starts in November, and one can leave the Arabian coast at this time and reach at least Mogadishu. However, the eastern Arabian sea has violent tropical storms in October and November, so for a voyage from India to the coast it was best to leave in December. By March, the northeast monsoon was beginning to break up in the south, and by April the prevailing wind was from the southwest. This was the season for sailing from the coast to the north and east. At its height, in June and July, the weather was too stormy, so departures were normally either as this monsoon, the southwest monsoon, built up in May, or at its tail end in August.2 Ocean currents also affected travel by sea. The third geographical matter that affects the influence of the ocean on travel and the land is coastal topography. Broadly speaking, no matter how favorable the winds and currents may be, no one is going to want to travel to an uninhabited desert shore. Equally unattractive would be an unproductive coastal fringe cut off from a productive interior by impenetrable mountains. But in fact, most of the shores of the Arabian Sea are not quite as inhospitable as these examples. In India, a fertile coastal fringe, especially in the south, the area of Kerala, is backed by the high mountain range called the western Ghats, but these are nowhere completely impenetrable . So also on the Swahili coast, where again behind a productive coastal wne is the nyika, a mostly barren area difficult, but not impossible, to travel through on the way to more fertile land farther inland. On the northern shores...

Share