Reflections on the History of the Indian Ocean: the sources and their relation to local practices and global connectivities

Article Sidebar

Indian seafarers and other activists, 1945, reenact their small boat pursuit of Dutch ship to call on crews to mutiny. Scene from Indonesia Calling, courtesy Heritage Films.
PDF
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/tfc.v4i2.1376
Keywords:
Islam, translocality, South-Western Indian Ocean

Main Article Content

Anne K. Bang
University of Bergen

Abstract

This paper discusses the interpretation of sources for Indian Ocean history, from the point of view of translocal interpretations beyond the locality of the source. The article presents three cases, all deriving from the Muslim South-Western Indian Ocean. The argument is made that the ambiguity of the sources, and the interrelationship between the various locations related to the source, affect not only the historians interpretation but also the sense of the past held by people in these locations.

Article Details

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 2 (2009): Ocean of Stories: Communication & Contested Identities across the Indian Ocean

Section

Articles
Authors submitting a paper to UTSePress publications agree to assign a limited license to UTSePress if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication. This license allows UTSePress to publish a manuscript in a given issue. Copyright is retained by the authors who assert their moral rights. Authors control translation and reproduction rights to their works published by UTSePress. Downloads of specific portions of the Transforming Cultures eJournal are permitted for personal use only, not for commercial use or resale. Requests for permission to reprint or use any materials should be directed to the Author.

References

al-Mashhur, Abd al-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Husayn (1984) Shams al-zahira al-dahiyya.

al-Mashhur, Abu Bakr al-Adani, 1412/1991-92 Lawami' al-nur. Nubdha min a'lam Hadramawt, 2 vols., Sanaa: Dar al-Muhajir.

Arai, K. (2004) Arabs who traversed the Indian Ocean: The history of the al-Attas family in Hadramawt and Southeast Asia c. 1600-1960, PhD Thesis, University of Michigan.

Asad, T. (1993) Genealogies of Religion. Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

BabSayl, Muhammad Said (1309/1891-92) Al-Qawl al-mujdi fi 'l-radd ala Abd Allah b. Abd al-Rahman al-Sindı, lithograph, Batavia (Jakarta).

Bang, Anne K. (2003) Sufis and Scholars of the Sea. Family networks in East Africa, c. 1860-1925, London: Routledge-Curzon.

Bang, Anne K. (2006) "My generation. Umar b. Ahmad b. Sumayt (1886-1973): Inter-generational network transmission in a trans-oceanic Hadrami Alawi family, ca. 1925-1973", in L. Manger & M. Assal (eds.) Diasporas within and without Africa – Dynamism, hetereogeneity, variation, Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute.

Becker, F. (2008) Becoming Muslim in Mainland Tanzania, 1890-2000, Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197264270.001.0001

Bromber, K. (2007) Indian Ocean without limits? The transformation of a seascape during World War II, unpublished paper.

Chaudhuri, K.N. (1985) Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean: An economic history from the rise of Islam to 1750, New York: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107049918

Dahlan, Ahmad Zayni (1980) Al-Durrar al-Saniyya fi 'l-radd al-Wahhabiyya, 4th ed., Cairo ND.

Farsy, A.S. (1989) Baadhi ya Wanavyoni wa Kishafi wa Mashariki ya Afrika/The Shafei Ulama of East Africa, ca. 1830-1970, (trans., ed. & ann.) R.L. Pouwels, African Primary Text Series, III, Madison: University of Wisconsin.

Freitag, Ulrike (1999) "Hadramaut: A religious Centre for the Indian Ocean in the late 19th and Early 20th centuries?" Studia Islamica 89: 165-83. https://doi.org/10.2307/1596090

Freitag, Ulrike (2003) "Der Orientalist und der Mufti: Kulturkontakt im Mekka des 19. Jahrhunderts", Die Welt des Islams, 43 (1): 37-60. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006003763317777

Freitage, Ulrike (2003) Indian Ocean Migrants and State Formation in Hadhramaut. Reforming the homeland, Leiden: Brill.

Ho, Enseng (2006) The Graves of Tarim. Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean, Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520244535.001.0001

Kresse, K. & Simpson, E. (eds.) (2007) Struggling with History. Islam and Cosmopolitanism in the Western Indian Ocean, London: Hurst.

Loimeier, R. (2006) "Zum sozialen Kontext eines religiösen Rituals", Der Islam 83: 170-186. https://doi.org/10.1515/ISLAM.2006.007

Loimeier, R. (2009) Between Social Skills and Marketable Skills. The politics of Islamic education in 20th century Zanzibar, Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004175426.i-1929

Loimeier, R. & Seesemann, R. (eds.) (2006) The Global Worlds of the Swahili. Interfaces of Islam, Identity and Space in 19th and 20th century East Africa, Munster: LIT Verlag.

Mobini-Kesheh, Natalie (1999) The Hadrami Awakening. Community and Identity in the Netherlands East Indies, 1900-1942, Ithaca: Cornell University (SEAP).

Pearson, M.N. (2003) The Indian Ocean, London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203414132

Prestholdt, J. (2008) Domesticating the World. African Consumerism and the Genealogies of Globalization, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Said, I., Chamanga, M.A. & Gueunier, N.J., (1982) "Un Qasida Arabe en l'honneur de Sayyid Ahmad al-Kabir, missionaire de l'Islam à Madagascar de 1896 à 1919", Etudes Océan Indien 1: 137-48.

Sheriff, A. (1992) "Mosques, Merchants and Landowners in Zanzibar Stone Town", Azania 27: 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/00672709209511428

Sheriff, A. (2009) Dhow Culture, London: Hurst.

Snouck Hurgronje, C. (2007) Mecca in the latter half of the 19th century, Leiden: Brill, 205-206.

Sumayt, Umar b. Ahmad (1955) Al-Nafhat al-Shadhdhiyya min al-Diyar al-Hadramiyya wa-talbiyyat al-sawt min al-Hijaz wa-Hadramawt, privately printed: Tarim/Aden.