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 Sheikh
Ali Muhsin Barwani
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| courtesy of coastweek
THE FIRST ZANZIBARI
MINISTER OF EDUCATION
Sheikh Ali Muhsin Barwani
Coastweek - - A great coast scholar of international repute,
Sheikh Ali Muhsin Barwani has passed away in Oman, Muscat, where
he migrated after being released from Tanzania prison, as a
political prisoner, soon after the l964 Zanzibar Revolution.
A patriotic statesman he lived in Kenya before moving to Muscat.
Many Mombasa mosques held the recital of Holy Qur'an (Khitima)
for praying and eugolizing his contribution to Islam.
Sheikh Barwani sacrificed his precious life - right from his
youth to his last breath to the service of his nation - Tanzania
and his religion - Islam.
He was the first Zanzibari Minister of Education during whose
short tenure he set up a firm foundation of pragmatic education
that was appropriate and applicable to the Zanzibari schools and
the students at that time.
He was one of the founding fathers of Pafmeca Organization and
arch-supporters of its noble objectives of solidly uniting the
entire continent of Africa.
He was a personal friend of Jamal Abdi Nassir - the Egypt's
revolutionary president.
It was actually he who influenced Jamal to Visit Tanganyika in
the very early sixties.
He spent ten good years of his life at that oldest and the most
famous Islamic University - Alazhar University in Cairo, Egypt
learning the art of translation the Holy Koran and
simultaneously translating it into Kiswahili.
His final manuscript was a tremendously detailed translation
whose exquisite explanation has widened the public education to
the Kiswahili speaking communities.
He was also a prolific author of divergent subjects on Islam and
Politics, including his own beautifully written memoirs that
reveals his devotion and devotion not only to Islam and his
nation -Tanzania but to mankind at large.
He contributed immensely in promoting unity among the divergent
communities of Tanzania and helped create solid and mutual
understanding between Waunguja and Wapemba peoples in Zanzibar.
He impeccably mastered the three languages - Kiswahili, Arabic
and English and made use of them all in spreading his knowledge
to the public with enormous success.
He was well known as a good-natured man, bearing himself simply,
congenial, easily accessible, and ever ready to help when and
where he could.
The Peoples of the Coast of East Africa have lost their great
scholar, a luminary philosopher and a statesman of international
repute .
May Allah rest his soul in Paradise. Amin.
By Faraj Dumila, Mombasa.Coastweek
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ALI MUHSIN AL-BARWANI (1919-2006)
POET, SCHOLAR AND POLITICIAN
Coastweek - -ALI MUHSIN al-BARWANI (1919-2006), poet,
scholar and politician, was born in Baghani, Zanzibar
Stone Town, on 13 January 1919, the son of Sheikh Muhsin
Ali Isa al-Barwani (1878-1953) and Bi. Zayana binti
Salim.
The Barwani clan have their origins in Oman, but by the
close of the nineteenth century they had assimilated to
the Swahili way of life, several members emerging as
prominent Sunni scholars, of whom Sheikh Ali's father
was one.
During the years of the Busa'idi Sultanate based in
Zanzibar the Barwani were involved in the development of
the east African coast from Barawa (in the north, in
what was to become Italian Somaliland) to Lindi, in the
south, a town founded by Sheikh Ali's maternal
grandfather (in what was to become German East Africa).
His maternal grandmother was related to the waMtwapa,
one of the twelve miji (or taifa 'groups') comprising
Swahili Mombasa.
Ali was an outstanding student and in 1937, aged
eighteen, he passed effortlessly from government
secondary school in Zanzibar to university at Makerere
in Kampala.
His admission was unusual in that he gained university
entrance on the strength of a phone-call from his
headmaster (L.W. Hollingsworth) to the Director of
Education, Zanzibar - no examination required !
At Makerere, then the only institution for higher
learning in East Africa, Ali read agriculture.
A fellow student at that time was Julius Nyerere who, as
President of Tanganyika, was to play a significant role
in Sheikh Ali's life some twenty years later.
In 1942, on his return to Zanzibar, he was employed by
the Protectorate government as an assistant agricultural
officer at Mangapwani.
Two years later he married Bi. Azza binti Muhammad Seif
Al-Busa'idi - a marriage made in heaven it would seem.
After the second World War (1939-1945) Ali developed a
taste for politics which manifested itself in two ways.
First, for some fifteen years, he edited the newspaper
Mwongozi and, secondly, he joined the Zanzibar
Nationalist Party (ZNP).
One of Ali's ambitions was to transform Zanzibar into a
non-racial society and, to this end, he promoted the
implementation of a common electoral roll. After the
Zanzibar Sultanate attained internal self-government in
1961 Sheikh Ali was appointed Minister of Education.
In this post he ensured that married female teachers
were eligible for maternity leave and maternity pay -
his innovation being soon adopted by other ministries.
Subsequent cabinet posts were Minister of the Interior
and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Commerce.
In March and April 1962 Sheikh Ali visited London for
the Kenya Coastal Strip (the Kenya Protectorate)
conference at Lancaster House, which closed without any
firm decision being taken on the integration of the
coastal strip (mwambao) with the rest of Kenya. Sheikh
Ali attended as one of eight elected members from
Zanzibar.
On 12 January 1964 a revolution brought the Busa'idi
Sultanate in Zanzibar (established in the 1830s) to a
bloody and sudden end.
Sheikh Ali (with others) was detained for six months at
Kilimani, Zanzibar Stone Town, before being flown to the
mainland.
Here his detention continued at Kunduchi, Keko (Dar-es-Salaam),
Dodoma, Mwanza and Bukoba for a period of ten years and
four months, but he was never charged with any offence.
In May 1974 he was released, but his application for a
Tanzanian passport was refused.
Sheikh Ali then determined to enter neighbouring Kenya
illicitly.
His point of entry was Vanga, and thence he travelled to
Nairobi (via Mombasa) where he applied for and obtained
refugee status.
He was fated never to see Zanzibar again.
Perhaps the authorities in both revolutionary Zanzibar
and in Tanganyika (subsequently the United Republic of
Tanzania) saw in Sheikh Ali's intellect and ability a
potential threat to their leadership.
Whether this was so or not it is now idle to speculate.
Once his papers were in order Sheikh Ali travelled to
Cairo.
After a stay of several years he returned to Kenya, this
time lawfully. For a while he lived in Ganjoni, Mombasa,
and then at Mtongwe.
From there Sheikh Ali and his family moved to Dubai, in
the United Arab Emirates.
Here, in 1989 his beloved companion for life died, after
almost half a century of marriage. It was the cruellest
of blows.
At about this time began the affliction of failing
eyesight.
Notwithstanding, Sheikh Ali was able to complete and
publish his magnum opus, his interpretation of the
Qur'an into the Swahili of Zanzibar (kiUnguja).
This monumental work (the first impression appeared in
two volumes, 1995; the second in one volume, 2000) owes
everything to the Swahili of Sheikh Ali's parents and
nothing to the standardized language of Europeans and
others.
This was truly a labour of love, with beauty and
elegance evident in virtually every verse.
In 1997 came Ruwaza Njema ('The Perfect Pattern'), a
long poem in praise of the Prophet Muhammad, with
exemplary annotations at the end of each chapter.
The years which remained to him were spent in Muscat,
Sultanate of Oman, the birthplace of his wife's parents.
Had there been no revolution in Zanzibar and had the
BuSa'idi Sultanate not been terminated it is conceivable
that Sheikh Ali might have attained the highest office
in the land, but it was not to be.
Sheikh Ali's claim to fame lies rather less in the
domain of politics, and rather more in the pages of his
Swahili Qur'an.
He was not the first to attempt such a task (notable
predecessors were Sheikh al-Amin bin Ali al-Mazru'i and
Sheikh Abdullah Saleh al-Farsy) but it is Sheikh Ali's
text which best displays the Swahili language in all its
glory.
Moreover, it was a task undertaken not lightly, and
carried to its conclusion at a time of great personal
distress.
This, his memorial, will surely endure for as long as
the language and the literature of the Swahili-speaking
peoples survive.
Sheikh Ali died in Muscat on Monday 20 March, 2006, in
his eighty-sixth year.
P.J.L.F., Mombasa Island.
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