ALI MUHSIN AL-BARWANI
POET, SCHOLAR AND POLITICIAN
ALI MUHSIN AL-BARWANI'S KIUNGUJA QUR'AN
WAS A TRUE LABOUR OF LOVE
- - 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.
- - Sheikh
Ali Muhsin Al-Barwani
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
This, his memorial, will surely endure for
as long as the language and the literature of the Swahili-speaking
Sheikh Ali died in Muscat on Monday 20
March, 2006, in his eighty-sixth year.
- P.J.L.F., Mombasa Island.