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HISTORY
Zanzibar has lured traders, adventurers, plunderers
and explorers to its shores for centuries. The Assyrians,
Sumerians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Indians, Chinese,
Persians, Portuguese, Omani Arabs, Dutch and English
have all been here at one time or another. Some, particularly
the Shirazi Persians and Omani Arabs, stayed to settle
and rule. With this influence, Zanzibar has become predominantly
Islamic (97%) - the remaining 3% is made up of Christians,
Hindus and Sikhs. The earliest visitors to Zanzibar
were Arab traders who are said to have arrived in the
8th century. The earliest building that remains on Zanzibar
is the mosque at Kizimkazi, which dates from 1107, and
is a present-day tourist attraction.
For centuries the Arabs sailed with the
monsoon winds from Oman to trade primarily in ivory,
slaves and spices. The two main islands, Unguja (normally
known as Zanzibar Island) and Pemba, provided an ideal
base for the Omani Arabs, being relatively small, and
therefore fairly easy to defend. Indeed, in 1832, Sultan
Seyyid Said, of the Busaid dynasty that had emerged
in Oman, moved his Sultanate from Muscat to Zanzibar,
perhaps making it easier to protect, where he and his
descendants ruled for over 130 years. Most of the wealth
lay in the hands of the Arab community, who were the
main landowners at that time. They kept themselves to
themselves, and generally did not intermarry with the
Africans.
This was not true of the Shirazi Persians
who came from the Middle East to settle on the East
African coast. The story goes that in AD 975, Abi Ben
Sultan Hasan of Shiraz in Persia (now Iran) had a terrible
nightmare in which a rat devoured the foundations of
his house. He took this as an omen that his community
was to be devastated. Others in the Shirazi court ridiculed
the notion, but Sultan Hasan, his family and some followers
obviously took it very seriously and they decided to
migrate. They set out in seven dhows into the Indian
Ocean but were caught in a huge storm and separated.
Thus, landfalls were made at seven different places
along the East African coast, one of which was Zanzibar,
and settlements began.
Widespread intermarriage between Shirazis
and Africans gave rise to a coastal community with distinctive
features, and a language derived in part from Arabic,
which became known as Swahili. The name Swahili comes
from the Arab word sawahil, which means 'coast'. The
Zanzibar descendants of this group were not greatly
involved in the lucrative slave, spice and ivory trades.
Instead, they immersed themselves mainly in agriculture
and fishing. Those Shirazi that did not intermarry retained
their identity as a separate group. Two smaller communities
were also established. Indian traders arrived in connection
with the spice and ivory trade, and quickly settled
as shopkeepers, traders, skilled artisans and professionals.
The British became involved in missionary and trading
activities in East Africa, and attempting to suppress
the slave trade centred in Zanzibar.
Zanzibar was once one of Africa's most
prosperous countries. The spices that it grew, so desired
by the rest of the world, made it so. The wealth derived
from the spice trade was augmented by the slave trade,
indeed the spices and the slaves went hand-in-hand as
Zanzibar's spice plantations depended on slave labor,
and there are still sad relics of this trade in human
flesh to be found on the island. Furthermore, Zanzibar
was one of the most important ports in Africa.
Goods from Britain docked
here before they moved on to other parts of Africa.
No longer very prosperous in the fiscal sense, the island
has a wealth of historical monuments to visit which
commemorate the African, British and particularly Arab
influences- sultan's palaces, cathedrals, mosques, fortresses
and old colonial houses. "Spice Tours" are
the ideal way to see the island's historic sites and
spice plantations. There is also a sanctuary for the
rare Zanzibar duiker and the red colobus monkey in the
protected Jozani Forest, just twenty-five kilometers
from the town. |
