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- Permanent Link:
- http://digital.soas.ac.uk/LSMD000465/00001
Notes
- Abstract:
- This final part, of this section of Swahili poems, contains poems from Shabaan Robert, Ali Ahmed Jahadhny, and Mwalimu Sikujua. S/35 contains a religious poem of 143 stanzas, collected by Ali Ahmed Jahadhny. The poem opens with the typical religious verse ‘Bismillahi Rahman al-Rahim’ which clearly indicated the religious topic. The poem narrates of the Prophet’s messenger, Jibril who has come in the semblance of a human being to instruct the Muslim community about the pillars of Islam. It also contains a poem entitled ‘Kiswahili’ by the famous Tanzanian poet, Shaaban Roberts, with page-to-page English translation. Shaaban Roberts writes in modern southern Swahili. S/36 contains two copies, one handwritten and one typed, of the 825 verses poem, in the Utenzi form, entitled ‘Utenzi wa Sham-huni’ [the trascription in Roman script is wrongly rendered in the manuscript as ‘Shamiuni’]. The handwritten copy contains repetitions of a few stanzas. The poem was transcribed in Arabic script by Mohammed (Mwalimu) Sikujua for Taylor at the end of the 19th century. The poem was then transcribed in Roman script by Abdallah Bakhalafu, an Hadrami, of which a copy is contained here together with a typed copy, probably the latter made by Whiteley. The poem is a religious poem about the rise of Islam at the expense of the old traditional religion of worshipping the idols. The poem opens by addressing the ‘Wajoli’, meaning here brOthers and sisters. The word ‘Wajoli’ was originally used by slaves to refer to all slaves belonging to the same master. Overall, the poem contains many spelling mistakes that can make the reading sometimes difficult. The cataloguers have given some examples in order to gives keys to the reading. The poem is written in both northern and southern Swahili dialects however this could have occurred during the transcription, because the original was first written down, in Arabic script, by Mwalimu Sikujua, in KiMvita (northern). The poem went through various transcription and transliteration done by different people, which caused the present version to be sometimes badly written and with many mistakes. The mixture of dialects is very arbitrary and in consequential stanzas we found uses of southern and northern forms without apparent consistency. At Stanza 3, ‘nafataha nakasari’ should be ‘ na fataha nakasiri’ implying the meaning ‘God give me tool to fully understand the adaptation of Arabic script into Swahili’. So, the author asks God to help him in being careful of the spelling. This sentence is quite common in Swahili traditional poems (religious Utenzi) where the adaptation of Arabic script into Swahili was very complex. The poem begins at Stanza 5 with the utterance ‘Awali Bismi-llahi’ typical of all religious poems. The messenger of God, Tumwa, is referred as being ‘Milihi’ but should rightly be ‘Malihi’ meaning ‘pleasant or nice’. At Stanza 6, ‘Rihima’ should be ‘Rehema’, God mercifulness. At Stanza 7, the author completes the opening ‘Bismillahi Rahami rahim’. At Stanza 8, the author humbly apologizes to the audience for mistakes that may be contained in the poem. Finally, at Stanza 16 the narrative of the poem begins by saying that the beginning of the story is about the Prophet, referred as ‘Tum(w)a Rasuli, and Abujahali (wrongly rendered Abujuheli), the worst enemy of the Prophet among the Quraysh tribe. At the beginning of the poem, Abujahali is referred as the worst of the ‘majahili’, i.e. cruel, bad person, and as ‘jahudi’, which literally refer to a person of Jewish origins, but used in the poem as a pejorative referring to a non-believers in Allah and the Prophet. Abujahali’s followers, also referred as ‘not yet believers’, are listed in Stanzas 18 and 19 as Suraka, Khalidia and Khalid bin Walidi (wrongly rendered as ‘bni Waladi’). At Stanza 20, Sham-uni bin Khalid (son of Khalid) is born and when the mOther wanted to breast-feed him, Sham-uni tells his mOther that she should be a Muslim Otherwise he will not drink her milk that is ‘haramu’, opposite of ‘halal’, therefore undrinkable for Muslims. At Stanzas 21-36, he continues to instruct his mOther on how being a proper Muslim, and not to follow Gods like Lata na Uza. The mOther is surprised by what her son is telling her and she does not like it and ask herself what kind of son she has received. She even thinks that he can be a newly-born jinn (spirit). At Stanzas 37-42, the mOther however does not tell her son her thoughts but instead agrees to do what he asks her that is to become a proper Muslim, and she ‘piga shahada’ i.e. she says the utterance to become a Muslim. All this happens when Sham-uni’s father, Khalid, was away (stanza 43). At Stanzas 44-60, Jibril is sent by God to tell the Prophet Mohammed to go and see a wonderful boy born in the house of Khalid. Mohammed gathers his companions to go to the house of Sham-uni. At Stanzas 61-71, they reached the house and Khalid is very surprised, and even slightly angry, to see the Prophet. The Prophet tells him that he has come for his son who is one of his followers, a Muslim. Khalid realises the situation and decides to convert by saying the shahada (Kipande 4, Stanza 71). At Stanzas 72-110, Mohammed asks God to give strength to the boy Shami-uni in order to help him fighting the unbelievers. Then, Khalid makes sure that his wife becomes a proper Muslim, and he asks Mohammed to have permission to fight the unbelievers, but Mohammed tells him that he cannot kill people. At this point, Abujahali erupts by saying that ‘Mecca has been destroyed’ which implies that Islam is rising into a very powerful religion and that the opponents of the old religion have taken over the religious power. Suraka, a follower of Abujahali, suggests that in order to save Mecca they should ask the Skandaria, meaning Alexandrians of Egypt, for support against Mohammed and his followers. At Stanzas 111-220, the two factions oppose each Other in Mecca. Sham-uni kills one of the Skandaria, and Abujahali accuses him and appeal to the Prophet for a case against him. But Shamu-uni argues that he had to kill the person who was an enemy of Islam. Furthermore, Jibril is sent to Mohammed to inform him that Sham-uni was simply defending Islam. And Abujahali is told by Mohammed that he has not realised the strength of Allah and of Ali’s sword, the dhulfukari. At Stanzas 230-250, Abujahali does not follow the Prophet’s advice and decides, with the help of his followers, to try to kill Sham-uni. A night, they surround Sham-uni’s house, take him and tell him that his time to die has come. But Sham-uni replies that God will save him. And, in fact, Sham-uni managed to kill them. Suraka and Abujahali are now very concern that they will not defeat Sham-uni, and decide to ask more support from Alexandria. At Stanza 288, the poem changes tone and the battle seems to end. At this point, Sham-uni when asked by Abujahali the reason for the uprising, he says that in fact he wishes to have Abujahali’s daughter as his wife. This makes the narrative of the poem very peculiar and contradictive. The author seems to use historical characters in an odd way. At Stanza 340, suddenly a Coptic girl called Maria, daughter of the Sultan of Izgandaria (Egypt), appear in the poem as dreaming of the Prophet, which shows that she has been Islamised. However there is no apparent link to the previous stanza, or to the narrative of the poem so far. The only link is the fact that Maria converted to Islam, in her case after having dreamt of the Prophet. The fact that her origins were Coptic and her father the Sultan of a non-Muslim kingdom will cause a war between the army of the Prophet and that of the Sultan. The cataloguers did not analyse the whole poem given its lengths and given that the main topics and themes have been quite extensively discussed so far. To note that in the correspondence file numbered P/3-P/4 there is a letter discussing the poem. The final envelope, S/37, contains a three pages essay, in English, about traditional and modern Swahili versification, with extract of poems as exemplification. ( en )
- General Note:
- Date of Composition is unknown
- General Note:
- Languages: Swahili (Roman script)
- General Note:
- Dialects: KiMvita and Southern
- General Note:
- Poetic Form: Utenzi
- General Note:
- Extent: 117 leaves
- General Note:
- Incipit: Nisikizani wayoli, nataka omba Jalali, pweke asie mithali, wala mfano sikia.
- General Note:
- See SOAS University of London manuscript P/3-P/4 for correspondence regarding the poem.
- General Note:
- VIAF (name authority) : Robert, Shaaban, 1909-1962 : URI http://viaf.org/viaf/32025587
- General Note:
- Africa -- Eastern Africa -- Tanzania -- Tanga Region -- Tanga
- General Note:
- Africa -- Eastern Africa -- Kenya -- Mombasa County -- Mombasa
- General Note:
- Scribe: Sikujua, Mwalimu
- General Note:
- Publication information: Knappert, J. 1979. Four centuries of Swahili verses. Heinemann, London.
- General Note:
- Publication information: Ndulute, C. 1994. The poetry of Shaaban Robert. Dar es Salaam University Press.
- General Note:
- Publication information: Robert, Shaaban. 1959. Insha na mashairi : essays and poems. Pamphlet held in the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies.
- General Note:
- Whiteley, W H. 1964. A Selection of African prose, Vol.1 Traditional oral texts, Vol.2 Written prose. Claredon Press, Oxford
Record Information
- Source Institution:
- SOAS University of London
- Holding Location:
- Archives and Special Collections
- Rights Management:
- This item may be in the public domain. Its status has yet to be assessed.
- Resource Identifier:
- PP MS 42. S/23-S/37 ( SOAS manuscript number )
PP MS 42. S/35-S/37 ( SOAS manuscript number )
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