Thammasat University students interested in literature, linguistics, folklore, poetry, African cultural studies, anthropology, religion, ethics, education, social justice, morality, piety, and related subjects may find a new book useful.

In This Fragile World: Swahili Poetry of Commitment is an Open Access book available for free download at this link:

https://brill.com/edcollbook-oa/title/62192

The Thammasat University Library collection includes some books about different aspects of African poetry.

The author, Ustadh Mahmoud Mau, is a poet and imam from Lamu Island, Kenya, East Africa. His private library houses Muslim manuscript poetry in ajami, and booklets and memoirs from the Middle East and India.

Ustadh Mau’s poetry and sermons reflect on education, social justice, morality and piety.

An introduction to the book explains:

Far removed from the aggressive moral agendas of reformist currents of the last decades, his writings are characterized by tolerance and understanding toward people’s everyday struggles and diverse ways of living. He stands up for the weaker classes of his society and has, for instance, courageously championed the rights of women and children. Furthermore, he does take keen interest in local Swahili poetic traditions rooted in Sufi context, which also influenced his own poems…

The poems presented in this volume are composed in Kiamu, the dialect of Lamu, which is considerably different from standard Swahili. In the nineteenth century, poetic production was so vibrant on Lamu that Kiamu became almost synonymous with “poetic language.” Poets from Lamu, including Ustadh Mau, take great pride in their dialect and its tradition.

Here are Ustadh Mau’s thoughts about the importance of education, from a poem addressing a group of teachers:

I am telling you, you have been number one all over the world,

From the most ancient times until the current era.

Tell me, what is a human being without education?

No matter where one goes, even if one flies through the air,

One must certainly have first passed through your school.

This is the fruit of your labor, so teacher, take pride in yourself.

Respect and value yourself; don’t harbor doubt in your heart.

Know that you are important; you are of great value.

Without you, teacher, nothing is possible.

Oh teacher, without you who spends the day at school—

At home, you don’t rest, but pass the night buried in books—

Understand, without you we wouldn’t have someone to hold the steering wheel.

Teacher, you certainly have great abilities.

Don’t underestimate yourself; don’t think you are worthless.

Don’t shy away, but get into full swing.

 Go for it—do not shy away.

The parents have sent their precious children to you.

Help each other; assist each other in bringing the child up together.

It is not enough to teach by writing on the blackboard;

It is important to teach them how to live in this world.

The good example you provide, pupils will imitate it!

 You are a role model for the children to carefully observe.

You teach them a lot, even how to behave in the streets.

The job of teaching is not a joke—consider it.

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A biographical sketch in the present book explains:

Born in Lamu in 1952, Ustadh Mahmoud Abdulkadir is a Muslim scholar, imam, and poet based in Lamu town, in the area near the old fort, Ngomeni. Since 1985, he has been the imam of Pwani Mosque, which is Lamu’s oldest mosque still in use, and the second of at least seven Friday mosques currently in Lamu town. At the time, Pwani Mosque was the first mosque in Lamu to switch to the use of Swahili for the Friday sermon, and Ustadh Mau played a crucial role in this heavily contested transition…

Beyond his ongoing role as imam, Ustadh Mau was long in charge of a family-owned bakery. Baking and selling bread, however, were activities that he abandoned and passed on to family members after some economic struggles at the turn of the new millennium…

On the whole, poetry is a highly relevant and respected skill in Swahili society, as most occasions on the calendar and all special events are commonly marked with a poem. Moreover, poetry is said to acquire more social value when it is used for the public good. In this regard, poets who embody the combined expertise of Islamic knowledge and verbal artistry, as poet-sheikhs, are seen to wield particular influence in the community. One can thus say that over the years, Ustadh Mau has been building and cultivating the potential to exert influence within society. In his dual position as both sheikh and poet, he can be seen as using his skills for the good of the community…

Topic-wise, his poetry covers overarching sociopolitical issues and (often practical) matters of concern to the community. He seeks to educate, “wake up” (kuamsha), inform, and guide his peers through what he says, and how he says it. Thus he can be viewed as seeking to strengthen communal ties of solidarity and mutual support in society. Some of his poems reflect such concerns, such as those on the institution of marriage (ndoa), composed from both a male and a female perspective, or on the human rights of children, which must not be ignored (Haki za watoto). His poetry also specifically addresses certain groups in society. […] In a similarly engaged vein, his poems also discuss pressing problems like drug addiction, as well as hygiene and different types of illness, including AIDS (Ukimwi ni zimwi). His overall agenda consists of informing, sensitizing, and alerting the community on matters of religion and politics…

As an imam, he told me, he is careful not to focus on the ideological differences or partisan interests of Muslim subgroups during his sermons, so as not to accentuate divides within the community. This distinguishes him from many other preachers, who often seek and cultivate confrontation. He rather chooses topics of common concern to all Muslims, such as: factors in maintaining one’s health and well-being; how to properly manage domestic differences between spouses; what is the proper procedure for divorce; and other issues. These are the recent thematic strands that he has covered in his recent talks— topics that I have heard him speak about live or in recorded sermons. Such a range of topics reconnects us with the field of poetry—as a complementary, distinct, and different form of teaching—where he has made rather similar choices (as we can see above), and arguably for similar reasons. In both his poems as well as his sermons, he is concerned with focusing and reflecting on the general aspects of humanity that come to thefore in exemplary situations of need, plight, and distress (loss of love; loss of life; illness; etc.)—and, to a lesser extent, also situations of love and success. This was illustrated most recently— in April 2020, amid the early impact of the current global corona crisis—by a thematic Friday sermon and another educational poem of his; both explained, in different, genre-specific ways, important facts about the virus and specific precautions to be taken against it.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)