Chapter X

COMPARATIVE ANTHROPOLOGY (ETHNOLOGY) OF ZANZIBAR. THE ARABS.

‘Les Arabes ne sont maintenant, dans l’Afrique Orientale, que des parasites, comme l’est tout peuple exclusivement commerçant.’—M. GUILLAIN, vol. ii. part ii. chap. ii. p. 151.

The Arabs upon the Island may amount to a total of 5000,[97] all Omans; and they are divided, as in their fatherland, into two great Kabilah or tribes, the Hináwi and the Gháfiri.

When Malik bin Fakhm, of the Benu Hunayfah tribe, marched from his own country, Nejd, to recover Oman from the Persians under Dara, son of Bahman, son of Isfandiyar, an event popularly dated about the end of our 1st century, he was joined by some 100 Yemeni warriors who were called Benu Yemin, sons of the right hand, because they dwelt to the south or on the right hand of the Ka’abah. Their migration is attributed to the bursting of the dyke of Arim, near Mareb, the Mariaba of Ptolemy, which is the Babel-tower of Arabian history in the Days of Ignorance. The learned Dr Wetzstein (p. 104, Reisebericht über Hauran, &c. Berlin, 1860) believes this event to have taken place about the beginning of our era; most authors, however, place it at the end of the 1st or the beginning of our 2nd century. It was probably the over-populating of the land which sent forth the two great Sabæan tribes of Azud and Himyar to Bahrayn and N. Eastern Arabia; they united, and were known as the Tanukh or Confederates. The former, also called from a chief ‘Nasri,’ settled upon the Euphrates, and founded the East Tanukh kingdom, whose capital was afterwards Hira. The Himyar or Kudai originated, in the Hauran and the Belka, the West Tanukh kingdom, also termed from a chief ‘Salih.’ These men, converted to Christianity, were probably the builders of the ‘Giant cities’ of Bashan, mere provincial towns of the Greco-Roman Empire. Ta’alab (Thalaba), one of the sons of Malik bin Fakhm, is mentioned as the first ruler of East Tanukh. The extinct family of the Druze Tanukhs claimed descent from the western kingdom.

The Ya’rubah considered themselves to be of the Arab el Aribah (Joctanites), through their ancestor Yarub el Azud (يعرب الازد) bin Faligh (Peleg, the brother of Kahtán or Joctan), bin Abir (Eber), bin Salih, bin Arfakhshad, bin Sham (Shem), and to the present day their descendants boast of this ancient lineage. Malik bin Fakhm routed 40,000 horsemen supported by elephants, slew Mirzban (the Marz-ban or warden of the Marches) the Satrap-lieutenant of the King of Kings, whose head- quarters were at Sohar, and conquered the country from Sharjah to the Ra’as el Hadd (Rasalgat), the eastern Land’s-end of the Arabian shore. Reinforced by fresh drafts of the Benu Yemin, he showed his gratitude by incorporating them with his own tribe. The word Hináwi, meaning a patrician or ‘one having a founder,’ arose from Malik bin Fakhm, proposing himself as the Hanu (هنو) or originator of the emigrants: certain Arabs derive it from Hiná, a fanciful ancestor, and even call themselves Benu Hiná. According to some authorities, Oman took its name from a place in the neighbourhood of the dyke of Mareb; others derive it from a valley which, like the Wady el Arab, gave its name to the whole country; the Arab geographers make it the ancient term for Sohar, and the classical geographer holds that the Ommanum Emporium of Ptolemy was applied to Maskat.

When Malik bin Fakhm had been slain by his son Selima, and another son, Zayd, ruled Oman in his stead, a thousand of the Benu Nezar came to him from the town of Ubar, and were settled upon a tract of low open ground (غفير), whence they took the name of Gháfiri. These immigrants were Arab el Musta’arabah, which, in Omanic usage, denotes the insititious or Ismailitic clans derived from Adnan, son of Ishmael; and the gift of land had made them clients of Zayd and of his tribe, the Hináwi. Intermarriage, however, soon amalgamated the races. When El Islam brought the sword to mankind, and when the rival prophet Musaylimah, generally known as the Liar, paved the way for the Karmati (Carmathians) and for a copious crop of heresies, the Gháfiri, cleaving to the faith of Meccah, were preferred by the Caliph Abubekr to their former patrons, for the chieftainship of Oman. In his turn, the Caliph Ali restored precedence to the Hináwi who had espoused his cause. Hence an inveterate feud, a flame of wrath, which rivers of blood have not quenched. Throughout Oman the rival tribes still occupy separate quarters; they will not connect themselves by marriage, and they seldom meet without a ‘faction fight.’ Even at Zanzibar, where the climate has softened them, they rarely preserve that decency of hate which is due by Arabs of noble strain to hereditary and natural enemies.

Here the principal clan of the Hináwi tribe is the Hárisí (plural Hurs), under Abdullah bin Salím and Husayn bin Mahommed: once flourishing in Oman, it now barely numbers 15,000 sabres, and in the Island it may amount to 300, mostly merchants and wealthy planters. The other divisions are the Bú (or Ayyál) Sa’íd; the ruling race which forms one large family—that of the Sayyid. There are also about a dozen of the Benu Lamk, whose preponderance in Oman was broken down by the Yu’rabi Imams. The minor sections of the Hináwi are the Benu Yas of Sur; the Benu Menasir near Sharjah; the Benu Ali; the Benu Baktashi; the Benu Uhaybi; the Benu el Hijri; the Benu Kalban; the Benu el Abri; and the Benu bu Hasan, generally pronounced Bohsan. A few of the Benu Dafri or Dafil at times visit the Island: they are professional carriers, and therefore they have no blood feuds with other tribes. Besides, these are Ammari, Adwani, Kuruni, Khuzuri, Saláhameh, and Nayyáyareh; most of them frequent Zanzibar during the trading season.

The pure Gháfiri stock is still, they say, to be found in Nejd. Throughout Oman they are a wild unruly race, hostile to strangers, and inclined to Wahhabi-ism. They possess at several places little castles armed with guns which are mere robbers’ dens; near Mina the Chief Musalim refused allegiance to Sayyid Saíd, and south of the Jebel el Akhzar, or ‘Green Mountain,’ they made themselves the terror of the country-side about Buraymah. The worst of the Gháfiri are the Kawásim pirates (the Anglo-Arabic ‘Jowasmees’) of Ras el Khaymah and our old enemies the Benu bu Ali of Ra’as el Hadd. To them also belong the Shaksi or Benu Ruwayhah, popularly called Ahl Rustak, from the settlement founded by the Persian Anushirawán on the eastern slope of Jebel el Akhzar, the mountainous district of Oman. It is about 70 miles west of Maskat, which, now the capital, began life as its harbour. The present representative of the Rustak chiefs, Sayyid Kays bin Azan, receives an annual indemnification of $3000 from Sayyid Saíd, who had dispossessed him of Sohar and its dependencies. Súr also belongs to the Gháfiri, of whom, in these places, little good is spoken; they are said to be at once cruel and cowardly, to fear no shame, and to respect no oath. We shall soon be compelled to chastise these petty sea-thieves and kidnappers.

At Zanzibar the Gháfiri is represented chiefly by the Masakirah or Maskari clan, which under its chief, Sayf bin Khalfan, may number 2000 sabres. The Mazru’i of Mombasah, so well known in Sawahil history, were also Gháfiri: they are now scattered about Gasi and other small Bandars, retaining nothing of their political consequence. The Yu’rabi clan, which gave to Oman its old patriotic Imams, is of scant account. The other sections, who are for the most part visitors during the commercial season, comprise the Jenabah, the Bímáni, the Benu Katúb, the Benu bu Ali, and the Benu Riyám of Nezwah in the Jebel el Akhzar.

The Arab holds, and, according to old Moslem travellers, has long held in these regions the position of an Osmanli in Arabia; he is a ‘superior person.’ As the Omani chiefs, however, like the Sherifs of El Hejaz, did not disdain servile concubines, many of their issue are negroids: of these hybrids some are exceedingly fair, showing African pollution only by tufty and wiry hair, whilst others, ‘falling upon their mothers,’ as the native phrase is, have been refused inheritance at Maskat, and have narrowly escaped the slave-market. The grandsons of purest Arabs who have settled in Africa, though there has been no mixture of blood, already show important physical modifications worked by the ‘mixture of air,’ as the Portuguese phrase is. The skin is fair, but yellow-tinted by over-development of gall; whilst the nose is high, the lips are loose, everted, or otherwise ill-formed; and the beard, rarely of the amplest, shrinks, under the hot-house air, to four straggling tufts upon the rami of the jaws and the condyles of the chin. Whilst the extremities preserve the fineness of Arab blood, the body is weak and effeminate; and the degenerate aspect is accompanied by the no less degraded mind, morals, and manners of the coast-people. The nervous or nervoso-bilious temperament of the Sons of the Desert here runs into two extremes: many Arabs are bilious-lymphatic, like Banyans; a few, lapsing into the extreme of leanness, are fair specimens of the ‘Living Skeleton.’ This has been remarked even of Omanis born and bred upon the Island. Those who incline to the nervous diathesis have weakly drooping occiputs and narrow skull-bases, arguing a deficiency of physical force, and they exaggerate the flat-sided unconstructive Arab skull—here an Indian may almost always be recognized by the comparative roundness of his calvaria. And as the Zanzibar Arab is mostly of burgher race in his own land, the forehead rarely displays that high development of the perceptive organs which characterizes the Bedawin.

The Arab noble is still, like those of Meccah in Mohammed’s day, a merchant, and here wealth has done much to degenerate the breed, climate more, and slavery most. The ‘Californian fever’—indolence—becomes endemic in the second generation, rendering the race hopeless, whilst industry is supplied by the gross, transparent cunning of the Wasawahili and of the African generally. Honesty is all but unknown; several European merchants will not have an Arab’s name in their hooks. A Nakhodá (Captain, Maskat R.N.) in the Prince’s service, commissioned to bring a watch or other valuables from Bombay, will delay to deliver it until threatened with the bakur, and the terrors of being blown from a gun do not defend the ruler from the most shallow and impudent frauds. Like their kinsmen of Oman, they despise truth, without versatility enough to employ it when required, and few rise to the height of Bacon’s model, ‘who hath openness in fame and opinion, secrecy in habit, dissimulation in reasonable use, and a power to feign, if there he no remedy.’ Haughty in the highest degree, and boasting descent from the kings of Yemen, they hold themselves to be the salt of the earth. Man’s nature everywhere objects to restraint, these people cannot endure it: nothing afflicts them so much as the necessity of regular occupation, as the recurrence of ‘duty,’ as the weight of any subject upon the mind. Constant only in procrastination, as they are hebetous in body so they are mentally torpid and apparently incapable of active exertion, especially of immediate action. Like their congeners of Maskat and Sur, they have distinguished themselves on all occasions when opposed to any but Arabs, by excessive poltroonery. They seldom mix with strangers, for whom they have generally an aversion, and they will refuse a dollar to a wretch who has changed his faith to save his life. They are never worse than in youth, when excessive polygamy and debauchery have enslaved them: as with the Arabs of the Peninsula, a people of violent and unruly passions, and seldom ripe for use till their beards are grey, these Zanzabaris improve by age, and body and mind seem to grow better, to a certain point, as they grow old.

To this sweeping evil account there are of course exceptions. I have rarely met with a more honest, trustworthy man than Saíd bin Salim, the half-caste Arab, who was sent with us as Ra’as Kafilah, or guide. Such hitherto has been his character; but man varies in these regions: he may grievously disappoint me in the end.[98]

The poorer Arabs who flock to Zanzibar during the season are Hazramis, and they work and live hard as the Hammals of Stamboul. These men club and mess together in gangs under an Akidah (head man), who supplies them with rice, ghi, and scones, and who keeps the accounts so skilfully, that the labourer receives annually about $35, though he may gain four times that sum. Pauper Arabs settled upon the Island refuse ‘nigger work,’ the West Indian synonym for manual labour, and, as a rule, the Mashamba or plantations supply them, like Irish estates of old, with everything but money. At first many were ruined by the abolition of slave export: at present most of them confess that the measure has added materially to the development and the prosperity of the Island. There are now Arab merchants who own 80,000 clove-trees, $100,000 floating capital, a ship or two, and from 1000 to 2000 slaves.

The results of wealth and general aisance have been luxury and unbridled licentiousness. As usual in damp-hot climates, for instance, Sind, Egypt, the lowlands of Syria, Mazenderan, Malabar, and California, the sexual requirements of the passive exceed those of the active sex; and the usual result is a dissolute social state, contrasting with mountain countries, dry-cold or damp-cold, where the conditions are either equally balanced or are reversed. Arab women have been described as respectable in the Island, because, fearing scandal and its consequences, they deny themselves to Europeans. Yet many of them prefer Banyans to those of the True Faith, whilst the warmest passions abandon themselves to African slaves:[99] these dark men are such pearls in beauteous ladies’ eyes, and their fascinations at Zanzibar are so great, that a respectable Hindostani Moslem will not trust his daughter to live there, even in her husband’s house. A corresponding perversion and brutality of taste make the men neglect their wives for negresses; the same has been remarked of our countrymen in Guiana and the West Indies, and it notably prevails in the Brazil, where the negress and the Mulatta are preferred to the Creole. Considering the effect of the African skin when excited by joy, rage, fear, or other mental emotion, of course a cogent reason for the preference exists.

Public prostitutes are here few, and the profession ranks low where the classes upon which it depends can always afford to gratify their propensities in the slave-market. I have alluded to the Wasawahili women of the Madagascar Quarter; a few also live scattered about the town, but all are equally undesirable—there is not a pretty face amongst them. The honorarium varies from $0.25 to $1, and the proceeds are expended upon gaudy dresses and paltry ornaments. Retired Corinthians who have not prospered, live by fishing upon the sands, or make rude pottery at Changani Point: those who can afford it buy a slave or two, and give the rest of their days to farming. Girls who work for hire are always procurable, but such amours are likely to end badly: the same may be said of the prostitutes; consequently most white residents keep Abyssinian or Galla concubines. The ‘Liwát’ is here considered a mere peccadillo: the late Sayyid, however, denied Moslem burial to a nephew who built the British Consular residence. This ‘Maf’úl’ died in agony after the bungling performance of an operation which his debaucheries rendered necessary, and the body was cast naked into the sea.

Both sexes and all ages delight in drinking. The rich use bad but expensive French and American liqueurs, gin, brandy, and rum, from Marseille, India, and the Mauritius. Some eat opium, others prefer Bhang in its several forms: the material is imported from Bombay and Cutch. We found it near the continental seaboard, and therefore the Indian shrub is also probably grown upon the Island. A distillation, I have said, is made from the Cashew-nut and from palm-wine; this alcohol is called Zerámbo, and a free-born Arab is disgraced by touching it; preserved in foul old pots, it has the effect of poison; a drunken sailor will fall down insensible, breathe with stertorous loudness, and gradually pass from insensibility to death. Tembo or toddy is of two kinds—Támú, the sweet and unintoxicating, and Khálí, sour or fermented. The liquor is drawn from the trees by the Wasawahili and the slaves insular and continental. The Pombe, like the Buzah of Egypt and Berberia, Adel, and Abyssinia, is a simple hopless beer, made from maize or holcus. Drunkenness amongst the poor is very properly punished only when it leads to crime. It is singular that the late Sayyid, who never touched an intoxicating drink, should have been so tender to an offence with which Moslems usually deal so barbarously.

The Arab’s head-dress is a Kummeh or Kofiyyah (red fez), a Surat calotte (Alfiyyah), or a white skull-cap worn under a turban (Kilemba) of Oman silk and cotton religiously mixed. Usually it is of fine blue and white cotton check, embroidered and fringed with a broad red border, with the ends hanging in unequal lengths over one shoulder. The coiffure is highly picturesque. The ruling family and grandees, however, have modified its vulgar folds, wearing it peaked in front, and somewhat resembling a tiara. The essential body-clothing and the succedaneum for trowsers is an Izar (Nguo ya ku chini), or loin-cloth tucked in at the waist, 6 to 7 feet long by 2 to 3 broad. The colours are brick-dust and white or blue and white, with a silk border striped red, black, and yellow. The very poor wear a dirty bit of cotton girdled by a Hakab or Kundávi, a rope of plaited thongs; the rich prefer a fine embroidered stuff from Oman, supported at the waist by a silver chain. None but the western Arabs admit the innovation of drawers (Suruwali). The ‘Jama’,’ or upper garment, is a collarless coat of the best broadcloth, leek- green or some tender colour being preferred. It is secured over the left breast[100] by a silken loop, and the straight wide sleeves are gaily lined. The Kizbáo is a kind of waistcoat, covering only the bust: some wear it with sleeves, others without. The Dishdasheh (in Kisawahili Khanzu), a narrow-sleeved shirt, buttoned at the throat and extending to mid-shin, is made of calico (baftah), American drill, and other stuffs called Doriyah, Tarabuzun, and Jamdani. Sailors are known by Khuzerangí, a coarse cotton, stained dingy red-yellow with henna or pomegranate rind, and rank with Wars (bastard saffron) and sharks’ oil. Respectable men guard the stomach with a ‘Hizám,’ generally a Cashmere or Bombay shawl; others wear sashes of the dust-coloured raw silk manufactured in Oman. The outer garment for chillv weather is the long, tight-sleeved Persian Jubbeh, Jokhah, or Caftan, of European broadcloth. The Na’alayn, Viatu, or sandals of peculiar shape, made at Zanzibar, have already been described. Most men shave their heads, and the Shafeis trim or entirely remove the moustaches. The palms are reddened with henna, which is either brought from El Hejaz or gathered in the plantations. The only ring is a plain cornelian seal, and the sole other ornament is a talisman (Hirz in Kisawahili Hirízi). The eyes are blackened with Kohl or antimony of El Sham—here not Syria, but the region about Meccah—and the mouth, crimsoned by betel, looks as if a tooth had just been knocked out.

None but women and slaves leave the house unarmed. The lowest Arab sticks an old dagger in his belt, handles a rusty spear, or shoulders a cheap firelock. Gulf men are generally known by their round targes (Tursi) made of carved and spangled rhinoceros or addax hide, toys with high central umbo, and at the utmost a foot in diameter; others have fish-skin shields, and the Baloch affect the Cutch ‘Dhal,’ or buckler. The sword is of three forms, of which the Sayf Faranji (Frankish sword, in Kisawahili Upanga) has long been the favourite. It is a straight, broad, two-edged, guardless, double-handed weapon, about 4 ft 3 in. long, sheathed in a scabbard of red morocco: the thin and well-worn blade vibrates in the grip, and by the side of its razor-like keenness our weapons resemble iron bars. The price varies from $10 to $100, and, as at modern Damascus, cheap German imitations abound. The usual handle is wood bound with thread like plaits of black leather and silver wire forming patterns; the pommel is an iron knob, and the general aspect of the article suggests that it is derived from the Crusading ages. The ‘Kittáreh’ is a curved European sabre: the young princes and those about the coast carry in hand expensive specimens with ivory hilts and gold mountings. Thirdly, the ‘Imani,’ as they call it, is a short straight blade made in Europe, Oman, or Hazramaut. The Arab knows but two cuts,— one the ‘Kalam,’ across the ankles, and the other our No. 7, directed at the head or preferably at the shoulder: the former is evaded by leaping or breaking ground, the latter is parried with the shield. Jamhiyahs, Khanjars, or daggers, worn strapped and buckled round the waist, are curved till the point forms almost a right angle with the hilt. It is a silly construction; but anything will serve to stab the enemy’s back above the shoulders. The dudgeon of black or white rhinoceros or buffalo horn is adorned with a profusion of filagree-work, and silver or gold knobs; the blade, sharp on both sides, is nearly three inches broad at the base. The sheath (’Alá) is similarly ornamented upon a ground of leather, cloth, or brocade, dark or scarlet, with the usual metal rings and ‘fixings.’ The Khanjar often costs $200, and a handsome dagger is a sign of rank.

Not having seen at home the higher classes of Arab women, who are said to be sometimes remarkably handsome, I can describe them only from hearsay. In the house they wear tight Mezár, Sarwál, or pantaloons of Oman silk or cotton fastened at the waist with rich tasselled ties brought from Maskat, the Hejaz, and Bandar Abbas: the body dress is a long chemise of Bengal or Surat stuff, worn over a Mkájá or loin-cloth. The hair is plaited into Masúká (pig-tails) or Nyule (curls), and here, as elsewhere, the back of the head being the most sacred part of the feminine person, adults bind round the forehead a kerchief (Ngúo ku jitándá) or dastmal of bright-coloured silk, which depends behind to the waist. Abroad they appear masqued with the hideous black ‘Burka’-veil of Oman, whilst a Rida, Kitambi, or sheet of white calico or black silk, conceals even the dress from prying eyes. A Mávuli or umbrella shows dignity; some wear sandals (Vyatu), like the men, others Egyptian Papushes.

The favourite feminine ornaments are Banajireh, or Khalkhál, bracelets or bangles, gold, silver, or copper rings, solid or hollow, plain or embossed, with or without hinges. A Yekdani (single gem, or ‘union’), a cordiform or oval brooch and pendents of precious stones or stained glass, massively set in gold, hangs round the neck by a string of bullet-sized gold-foiled heads. The Matale (anklets) are of silver worth, that is to say weighing, from $10 to $20. A Kirt, Kupini, P’hete ya Pua, or flower-shaped ornament of gold, silver, or base metal, is worn in the wing of the left nostril. Earrings are of many varieties: the rim is pierced sometimes all round for silver Halkeh or rings, whose place is supplied amongst the poor with leaden ‘Kipini’ (in the plural ‘Vipini’). The lobe is bored and trained to encircle a disk of silver or ivory; the slaves use a bright-coloured roll of palm leaf, and when that is not procurable, a betel-nut: the result is unnatural distension, and in age the ear, as among the Moplahs of Malabar, hangs down, a mere strip of skin, to the collar bone. They have also the Kengele, copper balls for the neck; the Mpogo, or ivory ring; the Kikomo, a copper or brass bracelet; the Mkhufu, or silver necklace chain; the Mchuhu, or coarse Cassolette, and a variety of Talismans or Grigris (Hirizi) round the wrists and ankles. These women, like most Easterns, prefer strong and heady perfumes of musk, ambergris, ottar of roses, and the large Indian jasmine; their cosmetics are oil, henna, Kohl, or Collyrium (Wánjá), and saffron applied to the head and eyebrows; and they are cunning in the matter of fumigation, which might with benefit be introduced into Europe.

The Zanzibar Arab’s day is regular, varied only by a journey, a family festival, a debauch, or the yearly Ramazan fast. He rises at dawn for ablution and prayer, eats ‘Suwayk,’ a kind of vermicelli, wheaten bread, or even a little meat, drinks a cup of coffee, and chewing betel, repairs to the bazar for business or calls upon his friends. Men shake hands when meeting, wish good-morning, and ask, ‘How is thy state?’ to which the reply is, ‘And how art thou?’ They then sit down and renew queries, interspersed with many Marhabas, Sáná-B’ánás and Na shikamaus, ‘Allah preserve thee!’ and ‘Thanks be to Allah, we are well!’ If one sneeze, the others exclaim, ‘May Allah have mercy upon thee!’ which he acknowledges, with ‘Allah guide you!’—this is an old Arab superstition. Sneezing being an omen of impending evil to the patient, an ejaculation was made to the gods: ‘Homer mentions the custom; Aristotle fruitlessly attempts to explain its existence; Apuleius refers to it; and Pliny has a problem on it: “Cur sternutantes salutantur;”’ Asia still practises it, and the older Brazilians have not forgotten it. Here the convulsion is considered unsonsy: many a deputation waiting upon the late Sayyid has been prematurely dismissed because the ill-omened sternutation happened. As in Turkey and the Moslem East generally, the visitor’s place of honour is on the host’s left hand. Where coffee is offered on ceremonious occasions, all rise and take the little Finjan or thimble- cup from the house-master, who does not allow the servant to hand it; they then sit down, and they drink, contrary to usual Arab custom, more than one cupful. The hospitality concludes with a glass of sherbet. Amongst the wealthier classes at Zanzibar and Mombasah, tea is becoming a favourite beverage; not only ‘fashionable,’ but held to be hygienic because less heating than coffee.

At 5 o’clock, our 11 A.M., the Arab, like the Syrian, eats the ‘Ghada’ of fish and meat, of wheaten bread and vegetables, and of rice boiled with the cream of rasped cocoa-nut, ending with half-a-dozen Finjans of coffee and with betel. Some then repair to the Mosque; most men pray the noon-day at home, and sleep like the citizens of Andine Mendoza till the Asr or after 3 P.M. They again, perform ablution and devotions, after which they dress for out-of-door business and for home visits. The evening prayers are generally recited in public. Some eat the Isha- supper before sunset; usually it is deferred till after worship. The climate effectively prevents those last pleasant rambles by moonlight and open air séances—the Makamat so much enjoyed in the hot-dry sub- tropical regions. Here the evening is spent sometimes in society, oftener in the harem, and all apply to sleep between 10 P.M. and midnight.

The yearly fast begins with the new moon of Ramazan; crowds assemble in the open places and upon the terrace roofs till the popping of pistols and matchlocks and salvos from the squadron warn the faithful that the crescent has appeared. In the days of Sayyid Said the strict Arab salute of three guns (our 21) was kept up; five denoted a victory, and seven the decease of some eminent person. Arabs observe the dietetic law strictly; their women are expected to fast, and boys of 13 and 14 take a pride in imitating their parents. Many, especially those with weak digestion, cannot eat the dawn meal general throughout Egypt, Syria, and Persia. The Shafei ordeal ends when the sun has wholly sunk below the horizon; the Bayázi waits till daylight has almost faded from the _east_, and he prays before breaking bread. Most men begin hygienically with something easily digested, as dates and sour milk,—a more substantial meal follows after an hour. The rich pass much of the fasting time in sleep, and the burden here, as elsewhere, falls far more heavily upon the poor. At Zanzibar, however, the infliction is lightened by the damp climate and by the equinoctial day, short compared with the terrible 16 hours which must sometimes be endured in subtropical latitudes. Yet the servants and slaves are useless during Ramazan: idle at all times, they then assert a right to do nothing: as I before observed, the fast is one-twelfth of the year thoroughly wasted. On the other hand, it may be remarked that El Islam has wisely limited its festivals to six days in the year, a great contrast to the profuse waste of time which still characterizes the faith of Southern Europe.

As at the beginning of the month, crowds assemble to sight the new moon which ends the fast, and every fellow who has a matchlock wastes powder and ball, without much regarding where the latter flies. Here, as in the Brazil, nothing can be done without wasting gunpowder: at Zanzibar the matchlock is perforce preferred, in Rio de Janeiro the rocket and the squib have taken its place. This year (1857) a storm of rain on the evening of May 24th concealed the crescent, and it was not till half- past five P.M. on the 25th, that a salute from the shipping announced, despite the thick drifting scud which hid every inch of sky, that the weary ‘blessed month’ was no more. Then the men gathered about the palace, the women flocked to the house-tops, and the city, usually so sadly silent, rang with shouting, singing, the braying of trumpets, and irregular discharges of small arms. After sunset again all was still as the grave.

The ’Id el Saghir, or lesser festival, that concludes the Ramazan, began at dawn on May 26th; the usual public prayers were recited in the mosques, and at 8.30 A.M. the squadron, dressed with flags, fired whilst the townsmen followed suit. The servants and slaves gathered in their new clothing to kiss the master’s hand and to wish him a happy festival. The Princes rode out in state. In the bazars an endimanché mob assembled despite the heavy rains, and before sunset they trooped through the miry lanes to witness the races at Mnazi Moyya, which take place only when the tide is out. These festivities—they have already been described— continued to a late hour, and thus passed away the earliest and the noisiest day of the ’Id.

The second and the third days are diluted copies of the first; visits are exchanged between all acquaintances, and the Prince holds levées in full Darbar. Here the sons of Sayyid Said and their blood relations occupy one side of the long bare hall, opposite them are the high officials and interpreters, whilst the honoured guests sit by the ruler at the Sadr, or top of the room, and fronting them, near the door, stand the eunuchs and the slaves. On leaving, as on entering, the stranger shakes hands with the whole family according to seniority, and he is accompanied by the Prince either a few paces or to the doorway, the steps, in fact, being carefully proportioned to his rank.

There is little peculiarity in the religious ceremonies of the Zanzibar Arab. An Azan (call to prayer) is repeated in the ear of the new-born babe, and on the Arba’in (40th day) the mother and infant are bathed, and become pure—until then the husband will not sit by his wife’s side. On this occasion the head of the male child is shaved, as usual amongst Moslems. Marriage is expensive, seldom costing the respectable man less than $500; all the food provided for the occasion must be eaten, even if guests be sought in the streets; this indeed is the rule of Arab feasts. Half the Mahr, or settlement-money, should be paid before the Fatihah is recited; the remainder is claimed upon separation or after the husband’s death. A woman cannot demand divorce except for the usual legal reasons, and the ‘Iddeh,’ or interval before re-marriage, is three months and ten days. After a Khitmah or perlection of the Koran, the relict, who has hitherto been confined to the house, is bathed by her feminine friends, in token of readiness for engagement. Many widows refuse to change their condition, and apply themselves to money-making by commerce, plantations, or slave-dealing. I heard of one jovial ‘Armalah’ who invited Europeans to _petit soupers_ and _parties fines_, in which merriment takes precedence of modesty. The Arab women of Zanzibar appear unusually spirited, especially when compared with their lords; in every great house some energetic petticoat or rather trowsers takes or forces her husband or her brother to take the lead—perhaps, as nearer home, they are the more courageous and venturous in braving danger because the risk and the brunt do not fall upon their heads. Men of pure family will not give their daughters to any but fellow-clansmen. They themselves do not object to Waswahili, and negro-girls, but the single Arab wife—there is rarely more than one—rules the concubines with a rod of iron.

Men, women, and children weep at funerals, but it is not the custom to hire ‘keeners.’ The feminine mourning dress is black, and the period, as general among Moslems, lasts 40 days. Contrary to Arab custom, the graves are lined with boarding. The exterior is a wall of coralline rag and lime from a foot to a foot and a half high, with little raised steps at the head and feet; here a porcelain saucer or an encaustic tile is sometimes mortared in by way of ornament. Old cemeteries abound throughout the city and the suburbs, sometimes showing offensive sights. A simple slab sufficed for the late Sayyid’s ancestors; on the spot, however, where he and his son Khalid lie, they are building a dwarf truncated pyramid of stone and cement, an unusual memorial to a Bayazi or a Wahhabi. Of late years the Arabs have begun to inter their slaves. Formerly the corpses were thrown to the beasts or tossed into the sea, and from the windows of H.M.’s Consulate I have seen more than one body bleached snow-white by sea-water, and stranded upon the beach where no one cared to bury it.

During the reign of the last ruler, El Islam at Zanzibar was tolerant by compulsion; the Shiahs were allowed an Imambara at which they bewailed the death of Hasan and Husayn—few Sunni countries would have tolerated the abomination. But as these ‘sectarians’ almost worship whilst others absolutely adore Ali and his descendants; and as the ‘Khariji’ schism slew the former and well-nigh damns all the rest, they join issue and agree to differ. This indeed is a recognized rule in religions, where the most minute distinctions cause and perpetuate the deadliest feuds, and the family quarrel will not be reconciled, because love perverted becomes not indifference but hate.

The Arabs are here all Shafei or Bayazi. As the latter schism is now rare under that name in the Moslem world, some notice of it may be considered advisable. I have seen the Bayazi confounded with the Mutazali (Motazilites who support Free-will _versus_ Predestination), but there is an important difference: the latter hold Ali in high esteem and object only to the Caliph Muawiyah.

The Bayázi, also called Abázi,[101] Ibáz and Ibáziyyeh derive their name from Abdullah bin Yahya bin Abáz (in our dictionaries ‘Ibáz’). Some authors have corrupted this name to Beydan, that of a Persian sectarian; others translate it the ‘Whites,’ as opposed to the green of the Fatimites, and the black of the Abbasides. This arch-heretic, according to the Jehan-Numa, began to preach under the reign of El Merwan, the last Ommiade Khalifeh, between A.H. 127-132 (A.D. 744 and 749), and was shortly afterwards conquered and put to death. His tenets spread far and wide amongst the Khawárij of Nezwah, extended to the littoral, and filled the land with battle and murder.

The Bayazi, who through their Imams governed Oman for 163 years, beginning from A.D. 751, are thus one of the many Khariji (in the plural Khawárij) sects whose origin may be traced in the rival faiths of Saheism and Kuraysh idolatry; in the contest of the ‘Prophets’ Mohammed and Musaylimeh, and in the political interference of the first Caliphs between the turbulent tribes of Oman. Under the names of Shurah (شراه), Haruriyah (حرورّيه), and Muhakkimah (محکمّه), these ‘Seceders’ were once numerous in northern Africa, Spain, and Arabia; in A.D. 1350 Ibn Batuta found them at Timbucktu. They are now mostly confined to a few cities in Morocco, and to the parts about Maskat. Some theological writers derive these Kharijites from the malcontents who declared that both Ali and Muawiyah had forfeited their right to the Caliphate by appealing from Allah’s judgment to human decisions, and who carried out their objection by murdering Ali and by attempting the murder of Muawiyah and Amru. Their descendants are held to have formed 20 schools like the Shiahs (or Rawáfiz) and the Mutazali; whilst the Marjiyyeh number six; the Mujbirah or Sunnites four, and, together with the Batiniyah, the Hululiyah, and the Zaydi, make up the 73 divisions into which the first Moslem declared El Islam would split. The principal Kharijite schools (Usul el Firak) have, however, been reduced to the following five. The first four are now common only in books.

1. The Azarikah, or followers of Abu Rashid Nafi’ ibn el Azrak. They permit, in religious warfare, the massacre of women and children; they do not lapidate adulterers, Koranic command being absent, and they severely punish the male, not the female, slanderer of the Faithful.

2. The Najdát, disciples of Najdat bin Amir, formerly abounded in Mekran, Kerman, Mosul, Mesopotamia, Seistan, and Oman. They hold persistency in the minor sins (Sughair) equivalent to polytheism (Shirk); whereas mortal sins are not damnable unless accompanied by persistency (Israr).

3. The Baghghasiyyeh, Banhasiyyeh, or Bayhasiyyeh, followers of Abu Baghghas, Banhas, or Bayhas. I have found no account of their ‘doctrinal quiddities.’

4. The Safar, so called from their founder Ziyad ibn el Asfar, believe concealment of tenets (‘Takiyyeh’) permissible in word not in deed, and they extend infidelity (Kufr) even to such offences as neglecting prayer.

5. The Abazi or Bayazi, who form the mass of Arab population at Zanzibar, and who are also numerous in Oman. They are Karmati and anti- Moslem in the matter of Freewill, a vital distinction from the Sunnis; like the Ismailiyyeh and sundry mystic schools, they believe the Imamship to be a supreme pontificate, but not the succession, by grace, of the prophethood and the caliphate. They are opposed to the Mutazali by respecting the Shaykhayn (Ahubekr and Omar), their exoteric reason being that El Islam then throve under a single head. Therefore they deem it lawful and right to abuse Usman and Ali (damning the Shiahs for venerating the latter), Muawiyah and Yezid, Talhah, Zubayr,[102] and others, who brought calamities upon the Faithful, and who caused the spilling of Moslem blood. In this age of decaying zeal they do not ‘Sabb’ or blaspheme any one publicly by name, and by order of the late Sayyid they bless, during the Friday sermon (Khutbah), the two first Caliphs, and then generally the Sahabah (Companions of the Prophet), the Muhajirin (Meccans who accompanied the Flight), and the Ansar (Medinites who received Mohammed). As are all Moslems they may not use the word ‘La’anat,’ or curse, except to Satan—so Christians are forbidden to call others fools, and with equal success. Moravian-like they pride themselves upon preserving pure and undefiled the tenets and the ritual handed down to them from the Prophet’s day, and, with the rest of the Moslem Ulema, who in this point are the most conservative and anti- progressive of men, they would model all modern civilization upon that of barbarous Arabia in the 7th century. One of their favourite sayings is, ‘All innovation (Bida’ah, i.e. a practice unknown to Mohammed’s day) is error, and all error is in hell-fire.’ Possibly, however, this may be the effect of Wahhabi neighbourhood.

The faith of the Bayázi is narrow and exclusive, a monopoly of righteousness, a moral study of the infinitely little. Amongst Christians I can compare him only with the ‘hard-grit’ style of Baptists, who aspire alone to people a Heaven in which the letter H is of no account. All who do not profess his tenets are Kafirs, and, as it is a standing belief that whoso calls a Moslem Kafir becomes a Kafir himself, they are replied to in kind. Each of the 73 schools naturally considers itself the ‘Nájiyah,’ or Saving Faith; but it is not justified in consigning to Jehannum those that do not agree with it. The Bayázi condemn all the Sunnis, and especially the Shafeis, who expect actually to see the Deity (el Ru’uyah) during the next life. Quoting the debated passage of the Koran ‘Sight shall not see Him’ (لاتدمرکه الابصار), the Kharijis agree that if the Lord be visible, He must be material and personal, consequently created and unessential. In these matters they go beyond their depth; but who, it may be asked, attempts the subject and does not? The idea of the Godhead varies with every race, of which it is the highest mental and moral expression; the higher the conception the higher will be the intellectual status, and vice versâ; even the same race constantly modifies its hold for better or for worse. I do not believe that the sages of Greece and Rome were polytheists or idolaters, although they may have sacrificed cocks to Esculapius. Under almost all mythologies, even the Hindu, there is an underlying faith in monotheism. But the God of the Jews, of the Christians, and of the Moslems, differs in kind as well as in degree, even as the God of Calvin would not be the God of Channing. A late writer has published several pages of very good writing and very bad reasoning, upon the contrast of the Deity, as worshipped by Christianity and by El Islam. His error has been to assume Wahhabiism for the typical form of the latter. I might as well work out the theory that the Anabaptist Protestant is the Christian _par excellence_. Like the article on the Talmud which lately created so much attention, it is an able bit of special pleading and no more.

Amongst Moslems, Paradise is supposed to embrace the extent of the earth and firmament, and the late Sayyid used quaintly to remark, that his scanty orthodox subjects would people it but poorly. The Bayázi, unlike others of the Saving Faith, which we may better translate ‘le Salut,’ hold hell-fire to be the eternal portion of even their own sinners; thus literally interpreting the text, ‘ever, to all eternity (dwelling) in it (hell),’—خالدين فيها ابدًا. They have no prayer-station round the Ka’abah, and they relieve then chagrin by proving these oratories to be ‘novelties,’ unknown to the Prophet’s day.

The ritual differences between the Bayázi and other schools are small; in prayer the arms and hands are extended down the thighs, instead of being folded over the waist. Contrary to the practice of Sunnis and Shiahs, they may wear gold or silver rings of indefinite weight, and silks and satins, provided that the latter be removed during prayer. These sectarians cannot marry women with whom they have cohabited; divorce is imperative from wives whom they have visited at a forbidden season, and they allow legitimacy to children horn within two years after the father’s death. Amongst the Shafei the period extends to four years: physiological ignorance of ovarian dropsy fixed the time; and mistaken charity has refused to shorten it. In general the Bayázi, like the Druze, appears unwilling to explain his tenets, a remarkable contrast with the self-assertion and the controversial readiness of other Moslems. When betrayed into argument they quarrel about their belief—a sign of weakness; the calmly and thoroughly convinced, for instance an honest Scotch country minister, only smiles with pity upon the man who dares to differ from him. The studied simplicity and literalness of the sect and its fierce intolerance, combined with its crass semi-barbarism and isolation from the great family of nations, have favoured the progress of Wahhabi puritanism, and accordingly many Bayázi have ranged themselves under the uncompromising banner of puritanical ‘Unitarianism’—literalism and Koranolatry.

Of old the Kharijis were the flowers of the Islamitic garden; and history will ever dwell upon the literary glories of Seville and Cordova. It was this heresy that produced the Allámat (doctissimus) El Ghazali, and the celebrated Persian grammarian and poet, the Imam Abú’l Kasim Mohammed bin Omar, El Zamakhshari. His wife attacked his vile belief in man’s Free-will with an argumentum ad hominem more demonstrative than purely logical. It caused him, however, to recant the error and to express his penitence in that glorious ode beginning—

يا من يرا مدّ البعوض جناحه
فی ظلمة ليل البهيم اّليالى

‘O Thou who seest the midge extend her wing
Athwart the gathered glooms of gloomiest night,’

and to end life in the firm conviction of fate and predestination. His commentary (the Kashsháf ’an Hikáik el Tanzíl) displayed a logical reasoning, a profundity of learning, and purity of style which made it popular throughout El Islam, and it cleared the way for a long procession of similar productions.

In modern degenerate days the Bayázis of Zanzibar have little education and no learning: they must even borrow from the Sunnis commentaries (Tafsir) and other religious works, whence they can extract food for their own cravings of belief. Of these the most popular are El Bokhári, the Jelálayn, and El Baghawi; the abstruse Bayzáwi is seldom troubled. Logic is neglected: history, philosophy, and the exact sciences are unknown. Being Arabs, they do not require El Sarf (accidence or the changes of the verb), and the Alfiyyeh of Ibn Malik is the only popular treatise upon the subject of El Nahw (syntax, and the changes of non- verbal parts of speech). The Kazis of the Bayázi and the Sunni schools lecture in their own houses upon the religious sciences, and the elementary establishments may number on the Island 15 or 16. Here boys learn to read the Koran, and to write the crabbed angular hand which distinguishes these Moslems. Nákhodás master a little arithmetic and navigation at Bombay and Calcutta. Some few have been sent to England and France, where they showed no want of attention or capacity: on their return to semi-barbarism, however, almost all went to the bad; they robbed and plotted, and most of them died of drunkenness and debauchery.

The best education to be had at Zanzibar can only exercise the memory; it does little to cultivate the understanding or to improve the mind. Yet the people, averse to literary labour and despising learning in the presence of business, pleasure, or idleness, are shrewd and plodding ‘thinkers,’ and probably for the reason that their wits are not blunted by books and lectures, they are a match for Europeans in the everyday business of life. It is evident that where the profoundest ignorance of our elementary knowledge co-exists with practical wisdom, there is a large field for the labours of civilization, and that the western school, if kept strictly secular and pure of proselytizing, would be a blessing to the children of both sexes at Zanzibar.

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Footnote 97:

In 1846 M. Guillain proposed 3000, including a floating population of
300 to 400. Documents, &c., part ii. p. 78.

Footnote 98:

I have the words as they were written early in 1857.

Footnote 99:

It is easy to explain the preference of Arab women for slaves, and the
predilection of the husbands for negro women: the subject, however, is
somewhat too physiological for the general reader.

Footnote 100:

In Moslem countries Christians prefer the right breast.

Footnote 101:

Niebuhr terms them Beïasi and Abadhi (Travels in Arabia, chap. cxiv.).
Salíl ibn Razik makes Abdullah the son, not the grandson, of Abáz.

Footnote 102:

These two Ashab or ‘Companions of the Apostle’ are popularly supposed
to have been buried under a now ruined dome in a garden lying East of
the Dahdah cemetery, Damascus. It is, however, a mistake; they were
interred near Basreh where they fell in battle.