TRANSNATIONAL ISLAM AND PUBLIC SPHERE DYNAMICS IN KWAZULU-NATAL: RETHINKING SOUTH AFRICA'S PLACE IN THE INDIAN OCEAN WORLD

Africa ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Preben Kaarsholm

ABSTRACTIslam in KwaZulu-Natal has typically been seen as an Indian preserve and as closely linked with contestations around South African Indian identities. Against this background, dedication to Islam among Africans has appeared as exceptional, represented by groupings with particular histories of immigration from Mozambique, Malawi or Zambia. Since the 1970s, strong efforts have been made to extend the call of Islam to Africans in the province, as demonstrated in the mobilization efforts of the Islamic Propagation Centre International and the Muslim Youth Movement, and in the dawah projects of transnational Islamic NGOs like the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. Following the transition to democracy in 1994, Islam played an important role in establishing contacts between South Africans and the thousands of immigrants from other African countries – many of them with an Islamic background – who have been coming into KwaZulu-Natal. The essay discusses two different examples of Islamic practice in an African informal settlement on the outskirts of Durban, and demonstrates their different understandings of the relationship between Islam and African cultural ‘custom’. It places these differences of local theology and politics in the context of propagations of Islam as manifested in the writings of Ahmed Deedat and recent examples of pamphlet literature by African Muslims. It argues that understandings of Islam in KwaZulu-Natal as an African religion relate the area to the Indian Ocean world not only though links across the sea to South Asia, but also along the coast – bridging the gap between the Swahili continuum to the north and transnational Islam in the Cape.

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Editors of the JIOWS

The editors are proud to present the first issue of the fourth volume of the Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies. This issue contains three articles, by James Francis Warren (Murdoch University), Kelsey McFaul (University of California, Santa Cruz), and Marek Pawelczak (University of Warsaw), respectively. Warren’s and McFaul’s articles take different approaches to the growing body of work that discusses pirates in the Indian Ocean World, past and present. Warren’s article is historical, exploring the life and times of Julano Taupan in the nineteenth-century Philippines. He invites us to question the meaning of the word ‘pirate’ and the several ways in which Taupan’s life has been interpreted by different European colonists and by anti-colonial movements from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. McFaul’s article, meanwhile, takes a literary approach to discuss the much more recent phenomenon of Somali Piracy, which reached its apex in the last decade. Its contribution is to analyse the works of authors based in the region, challenging paradigms that have mostly been developed from analysis of works written in the West. Finally, Pawelczak’s article is a legal history of British jurisdiction in mid-late nineteenth-century Zanzibar. It examines one of the facets that underpinned European influence in the western Indian Ocean World before the establishment of colonial rule. In sum, this issue uses two key threads to shed light on the complex relationships between European and other Western powers and the Indian Ocean World.


Author(s):  
Samia Khatun

Australian deserts remain dotted with the ruins of old mosques. Beginning with a Bengali poetry collection discovered in a nineteenth-century mosque in the town of Broken Hill, Samia Khatun weaves together the stories of various peoples colonized by the British Empire to chart a history of South Asian diaspora. Australia has long been an outpost of Anglo empires in the Indian Ocean world, today the site of military infrastructure central to the surveillance of 'Muslim-majority' countries across the region. Imperial knowledges from Australian territories contribute significantly to the Islamic-Western binary of the post- Cold War era. In narrating a history of Indian Ocean connections from the perspectives of those colonized by the British, Khatun highlights alternative contexts against which to consider accounts of non-white people. Australianama challenges a central idea that powerfully shapes history books across the Anglophone world: the colonial myth that European knowledge traditions are superior to the epistemologies of the colonized. Arguing that Aboriginal and South Asian language sources are keys to the vast, complex libraries that belie colonized geographies, Khatun shows that stories in colonized tongues can transform the very ground from which we view past, present and future.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 1013
Author(s):  
Kuo-Wei Yen ◽  
Chia-Hsiang Chen

Remote sensing (RS) technology, which can facilitate the sustainable management and development of fisheries, is easily accessible and exhibits high performance. It only requires the collection of sufficient information, establishment of databases and input of human and capital resources for analysis. However, many countries are unable to effectively ensure the sustainable development of marine fisheries due to technological limitations. The main challenge is the gap in the conditions for sustainable development between developed and developing countries. Therefore, this study applied the Web of Science database and geographic information systems to analyze the gaps in fisheries science in various countries over the past 10 years. Most studies have been conducted in the offshore marine areas of the northeastern United States of America. In addition, all research hotspots were located in the Northern Hemisphere, indicating a lack of relevant studies from the Southern Hemisphere. This study also found that research hotspots of satellite RS applications in fisheries were mainly conducted in (1) the northeastern sea area in the United States, (2) the high seas area of the North Atlantic Ocean, (3) the surrounding sea areas of France, Spain and Portugal, (4) the surrounding areas of the Indian Ocean and (5) the East China Sea, Yellow Sea and Bohai Bay sea areas to the north of Taiwan. A comparison of publications examining the three major oceans indicated that the Atlantic Ocean was the most extensively studied in terms of RS applications in fisheries, followed by the Indian Ocean, while the Pacific Ocean was less studied than the aforementioned two regions. In addition, all research hotspots were located in the Northern Hemisphere, indicating a lack of relevant studies from the Southern Hemisphere. The Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean have been the subjects of many local in-depth studies; in the Pacific Ocean, the coastal areas have been abundantly investigated, while offshore local areas have only been sporadically addressed. Collaboration and partnership constitute an efficient approach for transferring skills and technology across countries. For the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030, research networks can be expanded to mitigate the research gaps and improve the sustainability of marine fisheries resources.


Radiocarbon ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 684-692 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgette Delibrias

14C measurements were carried out on sea water samples collected in 1973, in the Indian ocean. The results obtained for 9 vertical profiles between 27° S and 48°S are presented. In surface water, the bomb 14C content is maximum at middle latitudes. A time lag relative to the north hemisphere bomb 14C delivery is apparent. In the more southern latitudes, 14C content remains very low.


2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-122
Author(s):  
Radhika Seshan

The article discusses the ways in which, in the seventeenth century, as India drew the attention of more Europeans, both as private traders and as part of larger east India companies, networks of contacts were established. Two ports in particular, Surat and Madras (now Chennai), became points of intersection of Europeans and Asians, through the multi-pronged trade networks that linked these two ports to other ports in the Indian Ocean world, through traders from across regions. Focus is on the English in particular, as their main port of trade for Mughal North India was Surat, and Madras, their first fortified establishment on the coast of India.


1922 ◽  
Vol 59 (5) ◽  
pp. 200-212
Author(s):  
Robert R. Walls

Portuguese Nyasaland is the name given to the most northern part of Portuguese East Africa, lying between Lake Nyasa and the Indian Ocean. It is separated from the Tanganyika territory in the north by the River Rovuma and from the Portuguese province of Mozambique in the south by the River Lurio. The territory measures about 400 miles from east to west and 200 miles from north to south and has an area of nearly 90,000 square miles. This territory is now perhaps the least known part of the once Dark Continent, but while the writer was actually engaged in the exploration of this country in 1920–1, the Naval Intelligence Division of the British Admiralty published two handbooks, the Manual of Portuguese East Africa and the Handbook of Portuguese Nyasaland, which with their extensive bibliographies contained practically everything that was known of that country up to that date (1920). These handbooks make it unnecessary in this paper to give detailed accounts of the work of previous explorers.


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