HISTORY OF THE SULTANATE

                                      HISTORY OF THE SULTANATE

The Sultanate can be traced to ancient Omani presence at the Kenyan Coast.  The presence of settlers from the Arabian Peninsula, including Oman has been documented for over a millennium, aided by trade and spread of Islam.  Some scholars of Antiquity have documented this in the famous Periplus of the Erythrean Sea which documents thriving Swahili/Arab settlements on the Kenyan Coast more than 1,000 years ago.  Ibn Battuta who travelled on this Coast in the early 1200s made a similar observation and there is a consensus among mainstream historians that Middle Eastern or Oman settlement on the Kenyan Coast could predate the arrival of Islam on the African continent in some aspect, or that Islam arrived on the East African Coast via these settlers before reaching most of Asia and North Africa.

 It is also a matter of consensus among historians that by the early 1600 the Sultanate of Oman had set eyes on Zanzibar as an overseas possession, eventually declaring it part of its territory in 1698. Two Omani families dominated the settler community - the Al Mazrui and Al Busaidi.  By 1698 the Al Busaidi clan or dynasty ousted the Al Mazrui from many Coastal towns including Eastern Africa.  Further treaties between them would enable the two dynasties control various aspects of life in the Omani East African possession.  The settlers intermarried with local tribes and some experts believe this led to the founding of Swahili race and language.

After generations, contact with and allegiance to Oman appeared to grow cold and weaker and today many Al Mazrui and Al Busaidi confess they cannot find their lineage in Oman.

In 1831 or 1832 Said bin Sultan, the ruler of Oman commonly known as Sayyid Said transferred the monarchy’s seat from Muscat to Zanzibar.  Zanzibar covered the Kenya Coast, many parts of current mainland Tanzania and into present day Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and two islands of Pemba and Zanzibar and parts of today’s Somalia.  He introduced cloves cultivation in Zanzibar and invited Indian businessmen to invest on the island.

Sayyid Said had been Sultan since 1804 and when he died in Zanzibar in 1856 two sons Majid bin Said and Thuwayni waged war to succeed him leading to the split of the Sultanate.  Thuwayni took over Oman as Majid took over Zanzibar, effectively securing Zanzibar’s independence from the old Omani Sultanate.  Majid’s rule is not celebrated for it strengthened the Zanzibar economy on the basis of slave trade.  His successor Bargash bin Said introduced policies to abolish slave trade and the system of exploitation.  His successor Khalifa bin Said further extended the anti-slavery policy and modernization of infrastructure.  Meanwhile, as early as the mid-1600s tensions between Oman and Portuguese increased, partly as a result of Portugal’s growing interest in the Indian Ocean and attempts to colonize East African.  Before that Portugal had conquered Oman but the conquest was reversed in 1660.  Portugal, after this reversal, tried to attack Oman possessions in East African including Mombasa which the Portuguese captured in the late 1690s.

This occupation ignited a resistance by Arabs and local Africans and ended in the famous Siege of Fort Jesus when the rebels besieged and starved Portuguese soldiers and adventurers and their families inside Fort Jesus to death for three years between March 13 1696 and December 13 1698.

Until 1886 the Sultanate of Zanzibar covered the Kenya Coast.  History would begin to change with the arrival of new colonizers from Britain and German.  That year during the reign of Sultan Ali bin Said Zanzibar become part of British protectorate after the signing of the Heligoland Treaty between the British and Germans.  By the Treaty the Sultanate of Zanzibar ceded its East African possessions to Britain, which would later also take over the Kenya protectorate from the Imperial British East Africa Company.

Henceforth Zanzibar, including the Kenyan Coast were ruled as a British protectorate alongside the Kenya colony and, eventually, Tanganyika from 1918 after the latter territory was taken from Germany at the end of the first World ward.

Britain exercised indirect rule over Zanzibar allowing no less than eight sultans to govern the territory until 1964 when the departing colonialists gave power to a constitutional monarchy led by Jamshid.

Following the death in 1896 of Sultan Hamid Thuwaini who had succeed Ali bin Said there was a struggle to succeed him involving Khalid Bargash who occupied the throne against the orders of the British who preferred Hamud bin Mohamed who was considered a British stooge.  When Khalid refused to vacate the palace it was attacked and he was forced into exile and Hamud bin Mohamed was installed by the British.

62. On January 12 1964 the last Sultan of Zanzibar Jamshid Abdullah bin Said fled the island of Zanzibar at the end of a rebellion by revolutionaries led by John Okello, a mysterious stone mason from Uganda or Kenya who had travelled to then British protectorate to look for work in the last days of colonialism.  Jamshid’s flight ended the long reign of 11 Sultans on the East Africa Coast, a monarch that traced its roots to Oman.  Approximately three months later, on October 5 1963, before the revolution and the flight, Jamshid had ceded control of a part of Zanzibar to the soon to be  independent Kenya in a treaty signed by him, Prime minister Jomo Kenyatta and Zanzibar’s prime minister Mohammed Shamte.  By this treaty signed in London’s Colonial Office the Kenyan Coastal strip which had been part of Zanzibar effectively since 1856 become part of the geographical and political entity called Kenya.

Zanzibar renounced its claim to the Kenyan Coast transferring the jurisdiction to Kenya.  But by taking over the Kenya Coastal strip Kenya agreed to uphold and protect Kadhi courts to arbitrate Muslims’ personal law, promote Arabic language in the new part of its territory and as much as possible allow Muslims to administer predominantly Muslim parts of Kenya.  Letters exchanged by the two prime ministers obliged Kenya to allow and uphold freedom of worship for Muslims besides preservation of their buildings and institutions.  Kenyatta accepted the condition that administrative officers “in predominantly Muslim areas should, as far as is reasonably practicable, profess the Muslim religion.”  Without this treaty independent Kenya would been landlocked.  Jamshid bin Abdulla reigned until the 1964 ouster at the Zanzibar Revolution.  He fled to the UK where he died.

from the case Hassan Ali Joho  v IG and 3 others