Hadrami Studies

Sumit Mandal uncovers the hybridity and transregional connections underlying modern Asian identities. By considering Arabs in the Malay world under European rule, Becoming Arab explores how a long history of inter-Asian interaction was altered by nineteenth-century racial categorisation and control. Mandal traces the transformation of Arabs from familiar and multi-faceted creole personages of Malay courts into alienated gures dee ned by economic and political function. The racialisation constrained but did not eliminate the fluid character of Arabness. Creole Arabs responded to the constraints by initiating transregional links with the Ottoman Empire and establishing modern social organisations, schools, and a press. Contentions emerged between organisations respectively based on Prophetic descent and egalitarianism, advancing empowering but conn icting representations of a modern Arab and Islamic identity. Mandal unsettles finite understandings of race and identity by demonstrating not only the incremental development of a modern identity, but the contested state of its birth.

Worlds Apart Trading Together sets out to replace the outdated notion of ‘Indo-Roman trade’ with a more informed perspective integrating the new findings of the last 30 years. In order to accomplish this, a perspective focusing on concrete demand from the ground up is adopted, also shedding light on the role of the market in long-distance exchange. Accordingly, the analysis conducted demonstrates that an economically highly substantial trade took place between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean in the 1st–6th cen. CE, altering patterns of consumption and modes of production in both India, South Arabia and the Roman Empire. Significantly, it can be documented that this trade was organised at the centres of demand and supply, in Rome and India, respectively, by comparable urban associations, the transport in-between being handled by equally well-organised private networks and diasporas of seagoing merchants. Consequently, this study concludes that the institution of the market in Antiquity was able to facilitate trade over very long distances, acting on a scale which had a characteristic impact on the economies of the societies involved, their economic structures converging by adapting to trade and the market.
NB: See uploaded addenda in paper below 'Worlds Apart Trading Together – addenda'
Available reviews:
—J. Simmons in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018.09.59 (http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2018/2018-09-59.html).
—R. Tomber in Journal of Roman Archaeology 31, II (2018): 948–52.

This book explores new ways of understanding of Islamic religious authority, showing how religious leaders unite diverse aspects of life and contest differing Muslim perspectives to create distinctly Muslim communities. Taking readers from the eighteenth century to today, Alatas traces the movements of Muslim saints and scholars from Yemen to Indonesia and looks at how they traversed complex cultural settings while opening new channels for the transmission of Islamic teachings. He describes the rise to prominence of Indonesia’s leading Sufi master, Habib Luthfi, and his rivalries with competing religious leaders, revealing why some Muslim voices become authoritative while others don’t. Alatas examines how Habib Luthfi has used the infrastructures of the Sufi order and the Indonesian state to build a durable religious community, while deploying genealogy and hagiography to present himself as a successor of the Prophet Muḥammad. Challenging prevailing conceptions of what it means to be Muslim, the book demonstrates how the concrete and sustained labors of translation, mobilization, collaboration, and competition are the very dynamics that give Islam its power and diversity.

First discovered in 2001, and fully published in 2012, a corpus of more than 200 graffiti from the cave Hoq on ancient Dioscourides, modern Socotra, constitutes an invaluable resource shedding a rare light on trade routes of the ancient Indian Ocean. Whereas more abundant evidence has previously been available to document the activities of Roman merchants, while evidence attesting the role of their Indian counterparts has been comparatively scarce, it now becomes possible to move beyond the traditional bias towards ‘Romano-centric’ narratives, thus, providing a fuller account of ancient long-distance trade in the region. Specifically, the graffiti introduce us to traders and travellers, Buddhist monks and Yavanas, hailing from Roman Egypt, Palmyra, Axum, Hadramawt, Western India, Bactria and Gandhara. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to appraise the importance of the Hoq graffiti for Indian Ocean studies, analyse the import of the evidence for our knowledge about the organisation of trade, and outline the resulting corrigenda to the orthodox picture of ‘Indo-Roman trade’.

K. Grønlund Evers, ‘Cave of Revelations: Indian Ocean trade in light of the Socotran graffiti,’ in "Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology" 10–11 (2014–15): 19–37.

Note1: This is a digital version 2.0 differing slightly from the printed article in that it contains some corrections and, most importantly, full references to graffiti.
Note2: This digital v.2.1. further corrects a minor misreading on p. 25, so that the corrected reference now reads "Burrows 1940: #324."

One of the closest ways to understand the history of Southeast Asia is by looking at this field as a fight of civilizations zone, in which the world civilizations came one after the other and competed each other for power. In this case, India came first, followed by China, Islam and the West for political and economic purposes and religious preaching. In term of the lastest, Islam came out as predominant actor, considering that Islam formed majority in this region amounting to more than 300 million followers (more than 200 million followers in Indonesia). This article extensively analyzes Islamization as psychological and social phenomena. Thus, it tries to answer why religious conversion in this case of Islam took place effectively in a massive scale. Islam and Muslim alike, have laid strong foundations for the process of this religious conversion through the role of kingdoms and supporting international community.

The 'Periplus of the Red Sea' was written around the year 70 CE by an anonymous Alexandrian Egyptian merchant and captain, who certainly had personal experience in vast parts of that navigation and trade network area, and wished to compile a kind of guide for sailors and traders.

As the 'Periplus of the Red Sea' describes navigation routes, in the first (from Arsinoe / Suez to Rhapta / Dar es Salam) sea route, the coasts of Somalia occupy the largest part of the text (paragraph 8 to paragraph 18 out of a total of 18 paragraphs). In the first 7 paragraphs of the text, the author describes the navigation (from to) and the trade in harbours and ports of call in the coasts of today's Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea.
.............................
The entire coast beyond Adulis up to Avalites on the Bab el Mandeb straits belonged reportedly to Axum. Beyond that point extended 'I Alli Berberia', the Other Berberia.

The 7th Chapter of the Periplus of the Red Sea is dedicated to Avalites. We find useful to publish it here integrally so that we give the reader full details about the Other Berberia.
http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard/Article/Somalia--the-Other-Berberia--Abyssinia--Yemen-and-the-Periplus-of-the-Red-Sea/101573
2008-05-16

The nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of new patterns of interaction between the Ottoman Empire and other parts of the Islamic world. This development became, especially during the latter part of the century, an important issue for the colonial powers. Sometimes the latter tried to use these new relations to the advantage of their colonial policies, but at the same time there was a widespread fear of their potential to undermine western control over the Muslim-dominated parts of their colonies. Ottoman rapprochement with the wider Islamic world was thus problematised within the context of colonial policies and led to considerable debate among western policymakers and some leading orientalists such as Snouck Hurgronje...

This article examines dreaming as an Islamic practice of historical inquiry among traditionalist Muslims of Central Java, Indonesia. Combining insights from the anthropologies of Islam and history, it looks at alternative praxes of history, how they are interpreted through Islamic frameworks, and how they generate forms of religious authority. The article follows the work of a Sufi master, Habib Luthfi bin Yahya, in identifying old unmarked graves as saintly tombs through dreams. Successful history-making projects have resulted in the increasing – albeit contested – recognition of Habib Luthfi’s role as a dreaming saint, a form of Islamic authority premised on his perceived ability to oneirically explore the past on behalf of others and arbitrate history. By observing the connection between praxes of history and the formation of religious authority, the article calls for the broadening of anthropological studies of Islam beyond their current preoccupation with the religion’s prescriptive dimension.

This article examines the Bāʿ Alawī— a group of Ḥaḍramī diaspora acknowledged as the descendants of Prophet Muḥammad— in post-colonial Indonesia. In particular, it observes the Bā ʿAlawī scholars’ creative adaptation and manipulation of their sufi path, Ṭarīqa ʿAlawīyya, in their attempt to secure their place within the wider imagination of Indonesian nationhood while protecting their distinctive genealogical eminence. In the twentieth century the ṭarīqa which had long functioned to secure their identity, differentiate them from others and nurture their diasporic consciousness, proved incompatible with the assimilationist discourse of the nation. Further challenges came from Islamic reformism, preaching egalitarianism increasingly defined public articulation of Islam, confronting the Bā ʿAlawī’s notion of Islamic authority.
The Bā ʿAlawī scholars adapted by reshaping of the ṭarīqa rituals, shifting emphasis on Prophetic piety, expanding the Bā ʿAlawī textual community to include local scholars, and the projecting of a new form of Prophetic authority in an ḥadīthi framework. Such shifts were sustained by the construction of a new Bā ʿAlawī center in Kwitang, Jakarta and the cultivation of scholarly networks binding the Bā ʿAlawī and local kyais (Indonesian Islamic scholars). More specifically, this paper observes the career of three Bā ʿAlawī scholars and their efforts to reconfigure the discursive practice of the ṭarīqa in the early decades of the Indonesian republic. By presenting practices recognizable to the dominant modes of Islamic reformism in the country, the Bā ʿAlawī succeeded in maintaining their visibility in Sukarno’s Indonesia.

This obituary offers some personal memories of Fuad Nahdi (1957–2020), based on my interactions with him, as well as some reflections on the historic importance of Q-News, the British Muslim periodical Nahdi founded, which was published between 1992 and 2006, partly based on short impromptu interviews done with some who worked on the magazine with Nahdi. In Q-News, Nahdi created the most consequential UK Muslim publication of its day and helped shape how a whole generation of young Muslims saw their identity and faith. He should be remembered alongside Abdullah Quilliam (1856–1932) and Dr Kalim Siddiqui (1931–1996) as among the great journalists-cum-activists that British Islam has produced.

Al-Irshad is an organization established by Arabs living in Indonesia in 1914. This article investigates how the activities of al-Irshad changed from the late Dutch colonial period to the 1950s. Its objective is to elucidate how the Arabs were integrated in Indonesian society and what key factors were involved in this process.

The development of Islam in Indonesia during the New Order period can be seen as cultural struggle between groups which Geertz called abangan (nominal Muslim with less Islamic concern), santri (the ‘pious’ Muslims) and priyayi (elite group). By the mid-1980s, abangan and priyayi were associated with Soeharto and his government who dominated Indonesian politics (Emmerson 1976; Anderson 1990). The santri, on the other hand, were powerless, marginalized and known as the ‘outsiders’ (McVey 1983). The rivalry between these groups emerged for the first time when, in the early New Order, Soeharto backed by the military, did not approve rehabilitation of the Islamic party, restricted Muslim political activists, and made alliances with non-santri political actors in running modernization and economic development.

The New Order’s commitment to development through the economic growth paradigm resulted in restriction and suppression of any political group who developed a political ideology. Those who suffered most from this policy were the santri group. In the 1970s and 1980s, when  there was Islam-phobia amongst government officials, the restriction applied to Muslim religious activities. Anyone who intended to expand Islamic influence in national life was suspected and accused of trying to establish an Islamic state and being anti-Pancasila. Dakwah activities were strictly controlled; criticizing authority was illegal and often condemned as subversion. Santri believed that the government was ‘hostile to Islam.’ The state was hegemonic and the New Order became an authoritarian regime. Restriction after restriction made the santri resentful as though they were outsiders in their own country.

However, during the 1980s and 1990s, facilitated by the movement of ‘cultural Islam,’ a Muslim redefinition of their earlier ‘ideological or political Islam,’ Indonesia experienced an Islamization almost in every social group and all social levels, from students to government elite circle. There was a significant increase of religious activities within Muslim society. The agenda of ‘cultural Islam’ was that, the image of Islam should be changed from ‘ideological’ to ‘cultural’ through the activities of mass education, dakwah (religious predication), arts and anything that was not ‘political.’

Supported by the success of Indonesian economic development, the changing face of Islam and the problems of dislocation and identity crisis that accompanied the urbanization process, the result of cultural Islam was remarkable: there was an Islamic education boom, Islam was no longer linked to a political party but conversely viewed as ethical support for development. Through cultural Islam, ‘ideological Islam’ changed to be ‘benign Islam.’ Political orientation shifted to cultural orientation. After 1985, there was a ‘deideologization of Islam’ and Islam-phobia gradually disappeared. Various social and political communities started adopting Islamic teaching and applied it in their daily life. Identifying as Muslim identity became a trend among various groups of people from the students up to government elite. The abangan gradually declined in numbers and santri increased. Because of these changes, many believed that Geertz’s trichotomy was no longer useful in analysing Islam in Indonesia (Hefner 1997, 1998; Anwar 1998).

The most interesting phenomenon in the emergence of religious revival is found  amongst the middle class people. This thesis argues that in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a shaping of the Muslim middle class identified by five cultural traits: First, is the wearing of the veil. Beginning in university mosques, head-scarves spread to schoolgirls and middle class women. Since the 1980s, the veils have been worn by civil servants, government officers, business people, professional groups, actresses etc. For the middle class, veil wearing has become a religious means for catering to their psychological needs to escape from the problem of dislocation and identity crisis. Second, is the emergence of kasidah songs of Bimbo. The Muslim middle class is a class of people who have been urbanized and transformed into urban life and modernized whose aesthetic taste has also changed. Bimbo’s kasidah emerged to cater to the changing taste of the Muslim middle class. Third, the clearest evidence of the formation of a Muslim middle class was the establishment of ICMI in 1990 (Kuntowijoyo 1991; Ramage 1995; Hefner 1993, 1997; Vatikiotis 1997). ICMI was possible due to the Islamic education boom from the 1970s that has been the basis of Islamization in the New Order bureaucracy called ‘Islamization of bureaucracy.’ A huge number of university graduates became civil servants and government officials. The expansion of educated Muslims has an inevitable political impact, and this in the resulted establishment of ICMI. ICMI is the organization supported by qualified human resources with 75 per cent of its participants are university graduates. Fourth, print media is another means whereby the Muslim middle class articulated their taste and ideas. The journal Ulumul Qur’an (UQ), daily Republika and weekly Ummat were three Muslim media with similar traits: modern life oriented, professionally organized, and liberal. These were the media where educated Muslim middle class articulated themselves. Showing Islam as relevant to modern life, these media received an enthusiastic welcome from educated people. In short, these media emerged as the expression of the changing taste of knowledge of Muslim society. Lastly, the phenomenon of prestigious religious learning activities called “kelompok pengajian elit” was another trait of the Muslim middle class. Since the mid 1980s, there has been a new trend where religious learning activities overwhelmed the middle class people. Professional groups, businessmen, government officials etc. returned to religious devotion. The pengajian activities were regularly held in hotels and prestigious places. These five cultural phenomena —emerged during the same period— are put and analised in the context of Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’ that is class codes that reinforced one another to link behaviour, ideology and identity. These cultural codes demonstrate the emergence of Muslim middle class during the New Order period. They indicate the decline of the abangan culture and symbolize the santri’s “cultural domination.”

The following article gives reviews on roles of the Sufi path, ʿAlawîyah Tariqa among ‘Alawîyyîn, to success their diaspora in Gresik regency using the socio-anthropological approach. It observes the ‘Alawîyyîn scholars as a group of migrants who adapt their Sufi path creatively with their new environment. Therefore, they have significant roles to keep their identity as ‘Alawîyyîn diaspora. It is found that rituals practiced by ‘Alawîyyîn in Gresik are reading râtib, h}awl and rawh}ah. In this context, the ritual has found aspects of the  socio-anthropological values, as it involves a series of human creativity that has been shaping the culture, communication, and mobility in the social environment. From our view, the practice of the Sufi path, ‘Alawîyah Tariqa in Gresik, has become moral values that were internalized by its followers, and have been implemented by them as a behavior in the community. These rituals can keep their social-religious authority as ahl al-bayt (the descendants of Prophet Muhammad).

As it is already known, local peoples in the area of Somalia, and the Horn of Africa area down to the coast of present day Mozambique, did not develop scriptures of their own in the pre-Christian and even the Pre-Islamic Antiquity.

So, contrarily to what happened in Yemen where Ancient Yemenite scripture was introduced already in the 6th century BCE (and was in use until the Islamization of the country, following Ali’s preaching in Sanaa in 630 CE) for the needs of writing down Minaean, Sabaean, Qatabani, Himyarite and Hadhramauti (the basic Ancient Yemenite languages), we have to rely exclusively on foreign literatures in our effort to reconstitute the Ancient History of the Eastern African Coast.

Although the area was at the confines of the then known world, the Eastern African Coast was constantly and regularly visited by Assyrians and Babylonians already in the 3rd millennium BCE. The area was described in Ancient Egyptian generically as 'Punt’, but to modern scholarship this term is difficult to be precisely delineated as a part of the entire area.
15 May 2008
http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard/Article/Somalia-as-Part-of-the-East---West-Trade-during-the-Antiquity/101255

"By conducting auto-ethnography, this paper is constructed as a reflection on living in a santri village in East Java in 1980's, that are ecologically influenced by surrounding teak forest ecosystems.
Two points are raised in this reflection, which can be termed as agrarian and environmental justice issues. These two issues intertwined each other and they are becoming more precarious in current situation. Unfortunately, these two issues—due to certain historical trauma—tend to be ignored by pesantren community.

Keywords: agrarian justice, environmental justice, teak forest ecosystem, pesantren"

This article examines a little-known treatise on the commemoration of ʿĀshūrāʾ (the martyrdom of al-Ḥusayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muḥammad) written by a scholar from the Ḥaḍramawt, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar Bin Yaḥyā (d. 1265/1849). Entitled Risāla fī ibṭāl bidaʿ munkarāt (Treatise on Nullifying Reprehensible Innovations), the text was composed in response to the ʿĀshūrāʾ commemorative processions introduced by South Asian Muslims in early nineteenth century Malay-Indonesian Archipelago and witnessed by the author during his travel there (1832-1835). In this treatise, Ibn Yaḥyā de fines a lawful, regulated, and emotionally restrained way of commemorating al-Ḥusayn's martyrdom while stressing the imperative of ʿAlid leadership of the umma. I then discuss the recent resurfacing of a redacted summary of the Risāla in Indonesia. I show that in the context of an increasingly intense Sunni-Shiʿi sectarian contestation that characterized contemporary Indonesia, the redacted version of this ʿAlid treatise circulates as an anti-Shiʿi text.

[ Abstract ] This paper explores the influence of Arab culture on the culture of Bugis-Makassar, the two major ethnic groups in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, particularly after their Islamization in the early 17 th century. The paper argues that since then, the ongoing process of Islamization in the region has also brought a continuous flow of ideas and cultural practices from Mecca to Indonesia by means of the hajj pilgrims, Arab traders, and the establishment of Islamic educational institutions that emphasized the teaching and use of Arabic language in education. These factors, among others, have facilitated a cultural inflow which enabled cultural practices borne of West Asia (Middle East) to be integrated into local customs and beliefs. The paper particularly depicts the most observable forms of Arabic cultural integration, acculturation, and assimilation into the Bugis-Makassar culture such as the use of Arabic in Islamic schools and religious sermons; the Arab-style dressing by religious scholars, teachers, and students; the wearing of the hijab (head cover) by women; and the change of people's names from local into Arabic. By utilizing the historical and anthropological approach, this paper investigates this dynamic process of adaptation and integration of a foreign culture that first came through the Islamization of a local culture, exploring the role of an Islamic missionary and educational institutions in mediating and maintaining such cultural integration processes.

In an earlier article published under the title ‘Devastating HRW Report on Yemen Reveals Need for Instant Secession of the South’
(http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/133889), I republished part of the enlightening HRW Report on South Yemen, namely the Contents, the Summary, and the Recommendations. In the present article, I republish further parts, notably the Methodology and the Background, including however again the Contents in order to offer a brief overview to readers. At the end, the notes to the aforementioned parts are made available.

Although the Report focuses on violations of Human Rights in occupied South Yemen, a brief historical background is added (that I integrally republish herewith). The background’s largest part is dedicated to the mechanisms of control and oppression, and to Yemenite politics after the forced unification. Yet, two paragraphs are included for the description of Yemenite History’s earlier phases. The over-generalizations, misconceptions, oversights and inaccuracies found therein reveal the epicenter of the problem that lies in the false representation of the historical reality by the Anglo-French academia.

Only because of the Orientalist fallacies and their totalitarian imposition throughout the Western academia and universities, the world’s mass media (controlled by those who generate the Orientalist fallacies) manage to be successful in their systematic work of distortion of today’s reality. With the average people misinformed and misled, the Freemasonic regimes of London, Paris and Washington face practically speaking no opposition to their shameful and Anti-Christian deeds.

I will first refute in brief the inaccuracies contained in these two paragraphs, and then proceed with the Report’s republication.
9 February 2010
http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard/Article/Yemen-s-History-Distorted-to-Fit-Freemasonic-Anglo-French-Goals---HRW-Report-s-Background/199739

Research Abstract:
Purpose – Indonesia is the biggest Muslim country in the world. Attention on the importance of Halal labeling in Indonesia is now growing. Halal‐conscious consumer segment is getting bigger and the Halal Product Protection Act is being drafted. Understanding purchase behavior of Muslim consumer regarding Halal Labeling is imperative for marketer doing business in a Muslim country. The purpose of this paper is to test the applicability of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in explaining the intention to switch from products without certified Halal labels within a wide array of purchase context, especially in the purchase of food and medicine products.

Design/methodology/approach – A policy capturing questionnaire was used to elicit responses from consumers using a convenience sampling technique. A total of 7500
responses were obtained from 150 participating respondent in 50 different scenario cases. Data is analyzed using Multi‐Group Structural Equation Modeling.

Findings – The findings is that Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is not completely valid to explain both the behavioral intention of Muslim consumers in Indonesia to seek information about the Halal certification of a product and to cancel their purchase if the product did not have Halal certification. Differences in magnitude and significance of
causal relationships exist between different product categories.
Research limitations/implications – The study employs a limited population, thus this research has weak external validity. However, because this research is using quasi-experimental method, this research has strong internal validity in return. Thus, relationships among variables can be explained, even though a generalization to field conditions still needs further research.

Practical implications – The results will be primarily beneficial to marketers of food and medicine product sold in Muslim countries by offering an insight into the intentions of consumers to cancel purchases of products without Halal labeling.

Originality/value – The paper extends the understanding of the behavior of Muslim consumer toward products without Halal labeling within a variety of purchase context.

Keywords: Purchase Behavior, Halal Label, Muslim Consumer

Creole Histories and Modern Identity in the Malay World by Sumit K. Mandal offers a riveting account of the history of Arab migrants in Southeast Asia from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century-a period spanning some 70 years that was most definitive in shedding light on European colonial expansion in the Malay world. Brilliantly illuminating his narrative and analysis with empirical details sourced from original references and fieldwork material in Java (Mandal's chosen site of investigation), the book is all the more admirable when we consider that the author's national and ethnic backgrounds do not coincide with those of the subjects he has assiduously researched, and with whom he poignantly empathises with.

This article investigates the social and discursive processes that have enabled the emergence and maintenance of pilgrimage practice by examining the rising popularity of the Ḥaḍramawt valley of Southern Yemen as a pilgrimage destination for Indonesian Muslims. Pilgrimage to Ḥaḍramawt mainly revolves around visiting the tombs of Bā ʿAlawī (a group of Ḥaḍramīs who claim direct descent from the Prophet Muḥammad) Sufi saints and scholars scattered around the valley. Moving away from ritual-analysis, the article observes the roles of various actors involved in its production and consumption of pilgrimage. It analyzes pilgrimage as a poetic project that frame travel as a transformative process. As a project, pilgrimage can be described as poetic because it hinges on the construction of multiple chronotopes, that are juxtaposed, compared, contrasted, and assembled into meaningful alignments. The actors discussed in this article are involved in producing chronotopes of Ḥaḍramawt as a spiritually idealized place that are made to resonate with mass-mediated chronotopes of idealized Islamic circulating among Indonesian Muslims, and contrasted with chronotopes of the modern world. Framed by such a poetic mediation, pilgrims comprehend their actual travel to Ḥaḍramawt as a cross-chronotopic movement that is posited to have transformative effect on their own selves. This article therefore observes the various mechanisms of attraction and seduction at work in pilgrimage practice, while demonstrating the structural similarities between pilgrimage and other forms of tourism.

I document an Arabic-based language game of Hadramaut, Yemen which was briefly mentioned in the 1930s by Harold Ingrams. Ingrams comments on the social context of its use, but provides little description and no concrete examples. I present a description here obtained during recent fieldwork in Yemen and from Saudi Arabian sources (Bakalla, forthcoming). The phenomena described are found to be relevant to a recent proposal as to the phonological classification of language games (Botne & Davis, 2000). I also outline its current sociocultural significance and contrast this with its status in Ingrams' time, showing a historical development with respect to the status of the speakers using it and the goal for which they resorted to speech disguise.

This obituary offers some personal memories of Fuad Nahdi (1957-2020), based on my interactions with him, as well as some reflections on the historic importance of Q-News, the British Muslim periodical Nahdi founded, which was published between 1992 and 2006, partly based on short impromptu interviews done with some who worked on the magazine with Nahdi. In Q-News, Nahdi created the most consequential UK Muslim publication of its day and helped shape how a whole generation of young Muslims saw their identity and faith. He should be remembered alongside Abdullah Quilliam (1856-1932) and Dr Kalim Siddiqui (1931-1996) as among the great journalists-cum-activists that British Islam has produced.

As far as the history of Yemen is concerned, the 'Periplus of the Erythraean (Red) Sea' is a valuable source of information – among many other similar sources – written in Ancient Greek by an Egyptian captain and merchant of Alexandria in the second half of the 1st CE.

The text offers no less than 19 of its 66 paragraphs to the area of the then Yemenite states and of their colonies on the Eastern Coast of Africa. If we only count that the text starts with the description of the Red Sea coast of Egypt and goes down to the coast of today’s Tanzania, and then it continues with the narration of details about the coast of Arabia, and – after Yemen – the Persian Gulf, the coast of Persia, Pakistan, India, and Sri Lanka, finally ending with a brief account of the way to reach China through Indochina, we deduce that the significance of Yemen within the East – West trade and navigation must have been seminal.
Also published in AfroArticles: 22nd March 2008
Presented as video:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3xx14b_hadhramaut-the-frankincense-bearing-country-by-prof-muhammad-shamsaddin-megalommatis_school

This article examines the Bā ʿAlawī—a group of Ḥaḍramī diaspora acknowledged as the descendants of the Prophet—in post-colonial Indonesia. In particular, it looks at the ḥawl, an annual commemoration of, or collective pilgrimage to, the tombs of Bā ʿAlawī saints/scholars. Focusing on two contemporary ḥawls in Central Java—that of Aḥmad b. ʿAbdullāh al-ʿAṭṭās (d. 1346/1927) in Pekalongan, and that of ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Ḥabashī (d. 1330/1912) in Solo—the article charts the transformations of both ḥawls from diasporic Arab gatherings into Indonesian public expressions of Islam. In the post-colonial period, when the place of the Ḥaḍramīs in the national imagination was far from being settled, the ḥawls have enabled the recasting of the Bā ʿAlawī as an integral part of the nation while allowing them to maintain their genealogical and spiritual distinctions. The sites, rituals, and commentaries of the ḥawl sustained the construction of networks connecting Bā ʿAlawī scholars to local Muslim scholars, providing the Bā ʿAlawī with cultural ties that maintain their distinction while anchoring them to the wider Muslim public. Examining the Bā ʿAlawī ḥawl underlines the importance of rituals in the creation and maintenance of informal Muslim networks, which in turn facilitate the practical integration into the larger public of a group previously considered an ethnic minority.