3 - Texts as Contexts: The Making of Religious Traditions in the Omani Empire

The Omani rule in East Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries consolidated centuries of interaction between Asia and Africa through the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. This sphere of interaction and connections in the Western Indian Ocean through the realm of the Omani Empire was shaped by the exchange and dissemination of religious texts from the Muslim traditions. Such texts were conduits of ideas, ideologies, rules and regulations that provided Omani rule with an identity and with legitimacy. This presentation looks at the different genres of religious texts circulating between Oman and East Africa during Omani rule, shedding light on how they served to bring cohesion to that rule across two continents, negotiate between its different social and religious entities, and shape a specific Ibadi-Muslim religious culture with distinctive characteristics. The research is based on primary sources in Arabic from Oman and Zanzibar.