SWAHILI CULTURE AND COMMERCE

Swahili Culture and Commerce



Swahili Culture and Commerce

Introduction

The Swahili or Waswahili are a community of people who were originally merchants and traders along the coastal regions of East Africa in countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Somalia. These historically African people subscribed to a variety of traditional African religions, values, customs, and beliefs. Scholars suggest that, as the Swahili community evolved, they intermarried and developed close relationships with a variety of other ethnic groups, also traders and merchants, who were mainly Persians and Arabs as well as members of other African communities (Allen, 2003). Because this indigenous African community exchanged goods with Persians, Arabs, and members of other ethnic groups, there was a reciprocal sharing of culture (Middleton, 1992). As in many ethnically diverse communities, this cultural sharing produced distinct artifacts, foods, and music particular to the East African indigenous communities along the coast, later called Swahili. Moreover, scholars argue that the Swahili are one of the oldest African civilizations. There are several accounts of travelers who specifically wrote about the indigenous people of the East African coast, the most common being the account of Periplus of the Erytharaean Sea written by a Greek traveler in the 1st century. This paper discusses Swahili culture and commerce in a concise and comprehensive way.

Swahili Culture and Commerce: A Discussion

Allen (2003) mentions over time, through marriage, business, and other social relationships, the indigenous communities, the Swahili people, converted to Islam while still maintaining significant aspects of their African religion and other Africanisms. As a result, today the Swahili people are mostly Muslim, followers of the Prophet Muhammad with a monotheist belief in one God (Allen, 2003). The Swahili people, like many other African peoples, had a prosperous and flourishing civilization long before the arrival of Europeans. Details about the intricacies ...