This paper focuses on the Shadhili shaykh and scholar, the poet, grammarian and historian, school teacher and public intellectual, bibliophile and leader of the Comorian community in Zanzibar, Burhan Mkelle (1884-1949). In his multiple positions, Mkelle was often called upon to serve the colonial government, first and foremost as teacher in the government schools, and as author of instruction material (especially Arabic language instruction). In his capacity as long-term head of the Comorian association of Zanzibar, Mkelle ran what amounts to a modern “jam’iyya” that collected dues, and redistributed funds to marriages and mosque repairs as well as travels to and from the Comoros. As a long-term shaykh of the Shadhiliyya, he also functioned as an arbitrator in disputes, at least once in the form of a peace treaty written in poetic form. Finally, Mkelle’s own poetry and prose chronicled Zanzibari history as well as that of the Comoro Islands.
This paper is part of a broader work that aims to bring to light the early Sufi responses, to the reorganizations following from colonial rule, and to the rise of modernist-Salafi ideas within Islam. The complete papers of Burhan Mkelle (from his carefully written up poetry to notebooks and accounts of the Comorian association) is kept with his family in Zanzibar, and will be examined with a view to the following questions: How did a Sufi trained scholar respond to colonial imperatives such government schools, the forming of ethnically based associations, and the regulations placed on travel and money transfers? And, on the other hand, how did Mkelle and the Shadhiliyya respond to the emergence of new ideas of Islamic orthodoxy, organizational forms and teaching styles?