The Waswahili Community Trust UK
(Wadhamini wa jumuiya ya Waswahili)
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The Waswahili Community Trust UK |
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It has occurred many times in the course of Swahili history that a family or sometimes a whole clan has requested membership of a Swahili City-State with the express view of being accepted as Swahilis. They converted to Islam and assumed henceforth a Swahili way of life. These were the Honorary Swahilis.
This is extraordinary but there may be parallels in the history of other peoples that we are not aware of. In the course of time, these Honorary Swahilis became not merely culturally but also genetically integrated into the Swahilis communities in which they had assumed membership. These Honorary Swahilis reinforced the African genetic component of the Waswahili.
One of the reasons why the Swahilis have thus been difficult to categorize racially is because they are (and have been for 1400 years) people who have freely inter-married with 'foreigners' from other parts of the Indian Ocean shores. The important word here is 'inter-marriage'.
In the context of human beings, inter-marriage is not merely an exchange of genetic materials through sexual intercourse. Inter-marriage means a formal socially recognized and usually religiously approved bond between two human beings: male and female. But, interestingly, the major difference between the Swahilis and their American/Caribbean counterparts is that the former have always been a proud, free people with full legitimacy, the latter have always been regarded as 'bastards' by their societies.
The white men of the Americas were not allowed by their religion to practice polygamy. At the same time, they invariably found creature comforts with their slave girls. The result was that the genetic mixture of the offspring was not recognized by their societies and the children were regarded as bastards.
When a Muslim has intercourse with a slave woman, she immediately becomes a free woman and her children are openly acknowledged to have been sired by their free fathers. Thus while their American counterparts laboured under the severe stigma of being illegitimate children, those in Swahililand had no such social stigma.
The recent revival of the controversy that a distinguished American President, Thomas Jefferson, had an illegitimate child with one of his slaves is a case in point . In short, the Swahilis have absorbed genetic sires from a wide ethnic spectrum but have pegged these to a common African linguistic and cultural base. And while they have been very happy with their ethnic diversity, they have resolutely maintained their linguistic and cultural integrity.
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Copyright© 2003: The Waswahili Community Trust (UK)
Registered Charity:1083065