Dr. Chembea Suleiman Athuman and Dr. Franz Kogelmann on female Islamic poetry in Zanzibar

Abstract

Abstract: In this episode of the Cluster Conversations Dr. Franz Kogelmann talks with Cluster fellow Dr. Chembea Suleiman Athuman about his project "Poetry (Qasidah) and Women’s Bodies in the Creation, Dissemination of Islamic Knowledge and Cultural Identity in Zanzibar". The study examines how active involvement of women in Islamic poetry (qasidah) helps (de-)construct traditional dynamics in the production and dissemination of Islamic knowledge and creation of cultural identity(-ies) along the East African coast. While Islamic knowledge production and dissemination was largely associated with male ulama (clerical class) in textual and religious spaces, advancement of media technology has caused a shift where qasidah not only support religious themes but also provide variations in the creation and transmission of knowledge and religious community identity. This shift, though rapidly gaining currency across Muslim communities, is explored within the microcosm of Zanzibar to understand how performance of poetry presents an avenue through which Muslim women engage with religious discourses in the region.

People & roles

Guest(s): Chembea, Suleiman; Kogelmann, Franz

Origins & context

Title: Dr. Chembea Suleiman Athuman and Dr. Franz Kogelmann on female Islamic poetry in Zanzibar
Language: English
Podcast series: Cluster Conversations
Date: March 22, 2024

Rights & access

Extent: 28 minutes, 30 seconds

Identifiers & sources

has URL: https://www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/en/1_4-Public-engagement_-engagement1/Podcasts/ClusterConversations/Episode-17/index.html

Further details

Episode number: 17

Full text

[music] Speaker 1: Cluster Conversations, a podcast by Africa Multiple. Speaker 2: Hello everyone, this is the latest edition of the Cluster Conversations. And our special guest is Sulaiman Chembia, Doctor Sulaiman Chembia from Kenya. My name is Franz Kogelmann. I am one of the cluster members. I am the managing director. My academic background is in Islamic studies. That's why Sulaiman Chembia, Doctor Sulaiman Chembia is now here in Bayreuth. Welcome, a warm welcome to Sulaiman. Speaker 3: Thank you very much for the warm welcome and hello viewers and listeners. I'm happy to be part of this conversation. Speaker 2: Sulaiman, your doctorate title is according to your CV is from the University of Bayreuth. You're an alumnus of the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies. So that means you are not a total newcomer to this esteemed university. So could you elaborate a bit about your academic past and then we talk about the future? Speaker 3: Oh thank you. It's true, I'm not very new to Bayreuth and Germany as a whole. I'm an alumnus of the University of Bayreuth having begun here in 2014 for my PhD program. But my relations with the host who is now happens to be my colleague, Doctor Franz started way back in 2010 when I took part in a summer school here where we met for the first time. We exchanged some ideas and we conceptualized this PhD program that became my research interest which incidentally also is his area of specialization on Islamic endowments. So he helped me to co-conceptualize this project and in 2013 we met again at the Zedema in Berlin for another summer school where we polished the project and eventually I got a fellowship, a scholarship under the German-Kenya DAAD PhD program to study here in Bayreuth from 2014. So from 2014 to 2017 I was a student here under the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies where I did my PhD and studied Islamic endowments in Kenya with Kogelman as my supervisor and Professor Rudi… Read the full text about 3,457 words