Islamic Incantations in a Colonial Notebook: A Case from Interwar Zanzibar

This article examines an esoteric text entitled Du ʿ ā ʾ al-Sab ā sib al-Sab ʿ a (Prayer of the Seven Deserts/Wastelands) copied onto a colonial notebook in Zanzibar, probably sometime in the 1930s. The content of the text itself is examined and placed in the tradition of Islamic esotericism and occult writing, as well as against the backdrop of emerging Islamic modernism at the time. Three potential readings are offered of this particular copy of the Sab ā sib, based on the materiality of the copy, the content and nature of the text, and the position of this type of invocation in colonial and post-colonial Zanzibar: 1) as part of a living tradition anchored in an existing knowledge tradition; 2) as an intellectual exercise to keep alive knowledge in the process of waning; 3) as a curated ethnographic piece in the colonial context. A tentative conclusion is that this text was written as part of a living tradition, especially in light of the fact that texts of this type are still in use in Zanzibar today.