65

The Āl Bū Sa‘īd in East Africa

1256–1383/1840–1964

Zanzibar and the East African coastland

As noted in no. 54 above, the Āl Bū Sa‘īd of Oman came, like their predecessors the Ya‘rubids (see above, no. 53) to control either directly or indirectly much of the East African coastland. The vigorous and forceful Sa‘īd b. Sulṭān divided his time in the 1830s equally between Muscat and Zanzibar, but in 1256/1840 settled permanently in Zanzibar, primarily for commercial reasons. He introduced the cultivation of cloves on Zanzibar and the neighbouring island of Pemba as an export crop, so that he became very rich from this trade; it was during these years that Western European powers and the USA established consulates in Zanzibar. After his death, the Bū Sa‘īdī dominions became permanently divided into two separate sultanates, one in Oman based on Muscat and the other based on Zanzibar.

In 1307/1890, Zanzibar and Pemba became a British protectorate, one lying off the coast of German East Africa. The Bū Sa‘īdī sultanate achieved a momentary independence once more in December 1963. But in January 1964 a coup d’état ended Sultan Jamshīd’s rule, and in April 1964 Zanzibar was linked with Tanganyika in what was at first called the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar and then the Republic of Tanzania.

See the bibliography to no. 54 above, to which should be added EI² ‘Sa‘īd b. Sulṭān’ (G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville).