Religious Tolerance and No Need for an Alarm..

Zanzibar is an island in the Indian Ocean, about 25 miles off the coast of Tanzania. The population of the island as a whole is just over a million people. Swahili is the official language; Arabic is also spoken and those involved with tourism speak English.

As we learned in our East African History class, the Arab influence goes back to 900 when trading between Zanzibar and Oman began; in 1697 the Omani flag was flown over the island of Zanzibar after the overthrow of the Portuguese. Thus, it is not difficult to understand why Zanzibar is 97% Muslim. In Zanzibar Town one hears the call to prayer from the 50 or so mosques five times each day. The first call was shortly after 5am so it served as a wake-up call for us, although I did manage to sleep through the earliest call as well as the bells of the Anglican Cathedral one morning! (I was really tired!!)

In addition to the many mosques, the religious diversity of Zanzibar Town is reflected in the presence of one Anglican Church; a Roman Catholic Church built by the French and modeled after the Catholic Cathedral in Marseille, France (the same architect designed both) and 4 Hindu temples. Also, we attended an evangelical indigenous church on the 2nd Sunday we were there (with some marvelous singing, I might add!). It should be noted that the Anglican church – and the hostel connected to it that we stayed in are on the grounds of the previous slave market in Zanzibar Town, so there are many visitors each day to see these sites from that perspective.

Speaking of slavery, it was a sobering reminder to learn about the slave trade from the perspective of the African culture: being there, seeing the sites and learning about that part of Africa's history. For many years, Zanzibar was the primary center for trading slaves. Slaves were traded right along with cloves and ivory. It was also eye-opening for me to hear of the slave trade with India, the Middle East and Europe, as most of my knowledge has been of the American slave trade. The depth of man's inhumanity to man is a heart-wrenching part of the history of Africa...