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Kresse, Kai; Swaleh, Kadara

Ustadh Mahmoud Mau, Mtu wa watu (“A Man of the People”): Poet, Imam, and Engaged Local Intellectual

In: (Ed.)
In this Fragile World: Swahili Poetry of Care by Ustadh Mahmoud Mau

Brill, Leiden, 2023

S. 10-29

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004525726_003
Abstract

This chapter seeks to provide a brief contextual character portrayal of Ustadh Mahmoud Ahmed Abdulkadir, commonly known as Ustadh Mau, based on longer-term interactions with him. As entry-points and narrative pathways, we pursue some of the meaningful and telling biographical trajectories of his life that have shaped him as a poet and religious teacher, dedicated to the well-being of his community. We cover aspects of his engagement for knowledge and education in Lamu society over the decades, with particular pointers also to the reflection of such engagement in his poetry. This again has dwelt on regional politics as much as on moral, religious, and philosophical themes (dilemmas, tragedies, challenges) as they can be seen to play out concretely as part of local social experience. Ustadh Mau advises and admonishes his peers through his poetry (and his lectures and other activities) from within the local community, never from above. For this, as an influential teacher, imam, and social reformer, he is appreciated by many of the Lamu urban community as a ‘man of the people’ (mtu wa watu). This, we suggest, might be a suitable paradigm to think with (or in contrast to), also about other local intellectuals in their societies elsewhere.

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