Tafkīk Riwāyat al-Bāntū: al-Hijrah wa-al-Istiʻmār wa-al-Tawārīkh al-Mutanāzaʻ ʻalayhā fī Sharq Ifrīqiyā - Bakrī, Ibrāhīm ibn Nūr ibn Sharīf; Muʼtamar al-Istiqāmah al-Duwalī al-Thānī: al-ʻUmānīyūn wa-al-Sawāḥilīyah bayna al-Taʼthīr wa-al-Taʼaththur (2026) (Mumbāsā) (Mumbāsā : Jamʻīyat al-Istiqāmah al-Khayrīyah al-Islāmīyah al-ʻĀlamīyah, 2026)
The migration of Bantu-speaking peoples to the Swahili coast constitutes one of the most contested historical questions in contemporary African studies. Whilst prevailing academic discourse presents this migration as an ancient expansion unfolding over millennia, revisionist historical narratives pose fundamental challenges to this chronological framework, suggesting that the Bantu arrival on the East African coast occurred only in the sixteenth century CE, concurrent with wider regional upheavals. This paper examines the evidence adduced on either side, the role colonial scholarship played in fixing the accepted chronology, and the implications each account carries for how the origins and identity of Swahili coastal society are understood. It argues that the question cannot be separated from the political uses to which competing histories of the coast have been put.
Permanent citation identifier: MHF-MOMBASA2026-019.
Conference theme (in Arabic): المحور الأول: التأثير العُماني في السواحلية.
Text in Arabic; title also romanized (ALA-LC); abstract and keywords in English.
Keywords: Bantu migration; East African history; Historiography; Swahili coast; Colonial scholarship; Contested histories