The focus of this article is a certain type of Arabic handwritten texts, namely what we may call “small text.” By this, I mean supplications (adʿiya), pieces of poetry, dhikr and various types of formula noted down in notebooks and on pieces of paper. This type of text is clearly different both in scope, circulation and content from the “big texts” (Quran and ḥadīth, fiqh texts, works of Arabic grammar, logic, standard manuals of Sufism, genealogical and historical works). However, both types of text were well known in East Africa by the early 20th century, having circulated widely in manuscript form throughout the 19th century. By that time, both “big” and “small” texts were increasingly becoming available in printed form.
This article discusses how “small texts” were used and understood in the period when Islamic modernism (in various forms) was becoming more widely known on the East African coast. Beyond this lies a larger question that has to do with the understanding of text in ...