Reform and Revolt through the Pen and the Sword

Abstract

This chapter discusses how the Ibadi Imamate's establishment in 1913 was considered to be a culmination of three processes: (1) the British regulation and blockade of trade in enslaved people and arms into the region, (2) the active presence of British troops and naval squadrons, and (3) increasingly strident protests against what was widely considered the tyrannical regime of the British-supported sultan. The chapter looks at these policies, exploring the ways in which they were understood and acted upon according to two distinctive concepts of historical time. The first was the British understanding of progressive historicity that aimed to extend “civilization” across the region. This understanding entailed total transformation of the land and social order to leave behind the “tribal anarchy” and “xenophobic religiosity” of the past. The second was the Ibadi Imamate's, in which tradition, in accordance with Ibadi sharīʿa, was not the enemy of change but the ground on which change could occur. Historical logic was incorporated into thought and action by both sides to condition a moral relationship that brought about a confrontation of cultures with different modes of conceptualizing the relationship between religion and politics.