The Graves of Tarim
by Engseng Ho
This is a fantastic book about a particular group of Yemenis: the Sayyids. They came from Hadramawt, a magical place. Descendents of the prophet Mohammed, they colonised various Indian-Ocean countries. They travelled to Southeast Asia, to what is today Indonesia and Malaysia, East Africa and beyond. They brought Islam with them, and sent money and children back.
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“This is a fantastic book. It’s an anthropologist’s view, once again. It explores a particular group of Yemenis called the Sayyids, descendents of the prophet Mohammed. They come from the Hadramawt region, a beautiful green valley in the middle of a desert. That’s also where Osama bin Laden comes from, by the way. The book shows you how the Sayyids colonised the wider region: South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Africa, Somalia, Zanzibar, Tanzania and all the way down to Mozambique. They brought Islam with them. The Indian Ocean was really a Moslem commercial lake.” Read more...
Bernard Haykel, Historian
