EP 6 Dada Masiti - From Bondage into Sainthood | Women And Resistance

Abducted as a teenager, held in conditions her own poetry calls slavery for a decade, and rescued by a cousin who crossed the Indian Ocean to find her. A century later, she was East Africa's most revered female Islamic scholar, and the reason Qur'an schools in her hometown of Barawa are still run by women today.

In this episode of Women and Resistance, hosts Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq., and Adesoji Iginla travel to the Benadir coast of southern Somalia to tell the story of Dada Masiti.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq., embodying Dada Masiti, explores the life and legacy of a remarkable woman from the 19th century. Dada Masiti recounts her journey from a life of privilege in Barawa to a decade of captivity, highlighting the complexities of lineage, gender, and the historical context of the Indian Ocean slave trade.

Through her narrative, she emphasises the importance of community, kinship, and spiritual growth, ultimately emerging as a leader and poet who defied societal expectations. In this conversation, Aya, as Dada Masiti, discusses the importance of accessibility in education, particularly for women in religious studies.

She reflects on her role in promoting cultural memory through poetry and the significance of death in her community. Aya emphasises the need for inward purification and the legacy of Sufi traditions in Somalia, while also addressing the impact of colonial history on her homeland. She highlights the ongoing struggles for women's rights and self-determination, advocating for a collective understanding of history that incorporates women's voices.

Takeaways

*Dada Masiti's life reflects the struggles and resilience of women in history.
*Oral traditions play a crucial role in preserving cultural narratives.
*Barawa was a significant centre of trade and Islamic learning.
*Lineage does not guarantee protection for women in patriarchal societies.
*Marriage can lead to unexpected and harsh realities, as experienced by Dada Masiti.
*The Indian Ocean slave trade is often overlooked in historical discussions.
*Zanzibar served as a critical location for the slave trade.
*Kinship and community support are vital for survival and recovery.
*Spiritual growth can lead to empowerment and leadership roles for women.
*Dada Masiti's poetry was a means of expressing her experiences and insights.
*Teaching should be accessible to all, a radical act.
*Women have historically been excluded from formal religious education.
*Cultural memory is preserved through poetry and oral traditions.
*Death should be viewed as a reunion, not a loss.
*Inward purification is essential for personal and communal healing.
*Somalia's rich history is often overshadowed by conflict and colonial narratives.
*Cultural resilience is vital in the face of adversity.
*Women's rights movements are gaining momentum in Somalia.
*Self-determination is a personal choice, not defined by societal norms.
*Poetry remains relevant in addressing contemporary issues.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Women in Resistance
01:05 The Life of Dada Masiti
04:27 The Impact of Oral Tradition
09:25 Barawa: A Historical Overview
14:31 The Complexity of Lineage and Gender
19:03 Marriage and Captivity
23:39 The Indian Ocean Slave Trade
27:42 Zanzibar: A Place of Captivity
29:11 Rescue and Kinship
32:03 Return to Barawa and Community Acceptance
34:28 Spiritual Growth and Leadership
39:07 Legacy and Empowerment
41:18 Radical Accessibility in Teaching
42:07 The Role of Women in Religious Education
43:27 Cultural Memory and Poetry
44:37 Consolation Through Poetry
46:45 The Inward Path of Purification
48:52 The Legacy of Sufi Tradition
50:47 Somalia's Historical Narrative
52:55 Colonial Impact on Barawa
55:58 Cultural Resilience Amidst Conflict
58:36 The Fight for Women's Rights
61:54 Self-Determination and Personal Choice
64:31 The Relevance of Poetry Today
69:30 Cultural Respect and Understanding

Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:06.764)
Greetings, greetings, and welcome to another episode of Women in Resistance. I am your host at DisOJ Genla. And with me as usual is Aya Fabera Eneli Esquire. Before she goes into character, today's Women and Resistance, what we do here is celebrate women who have contributed in no small measure to the liberation of us as a people. And tonight the focus would be

On the eastern board of the African continent, specifically a port town on the Indian Ocean. I will not want to steal the thunder from our guests. Just to say, growing up was not as straightforward as anyone would want, as she would want. Because in the 1810s, she was taken from her home on Pat Island. Some say kidnapped, some say she eloped with a man.

Her family had refused. Either way, what follows is the next 10 years that her own poetry would eventually call slavery. For that and more, let's go and speak to today's guest, who is Ada Dada Masiti. Welcome, ma'am.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:29.304)
Good evening, good afternoon, good morning.

Adesoji Iginla (01:34.326)
Good morning. yeah, good morning on this side of the world, good afternoon wherever you are. And the question some would ask is who is Dadamasiti?

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:51.374)
I'm so honored to be with you tonight, or whenever it is that you're watching, because I understand that your technology is such that I speak today and you keep hearing me. I know that is a common thing for you all today, but that was not a common thing in my time.

Aya as Dada Masiti (02:17.013)
Where shall I begin my story? Somewhere off the southern coast of what is now called Somalia, where the Indian Ocean turns the color of hamad brass at sunset. There is a beautiful town called Barawa.

Aya as Dada Masiti (02:47.809)
For a thousand years boats have come and gone from its harbour.

Carrying ivory, mirror, cloth, scholars, sailors and

And unfortunately.

For centuries carrying human beings sold as cargo.

Aya as Dada Masiti (03:22.013)
It was in this place, sometime in the first decades of the 19th century, that I was born into a family who can trace its lineage back to the Prophet Muhammad himself.

Aya as Dada Masiti (03:49.196)
You must understand that for the most part ours was an oral tradition. And so much of what is known about my life has been passed down.

From generation to generation, just mouth to ear.

But there were also some clues that I left in the poetry for which I am known.

Adesoji Iginla (04:23.24)
Yeah.

Aya as Dada Masiti (04:27.553)
I fell in love against my family wishes. You must orient this story in the time of which I speak.

Aya as Dada Masiti (04:46.199)
But there are some things that are universal young love.

The all knowing feeling that nothing is impossible for you.

Adesoji Iginla (05:00.714)
Yeah.

Aya as Dada Masiti (05:02.517)
And I went away with my new husband.

And I was taken to an island where that marriage and love became a decade of bondage.

Aya as Dada Masiti (05:29.437)
Even as I think about those years in captivity.

Cut off from my family.

Aya as Dada Masiti (05:44.502)
I know that my fate was still so much better than those who were shipped away from their families forever, and some who died in the process.

Adesoji Iginla (06:01.899)
Yeah.

Aya as Dada Masiti (06:04.811)
Today you might know of a place called Oman.

Adesoji Iginla (06:11.424)
Me do list.

Aya as Dada Masiti (06:12.065)
The area that I was taken into captivity was

The Oman

Elite's leaders had taken over and there was a very robust

Slave, as they will call it, trade by the Arabs over the Indian Ocean. Much of what in the Western world now is focused on when we talk about slavery pertains to the slavery that began with the Portuguese across the Atlantic Ocean. But before that,

There was the slavery across the Indian Ocean.

Adesoji Iginla (07:02.108)
sh okay.

Aya as Dada Masiti (07:05.611)
Mostly controlled by the Arabs, or those that are called Arabs today.

Aya as Dada Masiti (07:16.353)
But I subvived it all.

Aya as Dada Masiti (07:21.097)
I survived it and I became one of the most beloved saints, teachers, and poets. And I say that with great humility and deep gratitude.

But in the history of East African Islam, my name is known.

Aya as Dada Masiti (07:47.945)
I was born Manasity, Habib Jamaluddin.

Aya as Dada Masiti (07:58.7)
History remembers me by a name, a term of endearment given to me out of love and reverence.

Many of you have one name, maybe, that the government calls you, and you have the name that your loved ones call you.

Aya as Dada Masiti (08:23.467)
That name that I was given is Dada Ma City.

Some called me sister Ma City.

Aya as Dada Masiti (08:39.669)
Before I tell you more about my life.

Let me tell you about where I was born. Because Barawa made me as much as my own family did.

Which is true for all of you who might be listening. Your family, your environment shapes you. Very important that when we work with the young people,

We don't just look at how they are. We try to understand how they came to be.

Adesoji Iginla (09:21.675)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (09:25.439)
My people had been calling Barawa home in one form or another for over a thousand years before I was born.

Aya as Dada Masiti (09:39.322)
The Arab writers, the geographers, writing in the 12th century already knew of us.

They call the town Barwa.

Aya as Dada Masiti (09:58.708)
And in their writings they highlighted our mosques and our trade. We were a devout people. We were a spiritual people.

Aya as Dada Masiti (10:16.977)
Long before that, our ancestors had built coral stone houses. We're not a backwater people. And there were small mosques stretched all along the coast.

In fact, most of what we now call the Swahili, that that much older Swahili speaking world stretched from the Lammu Apelego.

Aya as Dada Masiti (10:53.235)
Through Mombasa, Zanziba, and beyond. This was a civilized civilization that was built by the Bantu-speaking peoples of this coastal area. Then, over centuries, intermarrying with Arab, Persian, and later Portuguese, and Indian settlers who were mostly financiers.

Adesoji Iginla (11:07.347)
Okay.

Aya as Dada Masiti (11:20.875)
You see they play a certain role as they played also in South Africa. I say that so that you you conjure up in your mind what I'm speaking of and you connect the dots to other pockets of knowledge that you already know and have about the continent of what is now called Africa.

Adesoji Iginla (11:46.731)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (11:48.526)
By the time the great medieval geographers, those scholars were calling Barawa one of the three most important towns on the entire coast. That's where I was born. Those three towns were Barawa, Mogadishu, and America. All three known equally for trade and for Islamic learning.

And we had our own language, Chimini. Some called it Chimbalazi, a dialect of Swahili so old that it preserves words and sounds that have now vanished from other Swahili dialects.

Aya as Dada Masiti (12:43.629)
Form of governance wasn't that of a king, but we had councils of elders. You could describe us as how would I put it? like an oligarchic little republic perched on the edge of the Indian Ocean.

We had ivory, we had frankincense myrrh, finely woven clothes.

And we would trade it for porcelain from China, textiles from India, and spices from Arabia.

Adesoji Iginla (13:24.999)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (13:32.191)
It was into this world that I was born, into the Mahadali Ashraf clan of Barawa, a family that carried the honored title of Sharif, like I said, meaning that we could trace our lineage to Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

Aya as Dada Masiti (13:59.756)
The Asharif families of Barawah were treated with a peculiar respect, and our family was known and trusted. I tell you all of this so that you can then juxtapose it with what happens in my life.

Adesoji Iginla (14:21.299)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (14:31.703)
But I want to say something that many scholars who write about me tend to skip.

Adesoji Iginla (14:39.018)
We choose.

Aya as Dada Masiti (14:40.749)
Lineage protects a woman far less than people like to believe or imagine.

Aya as Dada Masiti (14:53.471)
I was raised surrounded by scholars by the sound of the Quran, recited from memory in our streets and our courtyards. Our oral culture meant that poetry and scripture both moved from mouth to mouth as much as from page to page.

Aya as Dada Masiti (15:18.177)
Before many of us, those who learned to read, before we could read, we were already schooled in the art of memorization. And I knew a lot of our scripture. And yet none of that saved me from what came next.

Aya as Dada Masiti (15:52.376)
Barawa itself passed from the hands of several regional powers over time. First, we had the

Tunisulfanate.

Aya as Dada Masiti (16:12.087)
Founded by a saint figure remembered as Al Ali. Then roughly from the thirteenth century.

We had the Adjuran Sultanate or Sultanate, which was a powerful Somali Muslim state that controlled much of southern Somalia. Through, and you must go and study this, because when we don't remember who we are, you think of Somalia today.

And I understand that in the country United States of America, you have a leader who heaps insults on Somalia. And the Somalian people may not even know the remarkable feats of engineering, including irrigation systems and a strong navy.

that in the early sixteenth century helped to repel the Portuguese incurrents along that stretch of the coast.

We must know a true history of

Aya as Dada Masiti (17:34.67)
Later, this area, Barawa, also came under the influence of the Giledi Sultanate, which used the town as its chief port. Through all of these political changes, something stayed constant. Barawa's identity as an Islamic island.

A place where craftsmen wove fine cloth known as Alindi, carved elaborate Quran stands and wedding furniture from wood, and quietly trained generations of religious scholars whose influence then spread far beyond the borders of this small island.

By the time I was born, our Sufi scholarly tradition was centuries deep.

Aya as Dada Masiti (18:44.863)
And so many were produced during my time.

And I would become one of our greatest poets. But first, I had to survive becoming part of it.

I married without my family's blessings. What an abomination.

Aya as Dada Masiti (19:11.221)
And I went with my love away from Barawa entirely across the water to Pat Pati, a small island in what is now known as Kenya.

Aya as Dada Masiti (19:28.565)
A century before I arrived there, it had been a jewel of this coast, a city of poets, fine carved doors, elaborate architecture, and some of the most celebrated literary culture in the entire Swahili world.

But that golden age had ended before my birth, a generation before my birth, torn apart by the same things tearing us apart today: massacres, an internal warfare between rival ruling families. I know you asked me about me, but I told you I'm a product of my environment.

And we must understand our history. So we understand how we repeat it, because what happened with all that warfare and fighting amongst people who should have been brothers and sisters was that that place became an area of crumbling houses and faded memories.

Adesoji Iginla (20:20.106)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (20:43.277)
And my marriage mirrored that island. Ruin for ruin.

The man I chose did not give me a home.

He gave me a decade of captivity.

Aya as Dada Masiti (21:08.625)
No family. Cut off from my language. Cut off from anyone who would call me by my name.

Aya as Dada Masiti (21:23.767)
But of course I'm not alone, cause many today do not know their names.

Erasure.

Aya as Dada Masiti (21:36.397)
People who tell my story gently sometimes would say it was a difficult marriage. Those are kind words for what I experienced.

Aya as Dada Masiti (21:53.065)
In my own poetry I wrote these words about that time.

This world has deceived me.

And I have become a destitute slave.

Aya as Dada Masiti (22:11.463)
Me, a noble woman, a descendant of the great prophet, may peace be upon him.

Adesoji Iginla (22:22.631)
Used.

Aya as Dada Masiti (22:26.815)
Enslaved in what I had thought would be a marriage.

Aya as Dada Masiti (22:41.653)
Most people, like I said, when they hear slavery, they picture the Atlantic, the Middle Passage, the plantations of the Americas, but far fewer. In fact, I want to ask you, how much do you know about the trade that ran in the opposite direction? Out of the same African coastline and for far longer.

Aya as Dada Masiti (23:18.675)
Older than its Atlantic counterpart, by hundreds of years. And some argue comparable in scale.

Even though it receives but a tiny bit of attention.

Adesoji Iginla (23:33.608)
Mi attention.

Aya as Dada Masiti (23:39.285)
Historians have traced organized trafficking, kidnapping, enslavement, murder of East Africans across the Indian Ocean, back over a thousand years into Arabia, Persia, India and beyond.

Aya as Dada Masiti (24:01.505)
Some researchers estimate that across the full sweep of this trade from roughly fifteen hundred to nineteen hundred, somewhere in the range of fifteen to seventeen million people were taken from East Africa and the wider Indian Ocean world, that whole world combined.

Aya as Dada Masiti (24:26.155)
We can debate the numbers.

Aya as Dada Masiti (24:33.463)
But we should never doubt the pain and the suffering.

Aya as Dada Masiti (24:42.306)
I wish I could tell you that this was a trade conducted, as they would say, at arm's length.

By distant strangers?

Aya as Dada Masiti (24:57.335)
But actually it moved through local economies, local elites.

Adesoji Iginla (25:02.571)
Sure.

Aya as Dada Masiti (25:07.969)
And I write about this in my poetry.

Aya as Dada Masiti (25:21.623)
For those of you inclined to do some research.

The British colonial records from

Aya as Dada Masiti (25:32.814)
Maybe about the eighteen forties, describe Oromo people captured by Somali raiders and sold into Arabian markets with prices for women recorded. So when you read today about the continued maltreatment.

of African peoples across the Arab world, you know that that is not a thing that began today.

Aya as Dada Masiti (26:24.257)
This human trait was recorded in the same ledgers and the same inhumane ledger language used for livestock.

Aya as Dada Masiti (26:44.149)
I must admit, Somali coastal towns, just like some coastal towns in West Africa, were not innocent bystanders of this system.

Sometimes they were victims, and in the case of certain elites,

Adesoji Iginla (27:05.811)
Active participants.

Aya as Dada Masiti (27:07.423)
Some of them were participants for profit.

Aya as Dada Masiti (27:14.731)
By the early nineteenth century, the century of my birth, this entire trade was converging on a single island that would soon swallow me. Zanzibar. Today, when you hear Zanzibar, what comes to mind? Ooh, gonna be what?

Adesoji Iginla (27:30.835)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (27:42.113)
What comes to mind for you? Yes. Taurus. Yes. Let us go and relax and have a good time.

Adesoji Iginla (27:42.271)
The holidays, picturesque waters.

Aya as Dada Masiti (27:54.958)
But a good time is not what I had in Zanzibar during my captivity.

Aya as Dada Masiti (28:05.227)
I was a slave on the verge of drowning.

Aya as Dada Masiti (28:11.863)
But a family member after a decade saw me and recognized me and rescued me.

Out of a darkness, I had no idea how to escape.

Aya as Dada Masiti (28:41.421)
I had no money. I was a woman. No family nearby. In a city known for slave trading, human trafficking. I was of no status.

Aya as Dada Masiti (29:07.031)
But like I said,

Aya as Dada Masiti (29:11.552)
I was saved.

Aya as Dada Masiti (29:19.393)
The family member who rescued me was my maternal cousin, Omar Kulatin.

He found me in that city of strangers, and he brought me home.

I have never stopped being grateful.

For what I quote in my poem, the Omah of

Aya as Dada Masiti (29:52.44)
The ordinary virtuous people of strong faith who did what their faith asked of them and came looking for one of their own in a port where looking for anyone at all was an act of great courage.

Aya as Dada Masiti (30:16.117)
In another part of my poem I wrote They promised to take me back, for they were from the Prophet Muhammad Uma, virtuous people of strong faith.

Aya as Dada Masiti (30:35.177)
My escape, my rescue did not come from government or a court or any law. It came from kinship and from a faith that is practiced.

As a verb, not a noun. How much faith do you have? How do you practice it? All you who say you are spiritual people.

Aya as Dada Masiti (31:06.113)
Britain would not formally pressure Zanzibar's sultans into a series of treaties restricting this human trafficking until the eighteen twenties.

And slavery would not be abolished in this area until eighteen ninety-seven, and even then it continued.

Aya as Dada Masiti (31:47.338)
What becomes of a woman who eloped against her family's wishes in those times, whose marriage collapsed, who returned home.

Having been enslaved.

What could she expect?

I was ready for anything was better than slavery.

Adesoji Iginla (32:16.425)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (32:19.777)
The expectation would be that you would be shunned, blinked, blessed.

Carred and feathered, treated as a cautionary tale for other young women. Some of you do that to the young people who have made less than wise choices. Some of you bear the scars of how you've been treated when you made choices that put you into.

Adesoji Iginla (32:31.979)
True.

Aya as Dada Masiti (32:56.245)
A darkness you could not have.

foreseen.

Aya as Dada Masiti (33:04.887)
But my community, my people of faith, they did something else.

They let me in the

Aya as Dada Masiti (33:20.253)
Even more astoundingly.

Aya as Dada Masiti (33:27.597)
They let me lead.

Aya as Dada Masiti (33:40.376)
As you can imagine, when I returned to Barawa, it was like a rebirth. yes, you don't go through something of that nature and not come out changed. Now that change can set you down a path.

Aya as Dada Masiti (34:06.559)
Of such deep shame and self loathing

And an internal darkness that overcomes you, though you have left your physical chains.

But that is not the path I chose.

Met a teacher.

Sheikh Muhammad Jana Al Baluli and through him.

Aya as Dada Masiti (34:40.843)
I was initiated into the Kadirya, the Sufi order that traces its lineage back to the great twelfth century saint Abdal Kadar al Jalani.

This was a path built on remembrance of God.

Aya as Dada Masiti (35:07.617)
Discipline of the self and service to others. I don't care if you are listening to me at any point in time what your professed religion or form of spirituality may be. But if you embrace a path built

On the remembrance of God.

Discipline of yourself, your mind, your body, and your spirit. Many of you are very undisciplined.

Very undisciplined, and the results are evident in your life. And the third thing, so I said, remembrance of God, self discipline, and service to others, not enrichment of self.

Adesoji Iginla (36:06.143)
Possibly.

Aya as Dada Masiti (36:18.623)
If you do these three things, I guarantee you

Aya as Dada Masiti (36:28.319)
Your life will be one of great and meaningful impact.

Adesoji Iginla (36:35.594)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (36:41.335)
There's so much to share with you.

Aya as Dada Masiti (36:47.649)
The Kariya and a related order that grew directly out of Barawa called the Uwasiya, named for its founder, became one of the dominant spiritual forces across southern Somalia and well beyond it during my lifetime and afterwards as well.

Aya as Dada Masiti (37:16.021)
In fact, our leader would later organize resistance against the Italian colonial administration that seized the Barrawa in nineteen eight.

And was killed the following year in a dispute with another religious leader. my people.

Adesoji Iginla (37:39.357)
It's in our division.

Aya as Dada Masiti (37:44.107)
I guess this is proof that the spiritual life is never totally separated from the political life. So for those of you who would want to bury your head, I do one and not the other. That is foolhardy at best.

Aya as Dada Masiti (38:04.385)
But his followers even after his death carried to

Our word, our way of being, the order across East Africa, building religious communities, Jama, throughout the river Rhine regions of southern Somalia. I tell you this because I was part of something much larger than my own private healing.

Aya as Dada Masiti (38:37.727)
in service to others.

Adesoji Iginla (38:39.861)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (38:41.631)
And in time, with that discipline, I rose to a position of real respect and leadership in that community. I did not seek to remarry. I did not seek to have children. I was committed to my path.

Aya as Dada Masiti (39:07.239)
So much so that in one of my poems I wrote these words. I was a commander, a governor. I used to give orders. I used to make decisions. I wrote this as a much older woman with my knees and my joints creaking every time I attempted to move.

I did not say this in my poem to boast because facts are facts.

I said it because I want every woman listening to this in whatever country, whatever century, to understand those particular words. Commander, governor. Of course, these are translations from my language in which I wrote.

Aya as Dada Masiti (40:08.993)
These were words I used as an old woman to describe what I had lived. These are not words that a community gives to someone, it is merely tolerating. They are words given to someone they have chosen to follow. And today I look around.

Even amongst those who practice my faith, and I wonder, how did we get to a point where a woman we're going to challenge whether a woman can command or lead?

Aya as Dada Masiti (40:52.81)
I was a teacher and a poet, and I composed my poetry, not in the elevated Arabic language, the language reserved for scholars, for the powerful, for men trained in the religious sciences. No. I wrote it in chimene, the everyday dialect.

Spoken by every person in Barawa, scholar, farmer, man, woman, child, free, and once enslaved, all alike. Because I wanted my teaching to be accessible to all. And that in and of its sense itself was a radical act.

Adesoji Iginla (41:29.131)
Yeah.

Aya as Dada Masiti (41:44.8)
In those days the religious sciences were largely the property of men who had studied formally, often in Arabic, often outside of our area. Women were kept apart from those spaces, segregated from the study halls, the formal study halls.

Adesoji Iginla (42:07.647)
Hmm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (42:09.769)
But poetry sung at a gathering, recited at a funeral, passed from a mother's mouth to her daughter's memory, and it belonged to everyone.

By writing in the language of my people.

I made sure that the deepest truths of our faith, of our culture, of our history.

Adesoji Iginla (42:42.869)
Carries along.

Aya as Dada Masiti (42:47.255)
Both the outward law which you know are Sharia and the inward path of purifying the heart could travel into homes even if formal scholarship never reached them.

Aya as Dada Masiti (43:07.981)
I have been told and I have seen that because of the path I and women like me opened, the Quran teachers in the madras of Barawah today are in great majority women.

Aya as Dada Masiti (43:27.937)
That fact more than the poetry I've written is what I hope to be remembered.

Aya as Dada Masiti (43:48.193)
There came a day when the most respected judge of our community.

Aya as Dada Masiti (43:59.278)
Kadinurien Al Sabur felt his own death drawing near.

And he came to me, a woman once cast out by her own marriage, a woman once enslaved, and he asked that I compose something to console our people when he is gone. Because you know, death is something that comes to us all, not something to be feared.

And I wrote Bakda Hai after.

Aya as Dada Masiti (44:46.601)
In it I wrote, I told my people.

Don't collapse into the kind of grief that undoes that undoes

That would cause a community to unravel.

Aya as Dada Masiti (45:04.523)
But instead turn towards remembrance. When the sheikh dies, no one should weep. Instead, people should recite.

Adesoji Iginla (45:10.387)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (45:24.951)
The words from the Quran. I reminded them that death, understood rightly, is not loss. Listen, for in this you will understand our culture.

Death understood rightly is a returning, a reunion with the beloved we have been seeking all along.

And that a day of mourning should instead be a day of joy.

Adesoji Iginla (46:04.928)
Mm-hmm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (46:08.685)
Distributing roasted coffee beans at the gatherings.

Because in like manner as I wrote, in fact, I will read it directly for you, they will distribute heavenly rewards, much like roasted coffee beans are distributed. I also use that poem in our language, accessible to all, to remind our people through verse rather than sermon.

The reward promised to those who

Aya as Dada Masiti (46:52.769)
Who walk in a funeral procession, a teaching handed down through the hadith of the Prophet? Peace be upon.

Aya as Dada Masiti (47:04.511)
An oral community deep in mourning does not have the patience for a lecture.

It will, though, sit still for a point.

Aya as Dada Masiti (47:24.279)
There are many scholars today studying my work, what has survived of what they will call the corpus. Much of it was preserved through the work of researcher Mohammed Qasim. And he claims that there are two broad threads running through my poetry. It is concerned.

With the outward practices and obligations of the faith.

Adesoji Iginla (47:55.531)
Mm-hmm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (47:58.03)
The inward mystical path of purifying the soul. and in these days, is there ever a call for the purification of the soul? Because

Aya as Dada Masiti (48:15.831)
To be in these bodies that we are in, that I am in, or that looks like what I was in when I still walk this earth.

To watch the devastation still befalling us.

Adesoji Iginla (48:27.915)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (48:32.269)
Could cause one to turn inside out with anger.

Aya as Dada Masiti (48:39.197)
Not anger can be all consuming. So we must do the inward mystical work of purifying the soul.

Aya as Dada Masiti (48:52.917)
And death is a union rather than an ending.

Aya as Dada Masiti (49:03.745)
There's a lady they like to sometimes compare me to in Iraq, Rabia Al Adawiya, from the eighth century, considered a saint in a Basra.

We're remembered as having been enslaved at some point and then eventually finding freedom and turning towards devotion.

Adesoji Iginla (49:25.619)
In saints.

Aya as Dada Masiti (49:36.233)
Rabia of Basara her name is invoked in sermons from Morocco to Indonesia, her sayings quoted by scholars who have never set foot near what is now called Iraq.

Aya as Dada Masiti (49:52.385)
But for me.

Aya as Dada Masiti (49:57.074)
I remain known in Somalia but barely known outside of that area. I ask you, had you ever heard of me?

Adesoji Iginla (50:10.206)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (50:11.467)
Now there are a few who have been scattered across Kenya, the Gulf, Europe, some areas of North America that may still remember, that are still studying my work.

Aya as Dada Masiti (50:29.421)
But I think the greater issue here is that Somalia's own history

has been unjustly dismissed in the public conscience of Muslims and non Muslims alike.

Overshadowed.

Especially in the more recent time by endless war, famine, instability.

And so these images, this narrative crowds out what is a millennium of poetry and scholarship and sainthood. And I beseech my people to return and to remember, for it will be a pathway.

Aya as Dada Masiti (51:35.167)
Out of where we are now.

Adesoji Iginla (51:38.869)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (51:43.155)
Let me share this with you as I round up, and I would lovingly take questions from you and from those who have given me an opportunity to share with you today.

I wrote

My home is the grave. For me it is better.

Place of sand and sand hills.

Aya as Dada Masiti (52:15.959)
Where there are no friends and siblings.

Aya as Dada Masiti (52:22.411)
By most accounts.

I lived to a very old age into my nineties. Some say I died about the year nineteen twenty. I watched Barowa pass from independent rule under regional sultans into an Italian protectorate in nineteen eight. And finally into full incorporation as part of Italian protection.

Somaliland in 1910. Do you know we are still feuding today these colonial histories that are like viruses buried within us?

Adesoji Iginla (53:03.243)
Yeah.

Aya as Dada Masiti (53:14.623)
I had outlived an entire generation of scholars I once studied alongside. And when I died, I was buried close to my small home in Barrawa, the same town that had once been ready to whisper about my failed marriage, and instead chose to call me a commander, governor, a teacher, a saint.

Adesoji Iginla (53:42.247)
Mm-hmm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (53:42.891)
And you know that today, every year.

People go on an annual ziara, a pilgrimage of remembrance to my grave.

Aya as Dada Masiti (54:04.223)
A Somali Sufi scholar of the early twentieth century once called me a treasure that must be jealously preserved.

A century later? Hm? Was that a warning? Was that a direct instruction?

Adesoji Iginla (54:27.531)
Yeah.

Aya as Dada Masiti (54:31.189)
And let me tell you, the twentieth century has not been kind to Barawa or to my people. Our town's importance faded. Our Somalia's post independence government invested in Mogadishu and America.

Aya as Dada Masiti (54:50.611)
This story, by the way, has played out in many other countries. Places that were thriving at one time, but the colonizers then choose: no, we're going to invest in a different place, usually to keep areas weakened and fighting each other.

Aya as Dada Masiti (55:19.317)
In nineteen ninety-one, when the Somalian Civil War broke out, Barawa, like so much of Somali, became a battle zone, changing hands back and forth between rival armed factions because we did not learn.

Aya as Dada Masiti (55:41.077)
My people who are called the Brahmanese as a small urban mixed heritage minority without the protection of the large pastoral clan networks.

Aya as Dada Masiti (55:58.796)
We're very vulnerable. Some fled to Kenya, the Gulf, the wider diaspora. I would be interested to know whether anybody from that area or a descendant of someone from that area will hear my words today and say, Yes, I'm from.

Aya as Dada Masiti (56:24.405)
And you know my ancient language? Chimini.

Adesoji Iginla (56:27.467)
Go on, tell us.

Aya as Dada Masiti (56:30.079)
It is now considered endangered. Spoken may be of

Twenty five to thirty thousand people in the entire world. Most of them not even living in that same area.

Mm.

I know this goes beyond the scope of my life, but I'm telling you this so you connect the importance of everything you hear. There's always a connection.

In two thousand and nine, there was an even more specific assault on us. Al Shabab seized control of Barawa itself and held it for five years. Cultural attacks, destruction of our tombs, the closure of our mosques, the detention of the sheikhs.

Aya as Dada Masiti (57:31.755)
The silencing of our devotional and Sufi traditions, the erasure.

Aya as Dada Masiti (57:44.258)
This was not some abstract extremism that was striking our town or a random town. It was an assault on the specific religious culture, Sufi, syncretic, woman inclusive, that I and other Brahmanese scholars had spent centuries cultivating.

Adesoji Iginla (57:50.099)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (58:18.753)
This came after over two decades of kidnapping, forced marriage, and rape of women and young girls.

Aya as Dada Masiti (58:29.773)
that echo my lived experience.

Aya as Dada Masiti (58:36.279)
This is happening to my daughters two centuries later.

Aya as Dada Masiti (58:47.211)
Well, the Somali National Army and the African Union forces, they liberated Barawa in twenty fourteen as a part of a broader coastal offensive. And today we are under government administration.

Aya as Dada Masiti (59:11.669)
And all of this, even with the annual pilgrimage, has even impacted the numbers who come.

Aya as Dada Masiti (59:22.977)
I promise this is the last thing I will share with you.

I told you that I studied with scholars, and I wrote extensively, and my poems are still in existence.

But do you know that in twenty twenty four, a report from the IMF

Found that.

Over between forty-five to sixty-five percent of adult Somali women.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:00:07.883)
don't have basic literacy skills.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:00:16.129)
That same survey found that across the country, about sixty-five percent of the population has no formal education at all. And those with the formal education are concentrated in the cities. So when you get out into the more remote rural areas, that level of lack of formal education is even higher.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:36.851)
It's passed.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:00:46.251)
And the gap is not only

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:00:51.265)
The the the literacy rate is not just low, it is gendered because you will always see a higher percentage of women without education, without those basic literacy skills than men.

But my daughters are organizing. They are fighting against female genital mutilation.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:01:25.623)
The Somali women are pushing for change.

pushing for a thirty percent quota of parliamentary seats because if I could be a governor and lead, so should my daughters.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:01:47.533)
I think I will stop there so that if you have any questions, I can answer your questions.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:54.772)
I have one one quick question. you meant mentioned that it was your choice never it was your choice not to remarry because in this context you see it as an assertion of self-determination rather than simply an accept absence of romantic life. The question is: while you were doing the work, how did you not feel the need

to quote unquote complete your being as

A woman in that kind of society, knowing what kind of society exists in Barra.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:02:40.567)
Well, here comes that inner purification work. We do not have to define ourselves just by what society demands, even though it is important for society to have norms and traditions, of course, very important. But there is room for all of us, or there should be, based on our particular calling and purpose. And for me,

When I told you I was reborn, similar to those who give their lives in the Christian faith as nuns or as priests, I felt that this was my calling, and I felt no lack whatsoever. When you are on that path of obedience to God, when you are well disciplined in self, and particularly

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:37.387)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:03:41.004)
When you are committed to service to others, some of the same benefits that may be derived from the companionship of a marriage or from birthing children can also be derived from these three things that I have laid out to you.

And the connections as you serve people.

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:09.523)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:04:12.001)
can fill every need that you may have, if that is your calling. But I would not say that anyone should pattern their life based on someone else's calling, you see.

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:31.381)
So one final question and that will go to your poetry. Do you have anyone any poetry that's relevant to our times? We're talking twenty twenty six now that you could read for people to mull over and think about.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:04:40.738)
Mm-hmm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:04:54.06)
Well, I think that all my poetry can be relevant to at times. let me see if there is one in particular that I will share for you.

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:03.515)
So I'm just

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:05:20.759)
Give me a second.

I've already shared bits and pieces from some of them.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:05:33.793)
Aya as Dada Masiti (01:05:39.693)
Hmm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:05:43.018)
Because death comes to us all, I think I will share in full the Bakdahi after life that I wrote. Of course I will be saying it in English, although it was written in my language. And when the Shaikh dies no one should weep. Instead, people should recite the Hakar.

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:53.897)
Okay. Okay.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:06:14.751)
It will echo from all corners, and the Quran will be read. Why should people weep? As it is a day of joy.

The day he dies is actually a day of joy and a day to visit each other in celebration.

And then a divine call can be made for the crowd to be rewarded. Angels will descend to perform this service.

They would distribute heavenly rewards, much like roasted coffee beans are distributed to.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:07:13.203)
And I wanted to share that because again, death comes to us all. Some of you may have lost, as you would say in your language, but it is not a loss. Some of you have buried your loved ones who have gone on that journey into their ancestral realms. Some of you, as you went through that process,

did not see it as a day of joy or as a day to visit each other in celebration.

That line alone again speaks to our form of spirituality and culture.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:08:06.935)
That the morning is done as a collective, but it is actually a celebration. That you do not lock yourself up in a room with the lights off and cry yourself into a depression. No, you visit with each other.

Інцелеш, ремembранс оде.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:32.043)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:08:35.509)
And so that is the poem that I wanted to share with you today.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:40.531)
Yes. thank you, thank you. And I'm sure you've shed light on contexts, life on the eastern border of Africa with its interaction with the other side of the Indian Ocean. Also gives us a window into understanding that the slave trade was not just one side of the continent but both sides.

Which I think is a less known fact and less talked about, of course, wherein it lasted for a thousand years as opposed to four hundred years on the Western side. That said, we have come to the end of

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:09:30.603)
I I I see that there's some questions. May I attempt to answer the questions?

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:35.857)
Let me check. Yes. Okay. You want to take a stab at it?

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:09:44.013)
how can we be helpful without overstepping or disrespecting your culture? You know

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:09:56.684)
Without giving a whole treatise on it, but

What I would say is that

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:10:07.883)
How would you like people?

to come to and learn about your culture.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:10:20.853)
A lot of times the same way that you would want people to show respect is the same respect you can show to others. But I'll give you a very basic example.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:32.352)
Hmm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:10:39.309)
First you observe that

And you attempt to study. And when you come amongst people who might have a different culture than yours, you don't assume that you know and understand, and that you are there to maybe teach or change them.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:03.743)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:11:05.641)
So if you come around and you see me dressed in the manner that I am, perhaps.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:11:18.839)
To some degree, you mimic that dressing, not because it the culture requires of you to not be who you are, but just out of a respect of the traditions of that place that you live in. I see so many people who come in.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:11:44.588)
To what is now the this modern day area where they just come and trample over the existing culture and care nothing about it. So I would say study.

Observe

Show respect in your mannerisms. If when you see people greet, they greet by bending a knee, does not cost you anything. To bend that knee, it doesn't mean you're less than who you were. Now I'm not saying mimic anything that debases you, of course. But I recall even in the Bible, did you not have someone called Paul?

And the question I think was posed can he eat something that is considered unclean within his culture? And it says if you're amongst those people, if you're a person of faith, you pray over it and you eat it out of respect. Doesn't mean when you go back to your house, you must continue in that way. So I would say study, observe, mimic, and then when people see your genuine.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:49.416)
And eat away.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:54.225)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:13:05.129)
Respect, they will welcome you. You can now ask questions after a relationship has been built. These are not things done in the public, these are things done one-on-one in the sanctuary, this is your word, of a relationship. You understand.

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:31.935)
Mm-hmm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:13:33.811)
Now another question is my headdress. I appreciate you calling it that. Of course, I am a Muslim woman and we in our culture cover our hair and most of our our our body.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:13:56.095)
The color red for me is

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:14:02.145)
Was a daily reminder.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:14:11.369)
of what I had been rescued from, saved from, and a call to continual sacrifice, if you will.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:23.539)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:14:26.335)
What does the colour evoke for you as you see it?

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:32.903)
well, red in

in life is resistance, it's also a flag of war. So depending on context, which is also very key. So if you're

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:14:51.199)
Some may look at it as war, maybe an understanding of connection to blood, to lineage, and the need to always remember and to move accordingly. And if we understand we are of one blood, then perhaps it would be it would not be so easy to be divided.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:00.459)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:03.829)
Is that?

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:15:19.231)
and to then spill that blood indiscriminately.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:24.212)
Mm.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:15:25.515)
In pursuit of

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:28.885)
Position, material things.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:15:30.987)
Nothing that is of lasting value.

And that blood, that inner purification, could solve all of Africa's problems.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:51.796)
Yes, thank you, thank you, Miss Dada Masiti for coming through. And with that, we've come to the end of this week's episode of Women in Resistance. Next week, it will be the turn of Ida Gray. Who Ida Gray is would find out in the course of next week's program. That said,

Any final thoughts?

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:16:28.651)
You cannot effectively tell what

Collective history.

of those of us considered of African descent, if we will not tell the stories of our women folk. So I thank you.

For the manner in which you are lifting up.

So many.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:17:02.656)
Like me.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:17:06.541)
For people to remember now and for the future. There is no one book, major book written about me. That is true for many of the women that you have. Yes, perhaps somebody will decide to take up that mantle and do that work.

Adesoji Iginla (01:17:22.443)
Spoken to.

Aya as Dada Masiti (01:17:35.819)
Because our young women and our young men, our leaders for today and tomorrow, do need to know this collective history. And women and girls need to know. You never need to wait for permission to be who your creator has designed you to be.

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:01.152)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:07.093)
Well, you mentioned the role of women. we also have to bear the in fact that on the African continent, women are the majority. And as a growing continent as well, sixty percent of the people between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five are women. So thank you for coming through.

Again, that said, and until next week when we come around, it will be the turn of either be either well either gray, I said either wells, either grey, and yes, there's a lot of either in the pantheon of great women. So yeah, it's going to be a turn of either gray and until next week. I am at the Soji Ginla and it's good night and God bless.