Msomi wa Leo - Sheikh Ali bin Abdalla bin Nafi Mazrui (1825-1894)

Sheikh Ali bin Abdalla Mazrui was born in 1825 in Mombasa, Kenya. He was an Islamic Scholar coming from the lineage of the Mazrui scholars in Mombasa, a Muslim Judge and a teacher. In 1837, Sheikh Ali traveled to Mecca with his brother Sheikh Ahmad and father Sheikh Abdalla bin Nafi for further studies. In 1846 after nine years of religious education in Mecca, Sheikh Ali and his father Sheikh Abdalla decided to return to East Africa in order to share their knowledge, however, as fate would have it, Sheikh Abdalla passed away before making it back to Mombasa.

Sheikh Ali Mazrui returned to Mombasa alone and taught religion. He was known as a traveling scholar, who went around different towns in East Africa, setting up temporary schools. This resulted in his popularity as everywhere he went people knew him. In 1854, he traveled back to Mecca to  further his religious education and returned to continue teaching. He was so knowledgable in Islamic studies and popular in the area, that he was appointed an Islamic Judge of Mombasa.

Sheikh Mazrui is known as a reformer, who changed the traditional practice of segregating students according to their racial or ethnic backgrounds, by stripping those barriers. This movement, combined with his style of teaching, influenced many of his students. This resulted in a new breed of Islamic scholars in the area, who were not constrained by the traditional barriers and so they were able to produce very prominent scholars of their own such as Sheikh Al-Amin Ali Mazrui, and Sheikh Abdalla Farsy that were great contributors to Islam in East Africa.

May Allah accept him in his janna and elevate his status, for he truly practiced the true proper traditions of spreading Islamic knowledge.

Watch the video below to get the rest of his story... 

Hotuba ni ya kiswahili

Source: The pioneer role model of the East African Muslim Reformers.