Sawahili Literature compared
to Arabic Literature

Preface:

Literature is the language of prayer as it called peoples to adopt ethics and god manners. The literary production includes all printed and written products of human beings characterized by high style of speech immortalizing the anniversary of certain idea or people. Speech of people was in the form of prose and when they desired to sing and remember their glories, knights and heroes they started to use poetry.

Most of people prefer poetry than prose. Therefore, some literatures, including the Swahili literature, kept poetry more than prose during past centuries and before appearance of printing and typing machines in eastern Africa.

- Swahili Poetry:
The term "Shairi" is borrowed by Swahili people from Arabic and has two private and general indications. The general indication of the term "Shairi" refers to all types of poetry, while the private indication refers to a certain type of poetry.

 Specialists of Swahili literature realize that there is no specific date for the beginning of Swahili poetry.

The Swahili poetry was existed during the Portuguese era, but only little verses were found. Arabs who immigrated to eastern Africa used the Swahili language in their speech, the matter which indicates that poetry in the Swahili language was borrowed from the Arab poetry.

El-Khalil Ibn Ahmad Ibn Abdel-Rahman El-Frahidi El-Azdi, who died in 175 A.H., has created the prosody and rhyme in Arabic poetry. As for the Swahili poetry, a group of generations have participated together in creating the prosody and rhyme. They used the term "Arudhi" which shows that they were affected by the Arabic poetry. In some cases they borrowed same Arabic words and transliterated them into the Swahili language in order to use them in the poetry.

The Swahili poetry was created to be used in songs. Melodies and tunes used in the Swahili poetry were based on the melodies and tunes of eastern music keys based on the Arabic ones.

Swahili people knew the tens keys and called them:
Rasit - Jirka - Rasidi - Bayat
Sika - Hijaz - Nawandi
Hijaz kar - Duka - Swaba
During the Omani era, major poets were gathering in meetings for discussing current events on the political, religious and social levels, the matter which encouraged poets in the cities of coasts of eastern Africa to produce a large amount of poems in this period. Such meetings were spread in the northern coastal cities and Swahili people were keen to witness and participate in said meetings and gatherings.

William Hichens commented on said gatherings saying that they represented a key factor in the cultural development of the Coast as they were similar to salons of art and literature in Europe in this period.

Types of Swahili literature as compared to the Arabic one:
The Swahili poetry is balanced by stanza depending on the vowels in words provided that the number of said stanza should be equal in each hemistich along with similar hemistiches in the verse (line of poetry).

Africa watch 

Positions in Africa:
Ethiopia:
Ethiopian Foreign Minister met with US Secretary of State on April 23. He said that his country wants the deployment of African Union forces in Mogadishu after withdrawal of Ethiopian forces.

Eritrea:
Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki, on May 4, denied accusations of his country's military interference against Ethiopian forces and interim government in Somalia.
Algeria:
- On April 14, the security authorities succeeded to define names and elements of the suicide group which drove the trapped cars in bombings of April 13.

- Algeria's ruling coalition won an overall majority in the legislative elections by obtaining 299 seats out of 389 ones representing the total seats of parliament in Algeria.

Sudan:
- The Sudanese government on March 31 confirmed commitment to the principle of dialogue with the international community and all controversial issues on Darfur.

 
- Sudanese president's advisor, Mostafa Othman Ismail, said that a summit was held between the Sudanese president and his Eritrean counterpart in Khartoum on April 21 within the framework of efforts of peaceful settlement and joining those who refused Abuja agreement to the peace agreement.

Somalia:
- The cycle of violence escalated in Mogadishu on March 31 in a position described by the International Red Cross Committee as the worst fighting witnessed by Mogadishu since 15 years.

- Many districts in Mogadishu suffered from heavy shelling of Ethiopian troops on April 18 which resulted in the death of 11 peoples.

- On May 23, the World Food Program called on the international community to move for stopping the maritime piracy operations on the Somali coasts which threaten the flow of food relief to the country.

Morocco:
Casablanca has witnessed suicide bombings on April 15 which resulted in killing three terrorists and 16 peoples and injuring dozens of others.

Uganda:
The Ugandan government has signed a truce agreement with the Lord's Resistance Army Group on April 12 for two months.

Chad:
- On May 2, Chad has signed a reconciliation agreement with Sudan in Riyadh under Saudi auspices.

- The Chadian government announced on May 28 the rejection of deployment of international forces on its borders with Darfur.

Cot d'Ivoire:
President Gbagbo said on May 19 that the process of rebels' disarmament is currently underway within the framework of a peace agreement with them.

Libya:
- Tripoli hosted on April 28 a four-way summit including Sudan, Chad, Central Africa and Libya to discuss means of putting an end to the absence of security on the borders among the four countries.

- On May 8, Tripoli hosted a three-way summit between presidents of Egypt, Chad and Libya within the framework of efforts of settling the Sudanese-Chadian relations.

 
Mali:
President Amadou Toumani Toure was reelected on April 30 for new presidential term.

Mauritania:
On March 26, Sidi Walad Sheikh Abdullah was officially declared as the winner of the second round run-off of presidential elections. He sworn on in a festival attended by a number of foreign leaders on April 19.

Nigeria:
- The election commission declared the victory of the ruling party candidate Omar Yar'Adua in the presidential elections where he got 24.6 million votes.

- On May 12, Nigeria succeeded in the negotiations of drawing the water borders with Cameron.