Sun sets on Ahmed Nabhany, one of Kenya’s best Kiswahili literary and cultural icons

The passing on of Prof Ahmed Sheikh Nabhany last week saddened many Kiswahili scholars, family members and the entire Kiswahili fraternity. Indeed, the passing on of this renowned icon of Kiswahili prosodic poetry and culture reminds us that life is never one sweet song, neither is it a straight line which has no end. As human beings, we have to take the fall at one time as this is our destiny.

Many have written about this great Kiswahili scholar since he died. Mine is to add a tribute unto the voices of many, and a reminder that we need to praise our heroes and heroines while they are still alive.

Born in 1927, Sheikh Nabhany was a native of Matondoni in Lamu County and a senior citizen of Kenya. He died aged 90. He was a great Kiswahili scholar, a reputable poet, a lexicologist, historian and a cultural expert. Due to these attributes, Prof Nabhany received countless visitors wishing to learn about the history, culture and language of the Swahili.

While remembering Prof Nabhany, I cannot help but compare him with the famous Greek playwright Sophocles, who lived in the 5th Century B.C. History tells us that he died aged 90, just like Nabhany, and Sophocles was also  a great poet like Nabhany.

These two literary giants will always remain in the annals of history. It is difficult to say goodbye to the ever joyful professor who had an infectious laughter. Yet we have to accept, as the renowned Kiswahili poet Abdulatif Abdalla once said in his anthology of poems (Sauti ya Dhiki) that ‘Chema Hakidumu,’ a good thing never lasts. The words of William Shakespeare linger on in my mind: “there is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

The passing on of Nabhany has left a cruel mark in the lives of many of us who knew him. Yet, as Martin Luther King Jr once said, we must accept finite disappointment we but should never lose infinite hope.

While talking about Nabhany, Prof Kimani Njogu of Twaweza Communications said: “Nabhany was an international scholar whom students of Kiswahili from Europe, USA and East Africa visited for advice. He was an organic scholar as his scholarship grew from his community and a trail blazer in lexicography who has written and spoken widely on the preservation of Kiswahili dialects.”

Nabhany walked with some of us as we searched for the truth in the academia and was our role model. He had the passion to give counsel and the patience to listen. Personally, the passing of Nabhany has left a gaping hole in my academic pursuits as he had been my adviser, teacher and mentor.

As a poet of great repute, Sheikh Nabhany was well versed in Kiswahili prosodic poetry. The ease with which he explicated pieces of classical poetry of yore was amazing to many of us who love poetry. His exuberant account of the Swahili culture and history while exuding confidence and great humour often left us glued to our seats urging him to continue. His accounts were often punctuated by poetic lines from his own compositions or drawn from poets of yester years.

As a self-trained scholar, Nabhany started composing poems at the tender age of 12, being inspired by his grandmother, Amina Abubakar, who was also a poetess in her own right. Together, they pieced together two classical works by earlier Swahili poets and published a book entitled Sanaa ya Utungo: Utendi wa Mwanakupona; Utendi wa Ngamia na Paa, which was published by Heinemann (1972).

Ms Amira Msellem Said who was his close assistant said: “Nabhany took me as his student and assisted me to perfect the art of poetry and story-telling.” She wrote Nabhany’s biography titled Waswifu wa Ahmed Sheikh Nabhany (2012) giving vivid accounts of his life and times.

As a lexicologist, Nabhany wrote Kandi ya Kiswahili, a dictionary of plants found in our environment. More often than not, he reminded us on the dangers of indiscriminate borrowing of foreign lexical items instead of researching and using such items from within our African languages.

Clara Momanyi, EBS, is a professor of Kiswahili at Catholic University of East Africa, Nairobi