I have conducted several projects for the digitising and conservation of manuscripts and texts in coastal East Africa which are in private ownership and in danger of environmental degradation.

 

2011-2012: EAP466 - The Manuscripts of the Riyadha Mosque in Kenya 

This project digitised the manuscript collection held at the Riyadha mosque in Lamu, Kenya. The Riyadha mosque college was founded in the late 19th century and is one of the oldest continuously functioning Islamic teaching institutions in East Africa. The digitised collection consist of 145 items dating from the 19th and 20th centuries. 

THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE RIYADHA MOSQUE IN LAMU, KENYA

 

2018-2019: EAP1114 -The Maalim Idris Collection, Zanzibar

This project digitised the early printed materials contained in the library of the late Zanzibari scholar, Maalim Muhammad Idris (d.2012). The collection is a "snapshot" of an intellectual tradition in transition and a cross-section of an emerging Islamic print tradition in East Africa.

https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP1114

An introduction to the collection and information about the project can be found here (in Norwegian): 

https://forskning.no/historie-humaniora-islam/verdifulle-islamske-tekster-er-na-tilgjengelig-pa-nett/1696709?fbclid=IwAR0z1tExZLIIV9Y1ymwtnHMUcRbxgn0wpPpU-HdiMXE7UUcgR9OfsB91rBM

https://www.uib.no/hf/136310/verdifull-samling-islamske-tekster-er-blitt-tilgjengelig-på-nett

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I teach at all levels of the BA, MA and PhD programme in history. Together with colleagues, I teach and supervise students on the MIddle East, Islamic Africa and Islamic history. 

Academic book chapter

• Anne Katrine Bang (2007). Cosmpolitanism colonized? Three cases from Zanzibar 1890-1920. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2017). Islam in the Swahili World. Connected Authorities.. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2006). “Another scholar for all seasons? Tahir b. Abi Bakr al-Amawi (1877-1938). Qadi of Zanzibar”. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2025). Double-sided print: Silent and Communal Reading During the Rise of Islamic Print in East Africa, c. 1880-1940. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2015). Business communication in Colonial Times: The Norway-East Africa Trading Company in Zanzibar, 1895-1925. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2006). Tause tingmenns tale. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2015). Localizing Islamic Knowledge: Acquisition and Copying in the Riyadha Mosque Manuscript Collection in Lamu, Kenya. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2009). En norsk trelastagent pa Zanzibar, 1894-1920. Kolonien som arena for sosial mobilitet. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2010). When there are no foreign lands and all lands are foreign. Two texts from the Indian Ocean. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2006). ”My generation. Umar b. Ahmad b. Sumayt (1886-1973): Inter-generational Network transmission in a trans-oceanic Hadramı Alawı family, ca. 1925-1973”. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2022). The “travelling scholar” in African Islamic traditions. Local, regional and global worlds. (external link)

Academic article

• Anne Katrine Bang (2015). Pondering the text as change maker. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2016). From Middle Eastern to African to African Islamic history: An interview with R. Sean O'Fahey. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2022). Arabic-language manuscript and print as a source for Indian Ocean Islamic history: The case of East Africa. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2025). Reformers Remembered: The Haddadian Paradigm as Retold in the 20th- and 21st-Century Eastern and Western Indian Ocean. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2014). The Riyadha Mosque Manuscript Collection in Lamu: A {Hcombining dot below}a{dcombining dot below}rami¯ Tradition in Kenya. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2019). Islamic incantations in a colonial notebook: A case from interwar Zanzibar. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2012). Zanzibari Islamic knowledge transmission revisited: loss, lament, legacy, transmission - and transformation. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2007). Teachers, scholars and educationalists. The impact of Hadrami-Alawi teachers and teachings on Islamic education in Zanzibar ca. 1870-1930. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2009). Reflections on the creation of history in the Indian Ocean. The sources and their relation to local practices and global connectivities. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2011). Authority and Piety, Writing and Print: A preliminary study of the circulation of Islamic texts in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Zanzibar. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2019). Hadramis in Africa. (external link)

Doctoral thesis (PhD)

• Anne Kathrine Bang (2000). Dr. avhandling :Sufis and Scholars of the Sea. The Sufi and family networks of Ahmad ibn Sumayt and the tariqa cAlawiyya in East Africa c. 1860-1925. (external link)

Media feature article

• Anne Katrine Bang; Eirik Hovden (2011). Jemen. Regime for fall eller stat i opplosning. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2004). Presse og Pressefrihet i Gulfen. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2011). Tr;bbel i paradis. Oppror i Oman. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2003). Intet nytt fra Ordfronten. Ondskapens akse og andre våpen. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2001). Når Historien innhenter historiefaget. (external link)

Media interview

• Anne Katrine Bang (2022). The Ashraf Alawis of the sea. History of Yemen in the Indian Ocean. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2022). Interview with Kenyan media on field work finds for MprinT. With National Museum of Kenya. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2021). Podcast interview on Akbar's Chamber, by Nile Green, UCLA. (external link)

Conference lecture

• Anne Katrine Bang (2022). Double-sided print: The rise of Islamic Arabic print in East Africa, c. 1880-1940. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2015). The (selective) silence of the Hajis. The East African hajj c. 1880-1950.. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2021). Transregional Languages in the Indian Ocean World: The Case of Arabic. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2015). "Shooting Stars. Living connectivity in early 20th century coastal East Africa (and tracing it 100 years later). (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2004). Cosmopolitanism Colonized? Three cases from Zanzibar 1890-1925. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2021). Keynote speech: The East African Islamic Arabic manuscript tradition. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2022). Mecca Imagined/Mecca Experienced. The Haramayn in Indian Ocean Travelogues c. 1900-1950. (external link)

Radio or TV participation

• Anne Katrine Bang (2021). Intervju m/ Cecilie Hellestveit om ny bok om krigen i Jemen. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2021). Interview with Marion Katz for CanCode. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2022). Women. life, freedom. Activism in Iran.. (external link)

Journal review

• Anne Katrine Bang (2010). Book review. Abu Shouk and H. Ibrahim, The Hadrami diaspora in Southeast Asia. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2010). Red Sea Citizens: Cosmopolitan Society and Cultural Change in Massawa. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2008). The graves of Tarim: Genealogy and mobility across the Indian ocean. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2010). Anmeldelse av E. Goffeng, Doedelig Farvann. Oyenvitne til Israels angrep paa fredsflaaten. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2011). Tradisjonelt og tilgjengelig om arabisk historie. Eugene Rogan, Araberne. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2021). Tore Linne Eriksen. Afrika, Fra de første mennesker til i dag. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2015). Pondering the text as changemaker. Review/discussion of Isabel Hofmeyr’s Ghandi’s Printing Press. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2003). Hadramawt and the Indian Ocean. Eight Years of Research on Diaspora and Homeland. (external link)

Lecture

• Magnus Halsnes; Knut S. Vikør; Anne Katrine Bang (2018). Panelsamtale: Kva er det med Saudi Arabia?. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2022). On mobility in the Indian Ocean. (external link)

Academic monograph

• Anne Katrine Bang (2024). Zanzibari Muslim Moderns. Islamic Paths to Progress in the Interwar Period. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2024). Zanzibari Muslim Moderns. Islamic Paths to Progress in the Interwar Period. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2014). Islamic Sufi Networks in the Western Indian Ocean (c. 1880-1940). Ripples of Reform. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2008). Zanzibar-Olsen - Norsk trelasthandel i Øst-Afrika 1895-1925. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2003). Sufis and Scholars of the Sea. Family Networks in East Africa, 1860-1925. (external link)

Popular science article

• Anne Katrine Bang (2004). Virkelighetens hold i virkeligheten. (external link)
• Anne Katrine Bang (2007). Zanzibar-omanere og oman-zanzibarere. Bindestreker over Det indiske hav - og videre. (external link)

Encyclopedia entry

• Anne Katrine Bang (2002). Ahmad b. Abi Bakr b. Sumayt. (external link)

Research report

• Anders Skogstad; Anne Kathrine Bang (1991). Kvalitetssikring av psykososialt arbeidsmiljø. Norsk Hydro - U&P drift. Evalueringsrapport for perioden mars 1990 til mars 1991. (external link)

Non-fiction monograph

• Anne Kathrine Bang; Knut S. Vikør (1996). The Idri state in Asir 1906-1934. Politics, religion and personal prestige as statebuilding factors in early twentieth-century Arabia. (external link)

See a complete overview of publications in Cristin.

 

2022: Arabic‐language manuscript and print as a source for Indian Ocean Islamic history: The case of East Africa. History Compass. https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12713

 

2021: “The “travelling scholar” in African Islamic traditions. Local, regional and global worlds”, in: T. Østebø (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Islamic Africa, London: Routledge, 2021. 

 

2019: “Islamic Incantations in a Colonial Notebook. A case from Interwar Zanzibar”, Cahiers d’Études Africaines, LIX (4), 236, 2019, 1025-1046. 

 

2019: “Hadramis in Africa.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. Oxford University Press. Article published March 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.324.

2017: “Islam in the Swahili World”. In: La Violette & S. Wynn-Jones, The Swahili World, London: Routledge, 2017, 557-565. 

 2015: “Localizing Islamic Knowledge: Acquisition and Copying in the Riyadha Mosque Manuscript Collection in Lamu, Kenya”, in: Maja Kominko (ed.), From Dust to Digital. Ten Years of the Endangered Archives Programme, London, 55-88.

2014: Islamic Sufi Networks in the Southwestern Indian Ocean (c. 1880-1940). Ripples of Reform. Monograph, 227 pages, Leiden (Brill).

 2014: “The Ḥaḍramaut in Lamu. The manuscript collection of the Riyadha mosque of Lamu, Kenya”, Journal of Islamic Manuscripts, special issue (ed. A. Regourd), Manuscripts of Yemen, circulation of ideas and models, Vol 5:2-3, 125-153.

2014: “The Norway-East Africa Trading Company in Zanzibar, 1895-1925. Business communication in colonial times”, In: K. A. Kjerland & B. Bertelsen (eds.), Navigating colonial orders. Norwegian Entrepreneurship in Africa and Oceania, Berghahn Books.

2013: “Danish and Norwegian travel accounts of Oman, 1765-1995: Changing views across land and sea”. In: M. Hoffmann-Ruf & A.R. al-Salimi (eds.), The Ibadism of Oman. Its overseas Development and its Perception Overseas, Tübingen (Georg Olms Verlag), Germany, 403-410.

2012: “Zanzibari Islamic knowledge transmission revisited: Loss, lament, legacy, transmission – and transformation”, Journal of Social Dynamics, 38:3, 419-434.

2012: “Remembrance of Maalim Muhammad Idris Muhammad Saleh”, Islamic Africa, 3:2.

2012: “Cultural Heritage and Social Context. Research and Management in Post-Colonial Mozambique,” In: T. Halvorsen & P. Vale (eds.), One world, many knowledges. Regional experiences and cross-regional links in higher education, Sanord, 249-264. With Tore Sætersdal.

2011: “Authority and Piety, Writing and Print. A preliminary study of Islamic texts in late 19^th and early 20^th century Zanzibar”, Africa, 81, 63-81.

2024-2026: Sudan-Norway Academic Collaboration

Project funding: Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oslo. Project location: Chr. Michelsen Institute and University of Bergen. 

https://www.cmi.no/projects/2942-snac

In this project I lead a cluster that has two aims: to digitise and catalogue existing Sudan collections at the University of Bergen and to train Sudanese scholars and students to produce digital sources to Sudanese history and culture in the country. 

 

2021-2026: MPrinT@EAST_AFRICA. Islamic Manuscript, Print and Practice: Textual adaptations in coastal East Africa, c. 1880-2020

Project funding: Norwegian Research Council, ground-breaking research.

https://www.uib.no/en/ahkr/143764/mprinteastafrica

This project examines the use of text on the East African (Swahili) coast during the manuscript-to-print transition (c. 1880-1950) and the onwards lives of these texts from c. 1950 until the present. We study editorial choices and investigate the ways in which manuscripts and print texts continued their social lives as recited words. By combining bibliographical studies of “street texts” (smaller texts, often prayers and litanies) and mapping the continuous re-interpretation of these texts in the form of communal recitation, we study the overlooked continuity between manuscript and print. In so doing, we aim to challenge the existing understanding of “traditional” Islam and “global” Islam as fundamentally opposite.

 

COMPLETED PROJECTS:

2021-2025: The Invisible Ceiling. Muslim immigrant entrepeneurs navigate the Norwegian financial environment. Project located at Chr. Michelsen Institute. 

https://www.cmi.no/projects/2579-the-invisible-ceiling#home

Preserving Pious Print. Digitising Early Islamic Print in the Maalim Idris Collection, Zanzibar, Tanzania

The Manuscript Collection of the Riyadha Mosque in Lamu, Kenya 

From transmission of tradition to global learning: African Islamic Education from 1800-2000. 

Linking Global Cities, tracing local practices. Islamic Literature and networks in the South-Western Indian Ocean, 1800-2000. 

In the Wake of Colonialism. Norwegian commercial interests in Colonial Africa and Oceania. 

 

2021-2024: The Invisible Ceiling. Muslim entrepeneurs navigate the Norwegian financial environment. 

Project funding: Norwegian Research Council. Project located at Chr. Michelsen Institute

https://www.cmi.no/projects/2579-the-invisible-ceiling#home

 

 

2021-2024: Cabo Delgado. Conflict, Resilience and Reconstruction. 

Project Funding: Norwegian Research Council. Project located at Chr. Michelsen Institute

https://www.cmi.no/projects/2615-cabo-delgado-conflict-resilience-and-reconstruction