ABSTRACT
The biographical literature all emphasises that Abu¯ Bakr b. \Abd Alla¯h was the first of the Sumayt
˙ clan to settle in East Africa, and in the Comoro Islands in
particular. However, he was by no means the first \Alawı¯ sayyid to do so. As has been discussed in Chapter 1, both the main cities on the coast and the towns of the Comoro Islands had received \Alawı¯ immigrants for centuries – notably of the families A¯l Jamal al-Layl and A¯l Shaykh Abı¯ Bakr bin Sa¯lim, but also the A¯l al-Sha¯t
˙ irı¯ and others.
