帝国の子どもたち

――オマーン帝国／後における混血の処遇――

抄録

  This article shows how the mixed-race Arab has been legally treated and culturally inscribed both in the Empire of Oman, which was once a maritime state that included the coast of the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa, as well as in post-imperial Oman of the present day. This article is characterized by the comparative approach detailed between the governance style of the non-European Omani Empire, which has thus far been unexplored in Imperial studies, and European Empire rule that is based on racism. The paper also examines what miscegenation has meant in both imperial and post-imperial Oman and how the concept has changed in these historical periods. Finally, the paper is distinctive as it examines colonialism from the perspective of the rulers, which has received far less attention than the perspective of the colonized in anthropological studies.

  In the European Empires, miscegenation was never a legal category, but rather a social category, and was seen as an embodiment of European degeneration and moral decay. Most were born out of wedlock and into poverty, but were still legally classified as European. Contrastingly, in Zanzibar, the capital of the Empire of Oman, people of mixed ancestry were common before the Omani ruled, and the development of the so called “mixed-blood problem” did not emerge in colonial Zanzibar, and this was, in part, due to the Arab and Islamic traditions in that context. Islamic law permits polygamy and relations with concubines, and children born as mixed-race from an Arab father and a non-Arab female concubine is legally an Arab and legitimate because of the Arabic patrilineage traditions. Mixed-race people were not socially or economically disadvantaged, rather they were part of the elite and wealthy in colonial Zanzibar. Having said this, true “Arabness” is derived from the knowledge of the classical Arabic language and Islam for elite Omanis. As Ann Stoler (2002) clearly depicted in her book, the colonial measure of being classified as “European” was based on physical features and lineage as well as the possession of cultural competence such as reason, affective appropriateness, and morality. In this sense, cultural literacy and competence were the de facto criteria that racial membership was assigned through, both in the European and Omani Empires.