By the mid-15th century, Portugal was the leading maritime nation in Europe. This feat was largely due to the legacy of Prince Henry, a royal navigator who convened a professional team of astronomers, geographers, mapmakers and navigators at his business of seamanship in the southern end of Portugal.
For four decades Henry sponsored expeditions to the western coast of Africa with the hope of eventually convening a team to find a sea route to India where it was said the spice market was booming. The results of his investments in exploration were profitable in as far as trade of enslaved West Africans and gold dust from West African kingdoms. But the furthest any of his navigators ever got was present-day Sierra Leone.
Henry died in 1460, and that same year, Vasco da Gama – the man who would achieve Henry’s mission – was born. da Gama took to sea at an early age, he worked on merchant ships in the King’s service, learning to be a navigator: a skill that would later prove useful when he started commanding expeditions.
In 1488, explorer Bartolomeu Dias became the first Portuguese explorer to sail to the southernmost point of Africa. Though by then, the sea route project to India had been neglected.
Meanwhile, da Gama served under King John II of Portugal and thereafter King Manuel who ascended to the throne in 1495.
Word of the Indian spice markets was still a hot topic in Portugal and led to the revival of the project. In 1497, da Gama was commissioned by Manuel I to lead an expedition that would find a sea route to India. Equipped with a fleet of four vessels, the latest maps and navigation instruments, and three bilingual speakers, da Gama’s team set sail on July 8th from Lisbon down the Atlantic Ocean.
The Gulf of Guinea was notorious for doldrums and so the fleet went west-south-west, in a huge loop round the Atlantic. Four months after departure, the crew arrived St Helena Bay in southern Africa on 7th November, and two weeks later they sailed through the Cape of Good Hope.
The ship’s first stop in Eastern Africa was at the present Mozambique port. This was between January and March of 1498. Vasco da Gama’s attempts to tried to trade with the Sultan of Mozambique were futile largely because of the difference in religion. The Portuguese were Christians while the residents of Mozambique were Muslim. The crew sailed north to Mombasa with hopes of better luck, but Mombasa was no different. It wasn’t until they got to Malindi, 120 km northeast of Mombasa that they received a warm welcome to sojourn before commencing their trip. The Sultan of Malindi permitted da Gama to recruit a knowledgeable Arab navigator – Ahmed Ibn Majid – who showed the crew the route to India.
Vasco da Gama returned to Portugal in 1499 and was welcomed as a hero because the goods he brought back from his expedition showed the wealth that could be accumulated from trading with Indian Ocean markets and accessing India via ‘his route’. Though of the 170 crew members he initially left Lisbon with, only 54 made it home alive.
This successful voyage made Portugal a principal supplier of pepper (spice) to the European market. This made the state wealthy and Portugal ultimately became a great power.
Vasco da Gama had no influence in Mombasa, but his legacy was known throughout Europe. This is likely the reason the British government named one of Mombasa’s first roads in honour of him. Vasco da Gama Street stretched from near Fort Jesus all the way to Mandhry Mosque, one of the city’s first mosques.
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The spirit of Kenyanizing names and locations came with a newly independent Kenya. Vasco da Gama Street was renamed Sir Mbarak Hinawy Road after Sheikh-Sir Mbarak al-Hinawy – an influential figure in pre-independence coastal rulership.
Sheikh-Sir Mbarak al-Hinawy was of Omani descent. His grandfather, Ali bin-Mansur al-Hinawy, led the family’s migration from Oman, first briefly staying in Zanzibar, before relocating to Mombasa where the family settled.
The al-Hinawy family was closely connected with the Sultanate of Zanzibar, and so it was no surprise that Sheikh-Sir Mbarak al-Hinawy worked his way to serve as Liwali (Governor) of Mombasa in 1937. Four years later, he became Liwali for the Coast.
One of his prime achievements came seven years into his tenure. Sheikh-Sir Mbarak secured a prime plot of land in the Port Tudor area of Mombasa that he intended to donate. This land, and financial contributions from the Sultan of Zanzibar and the Bohra Community of East Africa went towards the construction of the Mombasa Institute of Muslim Education, a tertiary institution that aimed to provide adequate technical training to Muslim students in East Africa. Sheikh-Sir Mbarak al-Hinawy was among the institution’s first Board of Governors.
He served as Liwali until 1959, a year shy of Kenya’s independence decade.
When Kenya became independent, Sheikh-Sir Mbarak and other Governors in the institution transitioned the school’s student acceptance requirements such that all qualifying students – no matter their faith – would be accepted into the school. Three years later, the school was renamed Mombasa Technical Institute.
It comes as no surprise that his good leadership and dedication to advanced education was recognized by Kenya’s first post-independence government. This road’s name is still the same to this day.
