Ali A. Mazrui Senior Fellow
Abdul Sheriff was born and educated in Zanzibar. He completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1966. He went on to receive his Ph.D. from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, in 1971.
He taught history at the University of Dar es Salaam from 1969 to 1991. He served as adviser and principal curator of the Zanzibar Museums from 1993 to 2005 and as executive director of the Zanzibar Indian Ocean Research Institute from 2007 to 2012. He also served as chairman and member of the Presidential Committees on the State University of Zanzibar from 1995 to 2002, chairman of the Zanzibar Constitutional Forum from 2012 to 2014, and a delegate to the Tanzanian Constituent Assembly in 2014.
Sheriff has published several books, including Slaves, Spices & Ivory in Zanzibar (1987) and The Dhow Cultures of the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism, Culture & Islam (2010). He edited History & Conservation of Zanzibar Stone Town (1995) and co-edited Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule (1991), The Indian Ocean: Oceanic Connections & the Creation of New Societies (2014), and Transition from Slavery in Zanzibar & Mauritius (2017). He has also published numerous scholarly articles. His current research interests include Zanzibar, Swahili culture, and the Indian Ocean.
