Land and Maritime Empires in Indian Ocean Studies from different methodological perspectives and different themes and cultures is the main motive of this collection of studies from two scholars who promised each other a long time ago to come together to write this book. It is true that the fluid space of the Indian Ocean was influenced by different forces of capital and by knowledge-power nexus during and after the colonial period. Today the history of the Indian Ocean has gained a renewed interest as it reminds us of the greatest mobility and traversal with such an impact that it forces us to rethink how the processes of such encounters operate and what the areas stand for. Many stories still remain untold inside this cosmopolitan interregional arena. We both believe the occasion is here therefore to try to reshape our understanding of Africa and Asia.
We are both aware that the study of the history of the Indian Ocean can no longer be considered merely as hagiographic reconstructions, but must take into consideration a number of historical-political-institutional aspects. These include the presence of different cultural, social, and religious groups, together with the affirmation of the Omani Ibadites (Ibadiyyah) dominance between the mid­seventeenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries;
the fundamental influence of the Indian mercantile and other Asian communities; and the impact with the Swahili population of the Eastern African coast and the Sub-Saharan regions. All of these issues should also be considered in relation to links with Europe and with the newly United States of America. The term Empire in the title is here adopted to identify the many spaces of power divided between different regions and groups. The role of the Empires in the Indian Ocean history will be therefore redefined and re-examined without the classical perimetral definitions of traditional politics and international relations.