Al-Amawī was born in the city of Barawa to the Ra Ma'limu clan,[1] where he pursued studies under several well-known scholars, such as Sayyid Abū Bakr al-Miḥḍār al-Ḥaḍramī, Ḥājj ‘Alī b.
[3] Al-Amawī wrote on theology, law, Sufism, grammar, rhetoric, and history, and composed an unfinished Swahili-Arabic dictionary.
They include portions of his diaries from two of his six journeys in the Rovuma region, a history of the Bū Saʻīdī dynasty, Sufi and devotional texts, a work on rhetoric, and a theological poem following the doctrines of the Ash‘arite school of Sunni Islam, ‘Iqd al-la’ālī (Necklace of Pearls), with a lengthy commentary, Taqrīb ‘Iqd al-la’ālī ilā fahm al-atfāli .
In one letter he wrote, “Abdul Aziz called and asked for an explanation of the statement that man was made ‘in the image of God,’ which shocked them.
I wrote and sent him an explanation in Swahili.” In one of the Dar es Salaam fragments, al-Amawī mentions a debate moderated by Sir Arthur Hardinge that he had with Bishop Chauncy Maples in the Anglican cathedral in Zanzibar.