Pangani, which is predominately Muslim district, is a part of the Swahili culture that extends north and south along the seashore with Zanzibar serving as its spiritual hub.

The sisal and copra plantation industries, which employed both locally born employees and the enormous number of migrant labourers that make up the majority of the population, are in charge of the country's economic existence.

[10] There is a clear cultural split in the late 19th century between the dialect-speaking, Christian and Pagan, migrants on the sisal estates and the Swahili-speaking, Muslims of the coastal Swahili towns.

The former group, plantation owners or fishermen, who are employers of labour, is sharply divided from the latter who provide the work for them, are not very interested in permanent agriculture, and are highly mobile.

This dichotomy, which was originally derived from the distinction between the coastal Afro-Arab slave economy and the inland slave-providing tribes, is still maintained today in the economic sphere.

They consist partly of long-term migrants exfoliated from the estates, after a period of residence on them, because of social ambition (i.e. to be regarded as a member of the coastal superior class or because of the more significant economic benefit to be derived from cultivating their plantations bought with their savings or cleared from the bush.