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Utendi wa Tambuka
The Utendi wa Tambuka is an epic poem in Swahili composed in 1728 at the court of Pate, on the coast of present-day Kenya. It tells of a war between the forces of the Prophet Muhammad and the Byzantine Empire at Tabuk, and its manuscript is the oldest dated work of Swahili literature. Written in Arabic script, it uses the utendi metre that became standard in Swahili narrative poetry.
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- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Utendi wa Tambuka. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/utendi-wa-tambuka
- MLA
- “Utendi wa Tambuka.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/utendi-wa-tambuka. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Utendi wa Tambuka.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/utendi-wa-tambuka.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Utendi wa Tambuka’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/utendi-wa-tambuka (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻