Al-Biruni (1050) from Khwarazm at the Aral sea coast
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The (modern version of the) legendary shore temple of Somnath. Which was visited by lots of traders of East Africa.
Abul Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al Biruni was born in Khuwarizm in 973AD and died after 1050 in Ghaza. He is considered one of the greatest scholars of Islam, noted for his independence of mind and impartiality. His style, loose and idiosyncratic is often difficult to understand.
Taken from the Saschau translation.
Al-Biruni's book on India is written to make Hinduism understandable to the Muslim
scholar as well as its culture and its science. During the whole book he explains, Hinduism, the laws, culture and science of India by comparing it with Arab ideas and the ideas of the classical
Greek. Several times he speaks about east Africa, once when describing the world, a second time when describing the Indian Ocean and also when talking about idols in the city of Somanah.
Last when talking about the Maldives.
Al-Biruni wrote the book when traveling in northern India, where he worked for the Moslem Emperor who had concurred the country. Every paragraph comes from a different part of the book.
CHAPTER XVIII.
VARIOUS NOTES ON THEIR COUNTRY, THEIR RIVERS, AND THEIR OCEAN. ITINERARIES OF THE DISTANCES BETWEEN THEIR SEVERAL KINGDOMS, AND BETWEEN THE BOUNDARIES OF THEIR COUNTRY.
…………..The continent protrudes far into the sea in the western half of the earth, and extends its shores far into the south. On the plains of this continent live the western Negroes, whence the slaves are brought ; and there are the Mountains of the Moon, and on them are the sources of the Nile. On its coast, and the islands before the coast, live the various tribes of the Zanj. There are several bays or gulfs which penetrate into the continent on this western half of the earth — the bay of Berbera, that of Klysma (the Red Sea), and that of Persia (the Persian Gulf) ; and between these gulfs the western continent protrudes more or less into the ocean……………..
………………. The ganda exists in large numbers in India, more particularly about the Ganges. It is of the build of a buffalo, has a black scaly skin, and dewlaps hanging down under the chin. It has three yellow hoofs on each foot, the biggest one forward, the others on both sides. The tail is not long ; the eyes lie low, farther down the cheek than is the case with all other animals. On the top of the nose there is a single horn which is bent upwards. The Brahmins have the privilege of eating the flesh of the ganda. I have myself witnessed how an elephant coming across a young ganda was attacked by it. The ganda wounded with its horn a forefoot of the elephant, and threw it down on its face. I thought that the ganda was the rhinoceros (or karkadann), but a man who had visited Sufala, in the country of the Negroes, told me that the kark, which the Negroes call impila, the horn of which furnishes the material for the handles of our knives, comes nearer this description than the rhinoceros. It has various colors. On the skull it has a conical horn, broad at the root, but not very high. The shaft of the horn (lit. its arrow) is black inside, and white everywhere else. On the front it has a second and longer horn of the same description, which becomes erect as soon as the animal wants to ram with it. It sharpens this horn against the rocks, so that it cuts and pierces. It has hoofs, and a hairy tail like the tail of an ass…………….
The western islands in this ocean are those of the Zanj (Negroes), and those in the middle are the islands Ramni (2) and the Diva islands (Malediva,
Laccadiva), to which belong also the Kumair islands (3). It is peculiar to the Diva islands that they rise slowly ; first, there appears a sandy tract above the surface of the ocean ; it
rises more and more and extends in all directions, till at last it becomes a firm soil, whilst at the same time another island falls into decay and melts away, finally is submerged and
disappears in the ocean. As soon as the inhabitants become aware of this process, they search for a new island of increasing fertility, transport there their cocoa-nut palms, date palms,
cereals, and household goods, and emigrate to it. These islands are, according to their products, divided into two classes, the Diva-kudha, i.e. the Diva of the kauri-shells, because there
they gather kauri-shells from the branches of the cocoa-nut palms which they plant in the sea, and Diva- kanhar, i.e. the Diva of the cords twisted from coconut fibers, and used for fastening
together the planks of the ships. (4)
The island of Alwakwak (7) belongs to the Kumair islands (3). Kumair is not, as common people believe, the name of a tree which produces screaming human
heads instead of fruits, but the name of a people the color of whom is whitish. They are of short stature and of a build like that of the Turks. They practice the religion of the Hindus, and
have the custom of piercing their ears. Some of the inhabitants of the Wakwak (7) island are of black color. In our countries there is a great demand for them as slaves. People fetch from
thence the black ebony-wood ; it is the pith of a tree, the other parts of which are thrown away, whilst the kinds of wood called mulamma and shauhat and the yellow sandal-wood are brought
from the country of the Zanj (Negroes). In former times there were pearl-banks in the bay of Serandib (Ceylon), but at present they have been abandoned. Since the Sarandib pearls have
disappeared, other pearls have been found at Sufala in the country of the Zanj, so that people say the pearls of Sarandib have migrated to Sufala.
Note, this last paragraph can be seen as an argument in the discussion about to whom belong the ruined Swahili cities who according to oral tradition belonged to the Wadiba.
It is very unlikely that this were pure Maldives settlements, because the ruins are real Swahili ruins, but places with special commercial relations with the Maldives, and counting among them a certain percentage of Maldives people or their descendants.
It also relates to a passage of Ibn Battuta who talks about the export of cowries shells from the Maldives. And a passage from Abu Zaid Hassan of Siraf who talks about the coastal people of Oman behaving in the same way as described above for the people of the Maldives.
CHAPTER XXIV.
TRADITIONS OF THE PURANAS REGARDING EACH OF THE SEVEN DVIPAS.
…………(When talking about the skin color of the people of the central Dvipa (6); they are gold or silver color) But where do we find people of the color of gold or silver ? We know only of the color of burnt silver, which occurs, e.g. among the Zanj, who lead a life without sorrow and envy, as they do not possess anything which gives birth to these passions. They live no doubt longer than we, but only a little longer, and by no means twice as long. The Zanj are so uncivilized that they have no notion of a natural death. If a man dies a natural death, they think he was poisoned. Every death is suspicious with them, if a man has not been killed by a weapon. Likewise it is regarded with suspicion by them, if a man is touched by the breath of a consumptive person…….
CHAPTER XXVI.
ON THE SHAPE OF HEAVEN AND EARTH ACCORDING TO THE HINDU ASTRONOMERS.
…………….. The equatorial line does not, in the quarter of the earth known to us, represent a boundary between terra firma and the ocean. For in certain places the continent protrudes far into the ocean, so as to pass beyond the equator, e.g. the plains of the Negroes in the west, which protrude far towards the south, even beyond the mountains of the moon and the sources of the Nile, in fact, into regions which we do not exactly know. For that continent is desert and impassable, and likewise the sea behind Sufala of the Zanj is un-navigable. No ship which ventured to go there has ever returned to relate what it had witnessed…….(5)
CHAPTER LVIII.
HOW EBB AND FLOW FOLLOW EACH OTHER IN THE OCEAN.
…………..The reason why in particular Somanath has become so famous is that it was a harbor for seafaring people, and a station for those who went to and fro between Sufala in the country of the Zanj and China…………..
Note on Biruni's Somnath :
The legendary shore temple of Somnath is about 5km from Veraval (A large
coastal industrial center) also situated 79 km from Junagadh and 25 km from Chorwad, Somnath is one of the twelve most sacred Shiva shrines in India and had a checkered history. It is believed
that the Somnath temple here was originally built by Somraj, the Moon God himself, out of gold, then rebuilt by Ravana in silver and then by Krishna in Wood, and yet again by King Bhimdev Solanki
in stone in the 10th century. Ghazni Mohammed descended on Somnath in 1024 when the temple was so prosperous that it has 300 musicians, 500 dancing girls and 300 barbers to shave the heads of
visiting pilgrims. There is a description to this effect by Al Biruni, an Arab traveler. After a two-day battle, Ghazni Mohammed carted off its fabulous wealth In 1706 Aurangzeb, the Mughal
emperor converted it into a mosque. It was rebuilt in 1950 A.D. with the support of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (minister of interior).
(1) Zabaj: one of the main islands of Indonesia (Sumatra).
(2) Ramni : name for Sumatra.
(3) Kumair islands: Qamar island is most times Madagascar and/or Comoros; here it includes many more islands.
(4) Note that Buzurg ibn Shahriyar in his Kitab aja'ib al-Hind (955)makes a nearly similar distinction between the two categories of islands.
(5) Masudi (916) said: Their country (Zanj) goes down as far as the country of Sofala and the Waqwaq. There is the furthest limit for the voyages from Oman and Siraf on the Sea of the Zanj. In the same way that the sea of china ends with the lands of Sirla (Japan), the sea of Zanj ends with the land of Sofala and the Waq-waq, …….
Al Biruni (1050) here goes one step further: and likewise the sea behind Sufala of the Zanj is unnavigable. No ship which ventured to go there has ever returned to relate what it had witnessed…….
(6) Dvipa: island
(7) Waqwaq: in the books three different places are called Waqwaq: in South-East Africa; in Indonesia; around Japan. Here it is unclear what is meant.
Note: Al Biruni (1050) here gives proof that these early contacts with East Africa out of India, skipped the northern part of the coast but concentrated on Sufala. (There was another contact out of the Persian gulf with Qanbalu and Sofala at about the same period.) He even found a man in India who had been in Sofala of the Zanj. And that Somanath on the North-Western coast of India was a harbor in these contacts. We probably have here a route of Indian trade together with the ongoing Austronesian colonization of Madagascar and (as he mentions) the trade up to China.