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Note on Indian Ocean Map in Kitab Ghara'ib al-funun (1050) (East African Part)
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Taken from:
An Eleventh-Century Egyptian Guide to the Universe by Savage-Smith, Emilie; Rapoport, Yossef (2014).
Lost Maps of the Caliphs: Drawing the World in Eleventh-Century Cairo; by Emilie Savage-Smith and Yossef Rapoport. 2018
The Swahili Corridor Revisited. African Archaeological Review, 35(2), 342-346. Horton, M. (2018).
This is the East African map from which the different itineraries have been deleted. What remains is a list of very visible way points and names of East African countries. Most of this information would be found in the contemporary geography books.
1- The Seventh Chapter on the cities and fortresses along the shore
2- Berbera, 250 farsakhs (1)
3- A mountain in the sea, called Ra’s Fil (the cape of Elephant) (Ras Filuk)(2)
4- Al Jardafun, a large mountain (Guardafui) (3)
5- Ra’s Hafun, a mountain (4)
6- The traveler encounters here the land of the Zanj at the edge of the Encompassing Sea. Whoever wants to go there is thrown back by the waves, but whoever seeks the land of the Zanj, the sea waves come from behind (and assist him).
7- The mouth of the ravines; mountains (5)
8- The land of the Zanj
9- The island of Sofala
10- The island of Unjuwa. (Zanzibar) There are twenty(?) anchorages around it. It has a town called A-k-h. (6)
12- Islands of the Zanj (8)
13- The island of Qanbalu (Pemba)(9)
(1) Farsakhs : 1 parasangs or farsakhs = 2.8 nautical miles/ about 5km. It is unknown why the 250 Farsakhs are added.
(2) Ra’s Fil (the cape of Elephant): cape Filuk: also known as Cape Elephant, is a headland in the north-eastern Bari province of Somalia. It is mentioned by Ibn Majid (1470) in his Al-Urguza as-Sabiyya and his Al-Muarriba. (See my webpage Ibn Majid (1470) Other Poems.)
(3) Al Jardafun: Cape Guardafui, Ra's Jardafun, Ra's 'Asir.
(4) Ra’s Hafun; a promontory in the northeaster Bari region of Somalia.
(5) There is only one place on the Somali coast that fits this description; the gulf before Ras el-Cheil (now called Illig). These three riverbeds are mostly dry. But contain enough watering places for the nomadic cattle herds. The gulf is mentioned by Idrisi (1150) as Markah (at the northern end of the gulf) and by Maokun as Hei-er for the promontory at the southern end. It also appears in the second itinerary of this map where it appears under the name of one of the villages in the gulf: Damyan. (See under)
The ravines of the dry rivers; and the waterholes in the first riverbed. A bit behind the three promontories is an inland mouth of a river that till today allows irrigated agriculture; which is already mentioned by Idrisi (1150). See pictures of the irrigate fields in my notes on Idrisi.
(6) The island of Unjuwa. (Zanzibar) There are twenty(?) anchorages around it. It has a town called A-k-h (and the vocalization of A-k-h gives Ukuu, thus Unguja Ukuu, the well-known eighth-eleventh century site in southern Zanzibar (Juma 2004). The word ‘twenty’ comes out of the book ‘Lost Maps of the Caliphs: Drawing the World in Eleventh-Century Cairo Book by Emilie Savage-Smith and Yossef Rapoport. (2018). Other authors say it is unreadable.
(7) Mafia according to Horton, M. (2018)
(8) Lamu archipelago according to Horton, M. (2018))
(9) The island of Qanbalu; Qanbalouh: The island of Qanbalu from where the Zanj slaves were imported, till the great Zanj revolt in Basra. (Zanzibar or Pemba)
The first itinerary on the map. Here detailed information is given; the information needed by the sailor. Note that the direction of this itinerary is opposite of the general direction on the map. The endpoint nr 7 follows exactly with the nr 4 of the general information (see above). But the begin point is way before Berbera where the general information started.
1- Abd A.d.s.(?), a mountain in the sea.
2- al-Harah, a mountain
3- Sajib or s-j-y-b, a mountain
4- A fortress in Ankhan or in A-n-kh-a-n, mountains. (1)
5- Raʾs Harira (Ra’s Khanzirah) a mountain. (2)
6- Al Qandala, a mountain. (3)
7- It is said that there are other bays (?), and whenever a ship enters them, it is lost (?)
(1) fortress in A-n-kh-a-n, mountains: a name which may be a corrupt form of Injar, modern Angar, on the African coast, just south of the Bab al-Mandeb straits. (Emilie Savage-Smith and Yossef Rapoport)
(2) Raʾs Harira (?Raʾs al-Khanzira) a mountain: may refer to Ra’s al-Khanzirah, or Ra’s Anf al-Khanzirah (“the cape of the Pig's Nose”), located between Berbera and Mayt and opposite Aden.‘ (Emilie Savage-Smith and Yossef Rapoport)
(3) al-Qandala (Candala), a mountain: ninety-five miles west of Cape Guardafui (Emilie Savage-Smith and Yossef Rapoport. 2018). Qandala is an ancient port town in the north-eastern mountainous Bari province of Somalia.
The second itinerary on the map. It starts with Mait a place in N-Somalia and ends in a bay, possibly near Tanga. So nor the beginning nor the end fits correctly between the general information given on the map.
1 Mayit (Mait), village (1)
2 Hiis (Heis), village (2)
3 Ma⟨. . .⟩a, village
4 A⟨. . .⟩ or A.y.s, village
5 ʿ-w-x-r-h or Uwayrah, village
6 Damyin or D.m.yun , village (3)
7 ⟨. . .⟩t-b-h or …t.bah, village (4)
8 ⟨. . .⟩x-h qar⟨yah⟩ or …..yah, village
9 a-l-x-h-x-h or - Al x.h.yah, village
10 a-l-K-r-d-y, village
11 M-l-n-d-s (Malindi or Manda), village (5)
12 M-k-f-a (Mtwapa) qa⟨ryah⟩, village (6)
13 A-l-w or Alu
14 khawr ⟨. . . (Bay of . . .) (7)
(1) (2) Mait and Heis are both located on the northern Somali coast.
(3) Damyan is located in a navigational treatise of 1511, just north of Saif al-Tawil (‘the long beach’, approximately 7 degrees north, Tibbetts 1971: 426, but also mentioned in the Periplus), and may be near Ras el-Cheil; there is a small village there called el-Danane. (Horton, M. (2018). Idrisi and Maokun both have this gulf in their itinerary. The gulf is mentioned by Idrisi (1150) as Markah (at the northern end of the gulf) and by Maokun as Hei-er for the promontory at the southern end. And I also believe that the “The mouth of the ravines; mountains” from this map is the same gulf (see above).
(4) ⟨. . .⟩t-b-h, village: Only because it is the next place with water and because Idrisi and Maokun both have it as the next in their itinerary: the next gulf in which are also a number of waterholes. The end of the gulf is the landmark called by Maokun 剌思那呵 : La si na he. Idrisi calls it El-Nedja.
The Gulf of which the waterholes are visible here ends with Ras Cabad; which is the only other big promontory further south and the only landmark in a big area, it sticks 2 km out in the sea and has a hill Bur Gol sticking up on the south of it. Also very visible on the drawing of Maokun. Since the nineteenth century this hill is provided with a beacon for the ships. It is at 6°20’N. Except of it being the only landmark on the route it also agrees with the drawing given by Maokun: First the beachhead followed by the bigger hill in which the name is written. And Al Nadja of Idrissi might be the gulf with the waterpoints preceding it.
(5) The name M-l-n-d-s has often caused confusion and is normally vocalised as Mulanda, which could be either Manda or Malindi (Horton, M. (2018).
(6) Mtwapa: Ibn Majid (1470) is the author who mentions it as Minwafa bay. While the next itinerary of this map mentions it as “The bay of Mikhanah”
(7) khawr ⟨. . . (Bay of . . .) itinerary ends in a bay, possibly near Tanga. (Horton, M. (2018).
The third itinerary on the map. Because of lack of space, it is added far from the shores of the Indian Ocean and so nobody will be thinking they are added on the right place on the map. It is also unsure if they were added in the year the book was written. It can be a later addition. And so, the statement that we have here the earliest mention of Kilwa might be wrong.
1 The Lands of the Zanj
2 The bay of Mikhanah or M-y-kh-a-n-h (?Mtwapa) (1)
3 Lunjuwah, an island (Unguja/Zanzibar) (2)
4 Manfiya or M-n-f-y-h, an island (Mafia) (3)
5 Kilwalah, an island (Kilwa) (4)
6 Island of ⟨. . .⟩d-l-h (5)
7 Q-d-x-h, or Q.d.yah a bay
8 Khawr al-amir (The bay of the amir) (6)
9 K-l-n-k-w, a stronghold (7)
10 Susmar (Crocodile), an island (8)
(1) The first locality is the bay (khawr) of M-y-kh-a-n-h, possibly a corruption of Mtwapa (1), between Malindi and Mombasa, recorded as M-t-w-a-f-h in the Arabic nautical guides of the fifteenth century. (=Minwafa Bay). Note on Mtwapa: In an article: Medieval Mtwapa professor Chap Kusimba of the University of South Florida mentions: Early settlement at Mtwapa was local in character, with external trade developing from the ninth century CE …….
Note also that in the second itinerary of this map M-k-f-a (Mtwapa) qa⟨ryah⟩, village is mentioned most probably also Mtwapa.
(2) The Island of Unjuwa (Zanzibar). A repetition of Zanzibar mentioned in the general information on the map. (See above).
(3) Another Mafia according to Horton (2018) is: “An island of the Zanj” (the nr 11 in the general information on the map)
(4) Some consider this an early mention of Kilwa. The mentioning of Kilwa in the Kilwa Sira (part of Salma b. Muslim al-Awtabi (+1116)) was till recently the earliest mention of the Swahili town.
(5) Island of .. . ..d-l-h may be one of the Kerimba islands, (Horton, M. (2018).
(6) (The bay of the amir) the bay of the amir may be Sofala Bay (Horton, M. (2018).
(7) The only possibility I can think about of a stronghold in this area at this time is one build because of the colonizing wars between Africans and Austronesians. The oral history stories about these event center in this area around the Save river. Two harbors first Singo, then Nshawa of the Austronesians; still undiscovered existed in the Save or Sabi river delta. I repeat part of the oral history and the wars in my description of Satawah a place mentioned by Ibn Majid 1470.
(8) Susmar (Crocodile), an island; crocodile island is intriguing, and may refer to the Bazaruto Archipelago today protected by a national park, noted for its lagoons supporting significant crocodile populations. (Horton, M. (2018). Or Comoros (Horton in East Africa as a source for Fatimid rock crystal: workshops from Kenya to Madagascar 2017)
Taken from: EAST AFRICA, THE GLOBAL GULF AND THE NEW THALASSOLOGY OF THE INDIAN OCEAN by Mark Horton (2018).
The particular significance of this list (of places) is that it takes the voyages to the southern end of the Swahili coast, and connects this area with the ports in southern Arabia and the Gulf. It is most likely based on genuine itineraries and seems not to be derivative of earlier sources. Given the Fatimid origins of the manuscript, and the difficulties of sailing from the Red Sea, it suggests an active connection from the Arabian or Gulf coasts by the eleventh century, as far south as Mozambique. This has been termed the ‘Swahili corridor’ (Horton 1987), and may have featured trade in ivory and gold from southern Africa and rock crystal from Madagascar – a trade in high-value luxuries. Recent work in Madagascar has pinpointed the source of rock crystal that was exported both to the Gulf and later to the famous Fatimid workshops in Cairo (Horton et al. 2017). From Iron Age sites in the interior of southern Africa are found ‘Zhizo’-type glass beads of the eighth to mid-tenth century, which scientific analysis has suggested have a Gulf origin (Wood et al. 2017), implying that Gulf and Arabian ships reached as far south as the Mozambique channel in order to trade with the African interior. By the eleventh century, the southern coast of Arabia may have acted as a staging post for these extreme southerly voyages. Recent work and the comprehensive publication of the site of Sharma in coastal Yemen have helped to locate one such place, with what appears to be an African community resident on the coast of Arabia, between c. 980 and 1050 (Rougeulle 2015).