The medieval ruins of the abandoned city of Siraf

still line the shore of the Persian Gulf. Once this

was the main trading partner of East Africa

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Ibn al-Balhi : Fars-namah (1117)
(history and geography of Fars) 
Persia
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Little is known of the life of Ibn al-Balḫi other than his work Fars-namah. It is a: history and geography of Fars beginning with an account of the Pre-Islamic Persian dynasties which occupies nearly two-thirds of the whole. The work was undertaken at the command of the Seljuk ruler Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad (r.1104 - 1117). The last third of the Fars-namah includes a geographical account of the province, district by district, with notes on its antiquities and fortresses and many historical details. He mentions Zanzibar as a trading partner of Siraf.
Taken from: Collected Works of Guy Le Strange: The Medieval Islamic World, Volume 4 By Guy le Strange

P42-43
THE PROVINCE OF FARS (4)
……………..Siraf (1) and its Neighborhood. Siraf in old times was a great city, very populous and full of merchandise, being the port of call for caravans and ships. Thus in the days of the [Abbasid] Caliphs it was a great emporium, for here might be found stores of attar [of roses] and aromatics such as camphor, aloes, sandal-wood, and the like. [For its merchants] immense sums of money were to be gained here, and so matters continued till the last days of the Buyid (1) supremacy. Then, however, the ancestors of the present Amir Kaysh (2) attained to power, and they got into their possession the Island of Qays (3) and the other neighboring islands, whereby the revenue that had formerly been taken by Siraf (1) was cut ………….. And on the way to Siraf everything except for the leather of the giraffe and the things of the Persians (6), now passed by the road of Siraf, and thus the town fell to complete ruin.....
Note: Guy le Strange says ‘of the giraffes’ is here a mistake and proposes ‘and the pots’.
(this is the story of the end of Siraf as a trading city, being replaced by Qays)


P68
SEAS AND LAKES
………………In regard to the seas and lakes of Fars (4), the Persian Gulf [Bahr Fars, otherwise called] the Sea of Fars, is an arm of the Great Sea, which best is known as the Green Sea, being also called the Circumambient Ocean. On the shores of the Green Sea lie the lands of China, Sind (7) and India, Oman, Aden, Zanzibar, and Basrah with diverse other districts; and each particular arm of the Green Sea bears the special name of the province whose lands lie on its shores. Thus we have [one arm called] the Sea of Fars, another the Sea of Oman, and then the Sea of Basrah, or the like; hence it comes that the arm [washing the coast of Fars] is known as the Sea of Fars (4).

(1) Siraf: Siraf was the harbour of Shiraz province of Persia; and the place of big trade with East Africa.

(2) Amir Kaysh: The Amir of the island of Qays.

(3) Qays: Qeys Island, also spelled Qais, Persian Jazireh-ye Qeys, island in the Persian Gulf, lying about 10 miles (16 km) off mainland Iran.

(4) Fars: region in Iran.

(5) Buyid also called Buwayhid, (945–1055), Islamic dynasty of pronounced Iranian and Shiʿi character that provided native rule in western Iran and in Iraq in the period between the Abbasid and Seljuq eras.

(6) this is repeated by Hafiz I Abru (1420).

(7) Sind: Sindh now in Pakistan.