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Written for: Qadi Ibn Sasri Al-Shafi’I (Marine Book of Wonders) (around 1300)

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Taken from: https://al-furqan.com/ar/ رسالة-غير-معروفة-في-الجغرافية/رسالة غير معروفة في الجغرافية / رمضان ششن

 

This small manuscript of 27 folio is called: An unknown message in geography by its editor: Ramadan Shishn. It appeared in Arab in a publication: Articles and studies dedicated to Dr. Salah Al-Din Al-Munajjid (in Arab). According to the editor it is found in Istanbul among the manuscripts of Moallem Jawdat under the number 0.96. It belongs to the genre: books of wonders of creation, no title or author are mentioned. The patron of the author had an official carrier in Damascus. This work is not influenced by al-Qazwini and most of its sources have not come down to us. This book is important for the History of East Africa as it is the only source speaking (twice) about the Sea of Mogadishu. Indication on how important the town was in the period it was written. Ibn Battuta visiting Mogadishu in 1331 is also indicating it was a very well-known place.

 

Folio 5b

They said: And the boundaries of the ocean surrounding Oceanus from the eastern coast, the far end of China, at a length of one hundred and sixty-four degrees of longitude, and at a width of twelve and a half degrees behind the equator, where the mouth of the greater Khmran River and where the mountain of clouds is a barrier between the surrounding sea and the sea attributed to Zinj, India, China and Harkand (1). …………..

 

Folio 10b

………….. The two gulfs meet on the equator, where there is no width. Then the water spreads a great sea, which is the West China Sea connected to India, Persia, Zinj and Qilam (2). And its borders specific to China from the islands and kingdoms of Zabaj (27) to the east side, and it is called the Sea of Herkand in its entirety. It has large waves, great turbulence, with a deep depth and all the tides in it and in what is connected to it.

 

Folio 16b-17a

The island of the Moon is about a year-long and about four months in width. It has everything strange and very strange. It has sixteen cities and has sweet lakes and rivers, and in the south of it, it is followed by the sea of darkness, the ocean, deserts, wasteland, and black people, bare-skinned, wrapped in banana leaves. And they grow for themself on their land. On this island there are many minerals like gold, emeralds, and rubies, and there are white elephants, and shiny ones and black ones, and nothing else. And there are rhinoceros and giraffes among them, and they have monsters like lions. They have wonderful horns, and they are unbearable because of their daringness towards other animals.

 

Folio 19b (3)

And a fish is coming from the country of Zinj to Basra in abundance until it prevails in the fishermen's nets over other fish for a month. Then not longer for one, and the coast of Zinj will be empty for that period. Then Basra and Al-Zinj are devoid of it, and it is only seen on some coasts of islands between Basra and Zinj. Then it appears in the coast of Zinj and is absent everywhere else. The people of the sea know this and call this type of fish Prestog. …………

 

Folio 20a-20b

Al-Masoudi (28) said: Between the Indian-Zinj Sea and Yemen, there was a mountain that kept the water from reaching Yemen. Some kings severed that mountain with picks until they reached the bottom and made the barrier thin. Then he commanded to weaken it and break it into breaches. Then the water rushed, destroyed countries and nations, and took over and became a large sea, and reached the barrier to the bottom of the city of Jeddah (4) and below the city of Yanbu (5) and reached the Levant to the bottom of the city of Qulzam. (6) It is the sea in which God sank Pharaoh and his soldiers. And in this Qulzam Sea (6), islands are inhabited and uninhabited. Including the island of Zanzibar (sic) and the island of Dahlak (7) and its people are people from Abyssinia and Sudan who wear clothes and are covert and pluck their beards and moustaches except for some little hairs on their throats. And these people would pay women with two human testicles. No one will marry a woman until he defeats a person and cuts them off ……………….

 

Including the island of Suakin (8) and its people are Abyssinia and Muslims, and it has pearls in its sea and coasts and plains of gold and has zebras, and the minerals of emerald and giraffe. ………

 

Folio 21a

Including the island of Socotra which is in the upper part adjacent to the Sea of Zinj and its people are naked Sudan of the genus Qalgur (9) and their livelihood is meat and milk.

 

Folio 21b-22a-22b-23a

The eleventh chapter is about Bahr al-Zinj connected to the Sea of India and Qilam (2)

 

It is the Sea of India in particular, but it is called Zanj on its border with Zinj, and the country of Zinj thereof on the south side under Suhail (29) called Jah (30) and whoever travels this sea, sees the South Pole and Suhail, and the North Pole and the Banat-Nnuesh (31) disappeared from him. And most of this sea from its south is connected to the surrounding sea.

 

Called the sea of darkness, and the waves of this sea are the greatest waves. And particularly in the west of the island of Barbera. It is a terrible horror. And in it from the well-known island, the Manbalu (=Qanbalu) Island is inhabited by Zinj, and it contains perfume, ebony and gold minerals. And the island of Karmouh (10) and the bird called the rokh (11). That said, all from Masoudi. (28)

 

And the city of al-Tayyib and the island of the volcano (12) has a mountain at the top of which a fire is visible from the march of days in the sea. And the island is not inhabited, and the island of the monkeys (13), and the island of Al-Qatarba, who has cities and a great mountain is said to be inhabited by ghouls called Qutarb, Al-Saraw, and Al-Saali who eat people ……….. The island of Berbera has four cities and it is from India. …….. (Note that this is very strange information. That Berbera has four cities is only found in Ch'en Yuan-Ching (1200) and Chao Ju-Kua (1226)).

 

And Ptolemy said: The end of the borders of the Zinj Sea, where the length is five and ninety degrees, and where there is no width but a degree or two degrees, there are nine hundred converging islands that almost merge, and the water permeates between those cities and islands. It is called the eye of Zinj islands. It is a small island, like Egypt, an all-inclusive high home.

 

Al Masoudi said: It contains the burning island (26) which is in the sea. Hardly anyone arrives there from our country. And it is so named because every year a comet with tails appears on its horizon. It still rises a little from the horizon, until it rises in the middle of it, and then a fire protrudes from it to the island, burning what or most of it there is. And if it dawns, the people see it and they are preparing to leave it and desert it for a while, then return to it.

 

And the island of noise near Dhofar (14), which is followed by the Zinj channel, it has a city built of white stones transported from a mine very far away. There is no white stone at all, nor people inhabiting it. And at night and on some days day, a noise and commotion would be heard from within. The listener does not know who is being heard. And there is a river in it in which there is always the smell of camphor as if it is dissolved in water. And there is a great mountain in it, in which there is a deadly snake (15), and people hunt it with smoke of gum and make mattresses from its skins. Whoever sits long on it is cured from tuberculosis and it has the island of Awar, and they are a people of Sudan that are smaller than the other people. Aristotle (32) said about them in the Book of Animals: The Cranes move from Khurasan (16) to the region of Egypt, where the water of the Nile flows, fighting there men who are as tall as an arm.

 

One of the wondrous animals in the Zinj Sea is an animal called the saw, like a great mountain. And from its head to its tail are black bones like the anus, black and they are like the teeth in a saw, each tooth is as many as many arms, and at her head are two long bones, each about twenty arms. Water comes out from it and from its nose, as it shed light on it like a fizzy, ascending to the sky, and the one who looks at it calculates it as a beacon of water whose ascension is about fifty cubits (17) and above. The reason for spraying it with water is that its throat was created by God Almighty, like a filter with wide holes. If she wants food, she opens her mouth and water enters it, and there is some fish in it, God Almighty wills. When she reached the limit, she closed her mouth and turned the fish and covered it in her stomach by swallowing it. Then she sprays the water, and the water comes out and the fish remains, and her stomach digests it. And if the people of the boat notice these snakes in the sea, they turn it away from them with drums, cymbals and annoying sounds. And God knows best that all of this is true. As mentioned convincingly in a communication.

 

Folio 23b-24a-24b-25a-25b

From here is the source of the Nile of Egypt, may God Almighty protect it. Its exit from the mountains of the moon, and with the moon I mean the moon of the sky. The moon is a region, country, and people of Sudan, all of them behind the equator from the east of the world to the west. And the moon: It was said that these mountains are the light coloured stone. And this white silver sparkles with light and is a magnet for humans. Whoever of the people saw clung to him with love and temperament and laughed with joy until he died. This was mentioned by Aristotle in the Book of Stones as well. (24)

 

They said: The course of the Nile is from south to north, unlike all other rivers, it flows a month in the countries of Islam, two months in Nubia, and four in the deserts and Abyssinia, until it reaches the Gawras lake and the big lake of all the rivers, all of which are at the location of the mountains called  the moon. And the origin of its exit from the spring of the gods behind the mountains of the moon. Then its water collects and is divided into ten rivers from different sources, all of which originate from the mountains of the moon. Five rivers flow from into a Batiha at a length of fifty-three degrees and a width of three degrees behind the equator, and the dimension of the al-Bateha (33) is about five degrees and the remaining five rivers flow into a neighboring lake of its size. Then out of each of the two seas flow four rivers and into a collective lake of about two degrees by three degrees. Then a great river emerges from this whole lake, called Bahr al-Damadam (18), which runs in successions forever to the direction of the Magreb, passing through Sudan. Then Tokami, then Ghana, then Shamghara, then Smegara, then the black Takru (19), entering the surrounding sea at the city of Sarmanda and the city of Moya at the far end of the Maghreb, and the closest proximity to the equator. And out of this whole lake also comes a great, great river called the Nile of Abyssinia, which flows towards the east. Then to the north and then to the south side. And it continues until it passes the city of Kerkouna (20), behind the equator, south of the Zinj Sea, with Maqdouh (=Mogadishu). It is called its sea (35). Then the stream splits into three teams and enter the Zinj Sea from its southern coast behind the equator in the country of Sofala and Dagotha (21). Then out of this whole lake the Nile of Egypt. And its output is at fifty-four degrees. Then he goes through Nuba until the first region, …………….

 

…….. and above the Nile in the desert, and the first country of Abyssinia, there is an animal called the water horse black in color, larger than the buffalo, and it has a black mane and tail. And its color is glitter, and it has a cattle-like hoof. And he may breed on a land horse, and it will give birth of him to a mare that does not resemble its predecessor. This animal is also found in the Sea of Alkharz (34) and the Sea of India. It is said, in the Nile also in Abyssinia, is an animal called the servant also called the Qindar, or the Qender, found. And also in the Mogadishu Nile, a big river. It would take a home on the shore of the water just as a man would make a home. And this animal makes in the house a place for himself and his wife, another for his children, a room for his servant, which is the smaller of the two. The people of those areas are watching that. And if they caught the servant, they would find the servant's body healthy and safe from scratches, and they would find the servant if they encountered the scrape of their body due to tree thorns, and they sought to collect what the servant needed from food and others.

And it includes the saqqur and it is a watery wild animal. Al-Rays ibn Sina said: It is a turtle caught in the Nile of Egypt. Others said: It is a descendant of the crocodile. If put in the water then he becomes a crocodile. And on the land became a Saqnakura (=bird). Among its characteristics is that if a person is bitten, then that person washed the bite with it, then before the arrival of the bird to the water, the bird died. If he gets there before washing the person will die. ……………. And besides the Saqqur there is he and the crocodile in the Nile of Egypt, the Sea (=river) of Damadam (18), the Sea of Maqdashia (=Mogadsihu)(35), and a river in Sindh called Mahran (22) that passes over Mansoura (23) and pours into the sea ………….

(1) Harkand; Harkant: Herkend; the ocean on the east coast of India.

(2) Qilam: Ceylon

(3) The people of the sea know this and call this type of fish Prestog.

The migrating fish at Basra…..  The barastouj …… : these paragraphs are repeated by many authors: Jahiz's Kitab al-Hayawan (869); Ibn al-Fakih al Hamadhani (903); Shah Mardan Ibn Abi al-Khayr: (11th); Mohammad ebn Mahmud ebn Ahmad Tusi (1160); Al-Zamakhshari (d1144); Al-Qazwini(d. 1283); Qadi Ibn Sasri Al-Shafi’I (around 1300); al-Watwat (d1318) ); Rukneddin Ahmed (1420).

(4) Jeddah: town at the shore, close to Mecca.

(5) Yanbu: is a port on the western Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia.

(6) city of Qulzam: located at the head of the Gulf of Suez.

(7) Dahlak: island off the Eritrean coast.

(8) Suakin: or Sawakin is a port city in northeastern Sudan, on the west coast of the Red Sea. It was formerly the region's chief port.

(9) Qalgur: in Ethiopia.

(10) Karmouh; Island of the volcano; there are two on the Comoro: Grand Comoro and Mayotte; the Kermouh of ibn Said (1250); Qadi Ibn Sasri Al-Shafi’I (1300) . Idrisi (1150) has it as Kermedet (=Mayotte).

(11) the bird called the rokh: the giant bird Roc lived in Madagascar.

(12) city of al-Tayyib and the island of the volcano: volcanoes are also found (in about the same geographical area) with the following authors is some cases clearly to be identified with Grand Comoro: Al Idrisi (1150); Jazirat min az Zanj, with Jabal an-Nar: with a volcano; Ibn Said al Maghribi (1250) island of the Vulcan (Djeziret-el-Beurkan); Al Qazwini (1283) puts the volcano on : The island Eddanda (or Ed-Douda)(island of the loud noise); Qadi Ibn Sasri Al-Shafi’I (1300); Nuwayri (1333)

(13) island of the monkeys: Ibn Said (1250); Qadi Ibn Sasri Al-Shafi’I (1300); Al Marvazi (1120) mentions Aden, where female apes were offered for sale to visitors who could not afford to buy slave girls, Al Maqrizi (1441) copied by Abu al-Mahasin (1441) and  Al-Sakhawi (d1497) describes this same behaviour of the monkeys in the towns of East Africa, from where the monkeys supposedly were imported to Aden.). Al-Idrisi (1150) and Ibn Al Wardi (1456) has the merchants of Yemen use them as slaves to guard their belongings and money in their shops.

(14) Dhofar: province in Oman.

(15) a deadly snake, and people hunt it with smoke of gum and make mattresses from its skins. Whoever sits long on it is cured from tuberculosis: this story is found in: Abu Ubayd Al Bakri (1067); Ibn Al Wardi (about 1456); Qadi Ibn Sasri Al-Shafi’I (1300); Wasif Shah (1209); Al-Dimashqi (1325); Qazwini (1283).

(16) Khurasan: Khorasan: Afghanistan + Eastern Iran.

(17) cubits: Distance from fingers to elbow (45cm).

(18) Dendemes, Dendemeh; Dandama: East African people living in the interior, close to the sources of the Nile; also mentioned by Al Masudi (916); Al Idrisi (1150); Ibn Said (1250); Ibn al Jawzi (1257); Harrani (1300); Qadi Ibn Sasri Al-Shafi’I (1300); Al-Dimashqi (1325); Abulfida (1331); Nuwayri (1333); Cowar el-aqalim (1347); Said Abd al Aziz al Dairini (d1385); Ibn Khaldun (1406); Al Qalqashandi (d1418) and Ibn al Wardi (1456) speaks about Demadam; al Himyari (1461).

(19) Takru; Takrur: : at the border between Senegal and Mauretania. Already mentioned by al Bakri in 1067.

(20) city of Kerkouna: Carfouna: Guardafui (according to Jaubert)

Charles Guillain: The mountain: Djabal-Yerd’foun is resembling Carfouna if you look at the ways it is written in the different manuscripts: Carcouna and Serfouna and Yerd’foun. He proposes Carfouna and Khafouni = Yerd’foun and Hhafoun. (Ibn Said 1250: Hafouny) (Masudi 916: Jafonni or Djafouna) (Abulfida 1331: Khafouni); (Qadi Ibn Sasri Al-Shafi’I 1300: Kerkouna)

(21) Dagotha; (east africa): found in Ibn Sida (1066); Idrisi (1150); Ibn Said (1250); Ibn Manzur (1290); Qadi Ibn Sasri Al-Shafi’I (1300); Al-Dimashqi (1325); Abulfida (1331); Al Himyari (1461) has Daghwata. Here it has two rivers, is situated besides the land of the Zanj close to Qumr, at the end of the mountain-chain Ousthiqoun; a town also called Dahna which according to Ptolemy is south of the equator (says Al-Dimashqi (1325)). Mayby the same place as: Dgo: Dgaop; found in: Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (d791); al-Sahib ibn Abbad (995). In idrisi (1150) Daghuta it is the furthest south town in the land of Sofala. Sofala was one of the earliest places to be visited by Muslim traders for its gold; together with Qanbalu (Pemba) for its slaves.

(22) a river in Sindh called Mahran: Mehran of al-Sindh: Mehran River, a local name for the Indus River in Sindh, Pakistan.

(23) Mansoura: Mansura, later Brahmnabad, was the capital of the Muslims in Sindh, from 750 AD to 1006 AD.

(24) Pieces of the story of the stones Baht or Bahit brought by Alexander from the country of the Zanj and found in the mountains of the moon called the magnet of men or who make people laugh till they die and which story comes originally from Aristotle can be found in: Al Zuhri (1137); Qadi Ibn Sasri Al-Shafi’I (1300); Al-Dimashqi (1325); Al Umari (1349); Salamanca translator (1420); al Maqrizi (1441); Suyuti (1445-d1505).

(25) Nil of Maqdishu: Nile of Mogadishu: This is the Shabelle River begins in the highlands of Ethiopia, and then flows southeast into Somalia towards Mogadishu. Near Mogadishu, it turns sharply southwest, where it follows the coast. Below Mogadishu, the river becomes seasonal.

Al Zuhri : (1137) Makes the people divert themselves the Nile into a branch to the sea of Yemen; In Dimashqi (1325) it is called the river of Damadim; and he is the only one who kind of understands the river-system in South-Somalia. Salamanca translator (1420): calls it yellow Nile. Ibn Khaldun (1406) says it has nothing to do with the Nile. Nile of Mogadishu appears in Ibn Said al Maghribi (1250); Cowar el-aqalim (1347); Abulfida (1331); al Maqrizi (1441)he calls it River of the Damadim ; Hafiz I Abru (1420); Qoutb al-Din al-Chirazi (1311); Al Qalqashandi (d1418); Qadi Ibn Sasri Al-Shafi’I (1300) Cowar el-aqalim (1347).

(26) Burned Island: Qazwini (1283); Qadi Ibn Sasri Al-Shafi’I (1300); Al-Dimashqi (1325); Mustawfi, Hamd-Allah ibn Abi Bakr Qazvini (1340) also mentions it.

(27) Zabij: Zabaj: one of the main islands of Indonesia (Sumatra).

(28) Masoudi: see my webpage Al-Mas'udi (916)

(29) Suhail: from Arabic it is the common name of a number of stars typically seen near the southern horizon (three stars in the constellation Argo Navis).

(30)Djah = Polestar.

(31) the stars of Ursa Major (banat na'sh).

(32) Aristotle: was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece.

(33) Batiha; swampy lake.

(34) Bahr Al Rharz: sea on the north African coast.

(35) the Shabella river called the Nile of Mogadishu by Arab geographers. Al Umari is the other author to call it a sea as the Egyptian Nile is also called sea by the people of Egypt.