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Al Himyari: Kitab ar-rawd al Mi'tar (1461)
(The Fragrant Garden) Maghrib
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Al-Shaykh al-fakih al-adl Abu Abd Allah Muhammad b. Abi Abd Allah Muhammad b. Abi Muhammad Abd Allah Ibn Abd al-Mun’im b. Abd al-Nur al-Himyari , author of Arabic geographical dictionary Kitab al-Rawd al-mi’tar fi khabar al-aktar (The Book of the Fragrant Garden). He came from the Maghrib and that he was a jurisconsult.

Taken from : Lewicki, Tadeusz: Arabic external sources for the history of Africa.....

Ibn abd al-Munim al Himyari : his book is a recast of a relative of the same name from the 13th century. They relied on Idrisi.

The places situated in his book on the east African coast are: Al-Banis (1), Daghwata (2), Dandama (3), Sayuna (4), Malinde, Monbasa. As well as the land of the Waqwaq (5) lying on the southern borders of the land of the Zanj. He also talks about the gold and the excellent iron of these areas, about the trade between Oman and the land of the Zanj, and about the river on which Sayuna (4) was laying.

P85

Badhouna:

 In Abyssinia, on the coast, the ruins of a few stone buildings and rough housing and dirty spots where live families of fish and meat from shells, frogs, snakes and rats and other animals that are not eaten, and they fish in the sea by floating; they make nets and connect them on their feet, but mostly they are very poor. They are in obedience to the Zinj.

P90

Bartayel (9): An island in the China Sea, which is in the island kingdom of the Maharaj………….. and this sea has no defined boundary, and its head comes out from the northern darkness and passes over the land of Waqwaq. (5)

P157

Jeddah (10): a country on the coast of Mecca,……………. And the Persian kings used to visit it, merchants coming from the horizons, for it was the landing point of ships from India, Aden, Yemen, Adhab (11), Qilam (12), etc., and the Ribat (13) by Abu Huraira (14), may God be pleased with him, is well-known, and it is built with bricks, gypsum, Indian teak and fine ebony, …………

P164

…the Arabian Peninsula to the banks of the sea, and left the country of Zinj, on its coast the sea throws amber, then goes on to pass the coast of Hadramout (15), Abyan (16) and Aden to end up …

P237

Damaharat: Which is the island of the moon (Jazirat al Qamar) from the islands of India, and this Island where the head brings them together and defends them with a lot of energy, and his wife rules among the people and speaks to them and does not hide from them, and wears a permanent jacket of a gold-woven garment topped with a crown of gold, crowned with types of precious stones, and her husband made her golden shoes, and no one walks (with shoes) in this Island, except the queen, and when one was found that he was wearing shoes, his feet were cut off. And when this queen is on a ride in her city, and is followed in full attire of elephants, banners and trumpets, and the king, her husband and all the ministers follow her at a distance from her, and this queen collects funds, once collected this money is used to help the poor people of her country that day and they do not believe in anything but charity, and the people of her country comment on the ways and places and make types of silk clothes, and their costumes are good. The women of this island, stuck in her head ten combs more or less, they are their jewels.

P244

Dugotah: (2)

Island at the end of the country of Sofala, and it is the main place, and they are naked they do not have clothes but cover themselves with their hands when they meet traders entering from other neighboring islands. They and their wives do not enter markets because they are naked. They are bound to their places to which they live, this is the city and their land with the most gold dust, such as existing elsewhere in Bilad Sofala.

P266

Al Raanij: (=Zabaij) (20)

The islands of Al Raanij are many, and large, and are close to the Al Zenj coast and its people are Samarun (19); it is said that when there was trouble in China and a lot of injustice and confusion then the Chinese merchants came to Al Raanij (20) and other Djazirha (=islands) because of the fairness and good treatment they received

P307

Al-Sahab: An island from the Indies,…………… And in this island if the soil is touched by fire it returned pure silver, and next to it are the islands of the Waqwaq (5) …………

P328

…Socotra, and it is close to the country of Zinj, and most people of this island are Christians…

P357

El-Sarif: it is an island in Bahr Al-Sanaf (21), which is the kingdom of the Maharaj on this island.   It is the one who comes out of the northern darkness and passes over the land of Waqwaq. (5)

P370

 And the China Sea ……… And trustworthy people tell the passengers that it is an inhabited sea with people living in the water, and that they see them when the sea rages at night, with a body like a zinj, and they are looking at the boats.

P373

Siyuna: (4)

City related to the land of Sofala, of medium size, with people of India and of the al-Zunuy (plural of Zanj) and others, who come from the bank of the Nile, and the chief lives in this city, with soldiers who do not have horses, and they are on the boats meeting those traveling to enter (the country).

P477

Hormuz Palace: With the city from the works of al Shirjan, it is [the city] of Kerman, it has a Jamah Mosque built by Ya’qub bin Al-Leith, very solid with teak squares…………. and their entire constructions are with teak (bal-say) and wood called the Zinj because there does not grow other in it except these two types, because the earth (termites) comes on all the wood,……….. As for the rich, their beds were made of ebony and teak woven with bamboo……….

P544

Malindi:

City in the country of Al Zenj on the shore of the sea, which is great and people engage in hunting and fishing, so they hunt on land ferrets and bears, and they hunt in the sea varieties of whales, salt them, and trade them. And they have iron mines which form the bulk of their gain and trade and sorcerers  who claim that they enchant harmful animal who even do not harm anyone but those who wanted to harm him, and the lions and tigers do not transgress them because they have this magic.

P546

Maljaman

A city in India is the home of the Zabaj king, and he is always concerned with the war against the Zanj who are within the borders of Waq (5) because the country of the Zabaj is connected to the Waqwaq (5) wilderness of the Zunuy, and they are within a distance of five months. (22)

P552

Manbasa (Mombasa):

A small city in the land of the Zanj on the coast, and its people are skilled at extracting iron from its ore and hunting for tigers, with red dogs, defeating all wolves and all wild beasts that are at the end their problems. It is on the sea shore opposite the mouth of a great river up which it is possible to sail for two days. Its banks are uninhabited because of the wild beasts that live in the forests were the Zanj go to hunt, as we have already said. And this city is the residence (of the king of) Zinj, and the soldiers walk because his men do not have any animals as those do not live in their land.

P585

Nawabiyah: To it is attributed Nubia and it is known by it, and it is a small city and its people are well-to-do. And they have good races that are not of the races of Sudan in anything. And all the countries of Nubia have beauty and perfection in their women, and their lips are soft, their mouths are small, their smiles are white, and their hair is a bunch, and not in all like the Sudan, Zanjs, Abyssinia, Beja (23) and others do not have the feeling of their women like that of Nubian women who are there kin.

There is nothing better than to have intercourse with them, and the price of a slave girl from among them is three hundred dinars (24). And it is for these things that the kings of Egypt desire them, they compete in their prices, and they are taken as mothers of children because of their goodness and the pleasure of being with them.

P586

Nile:

And the Nile of Egypt is one of the lords of the rivers and the most honorable seas, because it comes out of Paradise according to what is mentioned in the books: The Nile and the Sihan (25) emerge from Paradise, and it is one of the wonders of the world as they have no known source.

There are some people who say: it derives from under the mountain of the moon behind the equator at seven degrees and a half, out of twelve sources there, they meet in the two lakes, from them branch of each time three rivers all of which converge to the tip of the first province, and coming out of this Batihah is the Nile of Egypt and other big rivers, and in the burning south where there is not a plant or animal, from that place was said the Nile is emitted in the sands and mountains, and then it penetrates the ground of the Sudan followed by the country of Zinj, and then emits in a bay that splits the land of Zinj and it falls into the sea of Zinj and it shows in this bay the same increase that appears in the Nile of Egypt.

P587

Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Idris mentioned that the Nile has two parts: the first part is the Nile of Egypt cutting its land from the south to the north and most of the cities of Egypt are on its banks together, and the second part of the Nile passes from the east to the far west, and on this part of the Nile are all the countries of the Sudan or most of it, and these two sections exit from Jabal al-Qamar above the equator by sixteen degrees, and the beginning of the Nile is from this mountain from ten springs [As for the five rivers from them, they flow and meet in a large batiha (lake-swamp), and the other five rivers also descend from the mountain to another large batiha. Three rivers come out from each of these two lakes, so they pass all of them until they pour into a very large lake. And he rivers then run out from it, so one arm comes out from the Nile, and it passes in the direction of the Maghreb, and it passes through the country of Sudan, or most of its country is, and another arm comes out of it and passes to another side It is divided into four sections at the bottom of the land of Egypt, three of them flow into the Mediterranean Sea, and one part flows into the lake that ends near Alexandria, and between this lake and Alexandria is six miles and it does not connect to the sea, but is from a flood Nile and with little coast.

P596

And in the Sea of India and China are mountains and fjords, and perhaps little boys like black zanj boys fly out from the sea, going around in boats and not harming anyone, then they return to the sea, and this is well known to them, and if the people of the boat see this, it is a sign of the blowing of the wind ….. a dreadful and frightening wind, so they prepare…….

P546

Malay: A town of the Island of the Moon (Jazirat al Qamar) from the Indies, and the king is not concealed and is served  in his food and drink by sissies who wear precious clothes of Chinese and Iraqi silk, and each of them a gold bracelet, these bisexual men marry men instead of women, and serve the king during the day and return at night to their husbands; and in this island the plants are, nargile (coconuts) and sugar cane, and this island has wood of which there is no like in the world, and their elders have little white beards like Turks, they claim to be of Turk origin.

P602

al Wakwak:

Al Wakwak is close to the land of Sofala, and there are two dead poor cities, with few people very poor, and they have a big village called Daghraghatan (26). They are Sudan with deformed faces and strange appearance, and their words are a kind of whistling (27), and they are naked and do not conceal themselves they live on very little, and eat whales, seashells and turtles meat, and belong to their islands al Wakwak and every one of these countries is in a large gulf and no traders ever go out to them, they have neither boats nor animals, and in the islands of Waqwaq (5) they do not know what all exists, and the people of China may have reached it a couple times, it is a group of islands that are unknown. (He then describes a second Waqwaq where women grow from trees).