Visitors to East Africa and their origin.
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Al-Jahiz (776-869) born in Basra : Al-Fakhar al-Sudan min al-Abyadh (the prides of blacks over the whites)
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As for Ibn Gaifar, it is an-Nu' man b. Gaifar b. 'Ubad b. Gaifar b. Al Julanda (or Gulanda); they had made an incursion in Zang territory: The Zang killed them and plundered the camp.
From Jahiz's Kitab al-Hayawan (869)(book on animals)
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The sea-folk (al-bahriyyun) maintain that in Bilad al-Sufalah there are two birds, one of which appears before ships (from the shore?) come up with them and before the sea makes it possible for them to land at their trading places (matajir) and the bird says: Qurb amad, Approach. So they realize that the time is nigh and the possibility (of making a landfall?) is close at hand. And they say: And at (that time) another bird of a different form comes, and it says: Samaru. This is at the time of the return of those of them who have been away. They call those two species Qurb and Samaru.
Note: Samaruk in Persian means pigeon. Here we have an indication that in Jahiz days the trade on the East African coast was in Persian hands.
Al-Mas'udi (916) Muruj al-Dhahab wa-Manadin al-Jawhar (Meadows of gold and mines of gems) Born in Baghdad and died in Cairo.
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Al-Mas'udi: the author himself; Born in Baghdad and died in Cairo.
The people of Siraf also make this voyage. And I myself have sailed on this sea, setting off from Sohar (or Sanjar), the capital of Oman, in the company of Sirafi ship-owners who were ship captains Muhammad bin Zaidabud and Jawhar bin Ahmed surnamed Ibn Sirah, who was later lost at sea with his ship.
Buzurg ibn Shahriyar Persian sea captain (Kitab aja'ib al-Hind) (955) (The book of the wonders of india)
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1 Name: Abu Muhammad al-Hasan ibn Amr ibn Hammawayh ibn Haram ibn Hammawayhal-Najirami.
Origin: Najiram, north of Siraf on the Gulf Coast.
Profession: Possibly a merchant or traveller.
Sailors tale: 33 Gave information about the birds on Qamar.
2 Name: Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Babishad ibn Haram ibn Hammawayh al Sirafi.
Origin: Siraf
Profession: One of the principal shipmasters to sail to the Land of Gold.
Sailors tale: 74 Talks about giraffes in Lamery (Indonesia).
3 Name: Isma’il ibn Ibrahim ibn Mirdas (Isma’ilawayh)
Orign: unknown; possibly a resident of Oman.
Profession: One of the best shipowners to go to the Land of Gold.
Other: Son in law of Ashkanin.
Sailors tale: 9, 31, 32, 33, 36, Talks about the wale in the sea of Zanj; About the slave ship going between Oman and Quanbalu. About soothsayers in the land of the Zanj. About giant ants in the Zanj interior. And about giant feathers found in the land of Zanj.
8 Name: Abu al Abbas
Origin: Siraf
Profession: A chief merchant in an Indian town.
Sailors tale: also 33 About giant feathers.
23 Name: Yazid
Origin: Oman
Profession: A ship’s captain who used to go to the Zanj country.
Sailors tale: 92 About the result of the big bush fires.
31 Name: Ja’far ibn Rashid, known as Ibn Lakis
Origin: unknown
Profession: A sea captain who was well known on the Land of Gold route and a shipowner.
Sailors tale: 117, 118, 119 About the Waqwaq people (from Malay-Indonesia) hunting slaves in the islands of the Zanj (Kanbalu). About a ship heading for Kanbalu but driven to the cannibals. About him being in Sofala of the Zanj and meeting a giant bird.
Istakhri (957) :Kitab al Masalik wa-al-Mamalik, (book of roads and provinces.)
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A trustworthy individual reported to me that: In the year 324 (935 C.E.), I was in the city of al-Baṣra. A letter arrived there from merchants plying the sea of Oman, which said that a conflagration of fire had broken out among their vessels. Crosswinds blew from the South and the North and (the ships) were burned. A man from Fars known as Ibn Marwan was on one of the ships. They went on to say that among his possessions, 12,000 black slave boys, to say nothing of white ones, were burned. Of riches and merchandise (amta’ va aqamsa) and aromatics (bu-yi khus), so much was burned that it wasn’t possible to calculate the sum of it, except for the camphor. Each of the 400 barks (barka) that were burned was carrying 50 kharvar (500 kilograms/0.5 metric tons) of camphor, and the bark is a small vessel…
Ibn-Hawqal (970) from Baghdad. (Kitab Surat al-Ardh) (the shape of the earth) also known as: (al-Masalik wa'l-Mamalik) (of Highways and Kingdoms)
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(In a dispute with a rich ship owner and merchant Abou Bekr Ahmad ibn 'Umar al-Sirafithe following occurs:)
He has the right to be! In 348 (959 C.E.) the man was stricken with a disease, and it was feared that he would not survive. So he made his will, and a third of his possessions, along with a sum that he added to it, having no heir, came to a bequest of 900,000 dinars, [including] ships outfitted and
equipped by him, in addition to goods deposited with his agents, open accounts, and receipts for specific and clearly-defined transactions involving precious Indies merchandise (barbahar) and goods including gemstones (jawhar), and perfumes (‘iṭr), deposited in his warehouses (khanbarat) and treasuries (makhazin). It was unusual for a ship to depart on his behalf for the Indies (al-Hind), East Africa (al Zanj), or China without his having a partner (sarīk), or associate aboard.
Al-Muqaddasi: Ahsan al-Taqasim fi Ma'rifat al-Aqalim (The best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions) (985) from Jerusalem florished in Bust, Sijistan
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…. it so happened that I encountered Abu Ali al-Hafidh al-Marwazi on board ship …… by heavens I hungered after the same thing as the others, and prepared to go to the lands of the Zanj (Negroes). …..
Abu Nu’aym al-Isfahani: Hilyat al-awliya (Ornament of the Parents) (d1038) Isfahan
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al-Sirri ibn Jabir: Abu Al-Sirri = Mansur bin Ammar Al-Sirri bin Jaber. Perhaps Imam al Sirri (born 769) was an important Hadith collector. This early mention of a Muslim visitor of a Muslim place (place not mentioned) in the land of Zanj is important. The story is also repeated by Ibn al Jawzi (1200)
Al Biruni: India (1050)
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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 (an Indian? Or a Persian? Or an Ausronesian) who had been in Sofala of the Zanj. And that Somanath on the North-Western coast of India was a harbour in these contacts. We probably have here a route of Indian trade together with the ongoing Austronesian colonisation of Madagascar and (as he mentions) the trade up to China.
Ann; Kitab Ghara'ib al-funun wa-mulah al-'uyun (The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences and Marvels for the Eyes; The Book of Strange Arts and Visual Delights) (1050AD) written in Egypt
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… a man from Harran called Abu al-Qasim al-Harrani, who has travelled extensively to the land of the Zanj.
Ali ibn Ahmad Asadi: Garshasp-name (1066) (History of Garsasp) Tus in Iraq
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Austronesian refugees after loosing a war move to East Africa:
Bahu's son returns to Zengbar;
Of every hundred men, fifty were captured
the others were killed or became miserable and dismembered.
Sarandib was full of screaming through this defeat;
in each hut movement arose through the bereavement.
Every member of Bahu's son clan who was there,
he took them and let him move quickly away through the sea.
as the world became dangerous for him everywhere,
he went to the king of Zengbar to seek protection.
Ibn al Jawzi: Tanwir al-Ghabash fi fadl al-Sudan wa al-Habash (d1200)
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Abu Dulana the poet: (d777AD) His name was Zand b. al-Jun. He was a freedman of the tribe of Asad…..Muhammad b. Abd al Baqi informed us on the authority of Ibn Jabir that he said: I entered a Zanj town and I saw a Zanj women grinding rice and crying. She was saying something which I did not understand. I asked a learned man and he said that she was saying:
I cast my eyes right and left
But I did not see anyone who my heart could love except God.
I came to you in humility, with deeds you already knew of,
And by your generosity you will forgive my sins.
Your hands are not hidden even if the (list of) sins is long,
And your generosity spreads East and West….
For a similar story see: Abu Nu’aym al-Isfahani: (d1038)
Muhammad b. Sa'id al-Qalhati: rhymed prose called al-Maqama al-Kilwiyya in: The Kilwa Sira (1200) from Oman.
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……. The people of Kilwa were Ibadis and had agreed to choose their leader from the descent of (Awlad) Sulayman b. Walid b. Sulayman b. Yarik/ Barik al-Naysaburi. ……
…… the rival creed of a man called Abu Aliyan who had come from southern Iraq …….
……. (In Oman) they decided to send Abu Abdullah Muhammad b. Umar al-Bashri al-Manhi,…….
Yakut (or Jakut) al Hamawi (1220) Kitab Mu'jam al-buldan (geographical directory) Baghdad
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Jaziiratul Khadhraa (Jazirat al-Khadra) the green island (Pemba) is also a large island in the land of the Zenj in the Indian ocean. It is long and wide. Salt water is surrounding it on every side. In it are two towns. One is called Mtambwe Kuu, (now Matumbini) and the name of the other is Mkanbalu (now Ras Mkumbuu). In each of the towns is a sultan (mfalme) of its own. Each of the towns has its own independence. There are also other villages and markets. Its sultan says he is an arab, and that he has come to stay there from Al-Kufa (in Iraq). I have been told this by Sheikh Salim Abdel Malik Al Halawi who came from Basra. He saw this with his own eyes, and knows it. He is a reliable man.
Zeila.....(when talking about Zeila)....Le Cheikh Ouelid el Bacri, who had traveled in many countries, told me the following. Berber is the name of a tribe of Negroes, between the land of the Zendjs and Abyssinia. They have a strange custom, even though they attach their genealogy to El-Akta, and they are reckoned among his family. They live in the desert in huts made of dried grass. If one among them loves a women and wants to marry her, and she is socially not of the same standing as he, he will take among the cows of the father of the women, a cow close to give bird, cuts the hair of the tail and lets her go. Then he himself flies looking for someone he can emasculate. When the one who was herding the cattle comes back and tells the story to the father of the women, or to someone of the relatives who have to look after her, they go and chase him. If they catch him, they kill him. If not he continues till he meets someone that he castrates and he brings the trophy. But if the cow has delivered the calve before that, he has missed his chance. He never comes back to his tribe and lives in places where he is unknown, because if he returns home he is killed. If he reaches his goal however, he becomes the owner of the girl without anybody being able to stop him, whoever the women might be...
In his description of Majorca he also gives the most important people who have the nisba (coming from) Al-Mayurki.
Abu l’Hasan Ali ibn Abmad ibn Abd al-Aziz ibn Tunayz
He was a good grammarian who was also busy in the field of quranic lecture;…… Then he said that Aba Hassan went out of his house to Uman and his sister in Mecca in 473 told me that he went from Uman to the land of Zinj and he had only his science with him, so he did not have anything except that for them. He said: If I wanted to earn money a thousand dinars one could get it from them, and he regretted his exit from them and then he returned to Basra to reside by when he arrived at the door of Basra felt from the camel died in his time in 474 (1082AD)
Ibn-al Mujawir(1232)(Tarikh al-Mustabsir)(Guide to Arabia)
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(about Aden) Al-Mutamid Muhammad b. Ali also built a fine bathhouse. Wells were dug there, mosques too and minbars established; it became a fine place. The most accurate information is that it thrived only after the ruin of the port of Abyan and Haram. The merchants moved from these two towns and settled in Qalhat and Mogadishu. So the three towns then flourished.
…………….. (About Aden) Dogs hide away there during the daytime, because one particular dog with rabies bit one of the Somali children. The Somali women asked the help of Radi al-Din al Mutamid Muhammad b. Ali al Tikriti. He gaves orders that every dog in Aden should be killed .................
Mohamed Ben Ali al Qali'i: Tahdhyb alrryast w tartyb alssyasa (Politicization and policy making) (1233)
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(on religious policies)... took the jurisprudence of a group of scholars, including Abu Zakaria, who went to Maqdishu and spread the science of it and its aspects wide…..
This visitor is also mentioned by Ali ibn al-Hasan Khazraji (1400)
Aladua Ralakatibu (prayer of the Khatib = orator) is a Khutba = sermon (originally from about 1250) (found in Madagascar)
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….. the Muslims in Madagascar who used this sermon must have been sunnis who left the muslim lands shortly before the Mongols destroyed Baghdad to settle in Madagascar.
Ibn Said al Maghribi (1250) Kitab Djoughrafiya fi l’ aqalim al Sab (Book of maps of the seven climes) born in Spain
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The people of Al-Qoumr are in the south of this section where they are close to the mountain that is called after them. One of the towns in this section, who are on the island of al-Qoumr- an island wide and large and of which it is said 4 months long and 20 some days wide- is Lirana. Ibn Fatima says he visited it and that it is from the Muslims as Maqdachou. Its people come of all places. It is a place for loading and off-loading; its nobles who make up the government are under the king of Malay which is to the east of t heir town.
Al-Saghani: al Eibbab al Zakhir (The Great Abyss) (d1252) Baghdad
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He did visit Mogadishu and is the first to mention Bandar Musa.
Mentions in another dictionary of his: Bilad Qamar; Mombasa; Kilwa; the green island (Pemba)
While in Mogadishu (in 1242) he saw civet cats and they were 7 times bigger the musk rats from India; and a man being eaten by a shark, the people then killed the shark and retrieved the half he had swallowed.
Al-Qazwini(d. 1283). Atar al Bilad (Monuments of lands) from Kazwin in Persia
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(In Sofala) Mohammad ibn Jahm said: I saw some people eating flies and they claim that they do so to avoid eye infection.
Ibn Mansoor: Mukhtasir tarikh dimashqi (Short History of Damascus) (1290)
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Abu Hassan died in Baghdad in the year 477 AH and was of the people of Miurqp.
He had installed himself in the land of Zinj, where he was investigating their manners, then he came back to Basra to reside in, and when he arrived in Basra he mounted again the camel, and he died seventy-four years old.
Ibn Hatim: Kitab al Simt (Book of measurements) (1295)
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In 1239 the Sultan al Mansur Umar, orders the taking of the town of al Sihr which was in the hands of Abd al Rahman ibn Rasid ibn Iqbal. He stations soldiers and puts them under two of his emirs: Burayq who is the governor and a naqib(ship-captain) called al Asbahi head of the troops. But the naqib becomes the enemy of the governor, he kills him, and flees with the income of the town to Maqdisu.
Also found with: Al Janadi (or Al Djanadi): Al suluk fi tabaqat al ulama wa l muluk. (The Spirituality of the Generations of Scholars of the Kings) (d1332)
Ibn Battuta (1331) From Tangiers Rihala (Travels) (original title was : Tihfat an Nuzzar)
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He visited: Mogadishu, Mombasa, Kilwa and writes about it. See my four webpages on Ibn Battuta (1331).
He meets other visitors while there:
Muhammad ibn Jammaz, Mansur ibn Labida ibn Abi Nami; and Muhamma ibn Shumaila ibn Adi Nami.
At Mogadishu I saw Tabl Ibn Kubaish ibn Jammaz, who also wished to visit him.: all visitors to East Africa. Two of the Husainid sharifs of al-Madina, from the house of Jammaz b. Shiha, and of the Hasanid sharifs of Mecca, from the house of Abi Numayy.
Al Janadi (or Al Djanadi): Al suluk fi tabaqat al ulama wa l muluk. (The Spirituality of the Generations of Scholars of the Kings) (d1332)
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He talks about three visitors: two scholars and a murderer.
…..Shaikh Abu al-Fida Ismail bin Ahmed bin Daniel bin Mohammed al-Hormuzi …….differences between the kings of Hormuz and dominated by a man on the country he hated the Faqih and (his friends) took him out of Hormuz, and he went to Maqdishu in their boat, and the wind blew them away…..the year of nineteen and seven hundred. When he entered Aden, the disciples came to him and took him away as they had taken him away from the Zanji. ……
Abu Zakariyya a sharif of Hadramawt who left for Maqdisu where he largely extended their knowledge in the city and the surrounding land.
In 1239 the Sultan al Mansur Umar, orders the taking of the town of al Sihr out of the hands of Abd al Rahman ibn Rasid ibn Iqbal. He stations soldiers and puts them under two of his emirs. Burayq who is the governor and a naqib called al Asbahi head of the troops. But the naqib becomes the enemy of the governor, he kills him, and flees with the income of the town to Maqdisu then died Mansour and Sultan Abdul Rahman presented to the King Muzaffar gifts like a great piece of ambergris, the tusks of an elephant, and fragrant musk, so he was rewarded with praise. Also found with Ibn Hatim: Kitab al Simt (Book of measurements) (1295)
Al-Dhahabi: Tarikh al-Islam al-kabir. (History of Islam) (d1348) Damascus
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And he said: I heard Abu Ghalib Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Mawardi say: Abu al-Hasan came to us in the year sixty-nine, and he heard the Sunan from Abu Ali al-Tastari, and he stayed with him for about two years, then he went after that to Oman, and I met him in Mecca in the year seventy-three. And he told me that he rode the sea to the land of the Zanj, and he had with him things of science, and they only learned grammar. He said: There is where you can earn thousands of (dinars), it has happened to me for about a thousand dinars, and then I departed from them.
Then he came back to Basra to reside in, and when he arrived to the door of Basra he started using the camel again, and he died after returning from a pilgrimage.
Ali ibn al-Hasan Khazraji: al-Aqd al-Fakhir al-hasan fī tabaqat akabir ahl al-Yaman (Great Men from al-Yaman) (1400)
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.. And so that is this mysticism, and they agreed with what Abu Marwan Abu Zakaria said, and then went out to the area of Mekdhoh; deployment of an expanded deployment of science there, and I did not check for a further history of them, God's mercy……
This visitor is also mentioned by Mohamed Ben Ali al Qali'i (1233)
al Hasan ibn Ali al-Sharif al-Husayni: Mulakhkhas al-Fitan (book of legal decisions)(d1412) from Aden
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Rice weighted in stones was tithed in the year 727 in the vessel of Amir Sharaf al-Din Qasim al-Daybuli in full and completely.
This was also tithed in the year 736 (in the vessel of Amir) Nasir al-Din Sharif Musa b. Husayn (arriving) from Kilwa in the stewardship of Qadi Badr al-Din Hasan Said b. Hasan, the district overseer.
Shaykh Kamal al-Din al-Maqdashi arrived from Mogadishu in 751 (begins 11 March 1350) b.trar y. his ship a chest made of leather (and)
there was no payment imposed upon him other then one tenth. Also inside where some cowries covered in leather, but the only payment
was one tenth, nothing else.
Muhammad al Fasi, Maliki: al-Iqd al-thamin fi tarikh al-Balad al-Amin (Valuable contract in the history of the country of the Secretary)
He was Qadi at Mecca (d1429-30)
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We heard the last of: Qadi Ezzedine bin Jamaeata, walfikhr alnuwayti.
A half cast born in the land of Makdshoh, and he frequented it, and had some of his children there.
As for Ismail bin Ali bin Othman Al-Asfahani, of Meccan origin known as Ibn Al-Majmi: Ali Isa bin Abdullah Al-Hajji; and Al-Avchehry; and Musa Al-Zahrani: He got kind of sick while he was present in the year of thirty-seven and seven hundred (1337) in Haram al-Sharif (4). He was suffering and he was traveling because of this. So he died in Muqdashuh (Mogadishu), according to what I was told, and I did not know when he died.
Ibn Nasir al-Din: Tawdih al-Mushtabah (To clarify the suspect) (d1438)
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Faqih Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Ali bin Abi Bakr al-Maqdashi, with Sheikh Alaa Al-Din Al-Maqdisi, where it is said: Al-Maqdashawi, …...
I said: It is the son of Ali bin Abi Bakr bin Ali bin Hassan bin Ahmed bin Yusuf bin Asad al-Tamimi Jawhari, known as Ibn Balawi, attributed to Mekdhoh (Mogadishu): The famous town of Habashah belonging to Zanzibar.
From the Court of Al-Zahir; Ta’rikh al-Yaman (History of Yemen).(1439) (Ann. Rasulid Chronicle.)
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During Higga 836 (1433) the nakoda of a ship from Kilwa with merchants from Mecca was welcomed.
Al Maqrizi: aleuqud alfaridat fi tarajum al'aeyan almufida (Unique Contracts in Useful Librarian Studies) (1441)
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988 - Mahmal bin Abi Bakr bin Nasser bin Ahmed Al-Abdari Al-Shaibi, Jamal al-Din, Sheikh bin Shaybah.
Crowned sheikhdom after Muhammad ibn Yusuf in Jamada al-Awwal in the year forty-nine and seven hundred (1348AD), then other stook over with Abu al-Fadl in the year fifty-seven, then he was re-established (as sheikh), and he died in the year of seventy-seven and seven hundred (1375), and he was in the seventies, and he was a bold man of virility and high interest. He had heard the hadeeth and had gone to harmful Muqdashuh, and other (places).
Ibn al-Ahdal: Tuhfat al-zaman fi tarikh sadat al-Yaman (The Wonder of the Age in the History of Yemen) (d1451)
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It mentions the country of Mekdhoh , as well as Mekdhoh the country of India (not treated here)
Shaykh Abu al-Fadl Isma'ilah ibn Ahmad ibn Daniel Muhammad al-Hormuzi was said to be a relative to the kings of Hormuz, but the country was dominated by a man who hated the Faqih. And so he went from Hormuz to Moqdishu but the wind brought him into Aden (in 1318AD according to Abu Makhrama), which was hardly known to him, and he called into Zabid, for the benefit of the students in jurisprudence, language, doctrine and logic, and he has the fruits of those who share the language, the jurisprudence, the fundamentals and the logic. And he has a clear line of admiration, and when he died, his supporters asked the Mujahid to travel to a Hormuz……..
Then Alasbahi went to Mekdhoh then when Mansour died the Sultan Abdul Rahman brought to King Muzaffar great gifts including Anbar, good looking elephant tusks and musk with good smell.
Athanasius Nikitin : Khozhenie za tri moria (Travels in the three Seas) (1475) from Twer-in Russia
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Note: Athnasius always uses the word Ethiopia to speak about East-Africa in general.
Dabul, a port of the vast Indian Sea. It is a very large town, the great meeting place for all nations living along the coast of India and of Ethiopia..............
We sailed from Dabul three months before the great day of the Mohammedan Lent, and were at sea a whole month, during which I saw nothing. On the following month we descried the mountains of Ethiopia, and then those on board exclaimed : God our Lord, O God, O God, king of Heavens, righteously hast Thou devoted us to destruction.
I remained five days in that country, and by the mercy of God, met with no evil, but distributed among the natives a quantity of brynetz, pepper, and bread, in order that they might not plunder the ship. From there I reached Muscat in 12 days, and there I held the sixth great holiday.
Note: sailing 12 days at a speed of 185 Km a day (as Idris estimates) will give him a starting point of close to present day Obbia is southern Somalia.
Najm al-Din Umar ibn Fahd: Al Durr al-Kamin bi Dhayl al’iqd al Thamin fi Tarikh al Balad al-Amin (d1480) Mecca
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The khawaja Badr al-Din Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Qasim al Tahir (d1466-7) travelled extensively in Egypt, the Yemen, East Africa and India and gradually became the acknowledged leader of the Meccan mercantile community. In addition he held a Mamluk appointment as supervisor of the Great Mosque.
Abu Makhrama : Kiladat al-nahr (Chronicle-biographical dictionary)(1521-2) from Yemen
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The qadi Abu ‘d Dabij Ismail b. Ahmad Danial, says al-Qalhati, born at Ormuz in 1287/8 and was reading in the doctrine of Abu Hanifa also. He is of Shafi'i denomination. And he was a sure companion of the Sultan of Hormuz, when the Sultan was killed, he went out of Hormuz, and he intended to go to Mogadishu. The wind did not help him. He went to Aden, and that was in the year 718AH (1318AD)
He heard that al-Faqih Ali bin Ahmed bin Abi Marwan read «alert» and «polite» and «al-Wajiz» and «mediator» in science, and mastered the reading of each book of them in a year, he said: Does not happen to anyone like this? ! He travelled to Mogadishu and read on al- Faqih….