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Bandar Qasim (Sarodrano ???)

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Ibn Majid in his Hawiya is the only author to mention this place. He mentions at 4 fingers of Nach Bandar Kus at 26.6°S Bandar Qasim at 23.5°S and Kandali at 23.9°S.

 

Taken from: Taken from: Madagascar, Comores et Mascareignes à travers la Hawiya d'Ibn Magid (866 H. /1462). Par François VIRE et Jean-Claude HEBERT.

 

On the west coast, the "Port of Qasim", pure Arabic name, would be located according to Tomaschek, in Morombe, while Khoury puts it further north, at the mouth of the Maintapaka. Ibn Majid gives bandar Qasim the same latitude four fingers than bandar Kus on the east coast and Kandali (not mentioned by Tibbetts) on the African coast. This Kandali would be the Qanbara of the other texts of Ibn Majid and Qanbara is identified with the island of Bazaruto (21° 50'), the largest of the Paradise Islands; this is indeed the latitude of Morombe. Khoury, who places Kandali half a degree above Inhambane, did not take into account this equality of latitude between the three scales mentioned so it seems that with Morombe Tomaschek is right.


Note: I do not agree with this. Their conclusion is based on using a map of Madagascar in which the length of the finger (isba) is reduced considerably so that all the places mentioned by Ibn Majid fit into Madagascar. I do not agree with this kind of working as Ibn Majid was too much professional to have such a big mistake is his measurements. The place-names in the south of Madagascar are clearly duplicates of those a bid further north. So I eliminate the southern places. I take the Bay of St Augustin as a possible place for Bandar Qasim but certainty can only arrive after way more archaeological research has been done in the wide area.

 

Taken from: témoignages archéologiques sur la cote vezo de l'embouchure de l'onilahy à la baie des assassins par R. BATTISTINI et P. VERIN.

 

At Sarodrano in the Bay of St Augustin a radiocarbon date from the 15th century among local pottery sherds. But in another trench a bleu pearl from India was found from about the same period. Nothing else that would show an international port at the mouth of the Onilahy river.