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Mogadishu Anecdotes:

Medieval authors on Mogadishu.

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1137 Al Zuhri (1137)
The people … arrive into the neighborhood of the Mountains of the Moon. From there they divert the Nile eastward until it reached … the Indian Ocean. From this place, the gold was brought to Egypt and Yemen.

Note: here we have a first mention of what would be later called the Nile of Mogadishu. The river inland behind Mogadishu that has no more mouth to the sea (=the Shebelle). We also learn that the gold trade reaching Egypt and Yemen came from the lands bordering that river.

Something like it is also mentioned in the Kilwa Chronicle: ‘that the first people on this coast who came to the land of Sofala in search of gold were inhabitants of the city of Mogadishu.’

 

1159 Ibn-al Mujawir (1232)

After the Banu Majid people were driven from the Mundhiriyya region of the Yemen in 1159 they split into three sections, one settling in Zafar, another in Zaila (Zeila) and the third in Mogadishu.

 

1171 Abd-el-Mo'al (1500)

……………. The city of Macdofcho (Mogadishu) is before reaching the equator and inhabited by Muslims who came to live there during the days of the caliphs of Egypt (=909-1171AD).

1181 Beyhaqi Nishabouri Kidari, Mohammad bin Hossein (1181)

The sea-shore is broken, especially the coast of the sea; …… And the long sea-shore is a very long coast (Al-Saif al-Tawail), as if it had cut a distance of one hundred leagues with the sea shore; It is the coast of the Barbara Sea, which follows Makdshu ……

1190 Umar Ibn Ali Ibn Samura 1190

Ahmad ibn Matrub al-Habasi, a learned faqih had in Du Asraq close to Ibb, among his disciples, a certain Ahmad ibn Al-Mazakban from the island of Maqdisu (Mogadishu) in the land of the Blacks….

Note: we learn that Mogadishu was Safi and sending theology students abroad.  

 

1200 Ch'en Yuan-Ching late 12 century

Da-shi-bi-pa-luo

There are four main cities the rest of the country is rural. Do not send the ships (to trade) as there are no towns with a government.

When a marriage is to be arranged the bride's family announces the agreement by cutting off the tail of a cow in calf as gesture of good faith. The period of betrothal starts from the day when the tail is cut, and the marriage can be consummated only after the cow has calved. The grooms family must respond to the cutting of the cow's tail as a pledge of the date of betrothal by bringing a severed human tail to the house of the bride. The human tail which serves as a betrothal gift is the male organ. When it arrives, the bride's family, rejoicing, welcomes it with music and parades through the street for seven days after which the groom enters the bride's house and is married to her and they become one family. Each marriage deprives a man of his live. Such is the custom of mutual rivalry among families wishing to display the fortitude and courage of their sons in law, without which no girls family would ever consent to her marriage. There is (in this country) the camel crane, 6-7 feet high, it has wing and is able to fly but not very high, it eats all kind of things, also burning red hot copper or steel with its food, its eggs are as big as a coconut, broken they are used as jars. The people are good hunters and go every three days, they shoot with poisoned arrows.

Note: The four main cities are Mogadishu, Merca, Barawa, and the settlement near the mouth of the Juba which has long been abandoned. Da-shi-bi-pa-luo can be translated as: Dashi (Arab) bipaluo (Berbera).

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1238 Mosque Jami in Hamarweyn

In the name of a gracious and merciful God. The beginning of the construction of this tower [was) in the first of the month of muharram. of the year 636 of the Hegira of the Prophet, (1238AD) The blessings of God be on the Prophet and the peace of him! That. God forgive whoever built it and reward him and forgive him, his parents and all Muslims. The kingdom belongs to God the unique one, the victorious one .

The Inscription

 

1241 Ibn al-Ahdal (1451)

….. He (the Rasulid Sultan) sent with (the new governor) a captain known as Al-Asbahi, and they stayed in Al-Shihr for about two years, and enmity arose between them, so he killed the governor and took the country ……. He (the previous governor) sought help from the Arabs, and a large crowd went with him. So he entered Al-Shihr (in 1241AD), and Al-Asbahi took cover from him and fled to Maqdashuh. …..

1250 Ibn Said al Maghribi (1250)

(DESCRIBING THE AJURAN HART-LAND)

The Nile of Maqdishu from where it leaves lake Koura (=lake Tchad) continues ascending in this section up to 11 deg lat. and 66deg long. then swings round to the east (south) of Barbara from which it is separated by a degree; then curves to the east (south) of Maqdishu.

Marka whose inhabitants are Muslim. It is the Capital of the country of the Hawiya which contains more than 50 villages on the banks of the river branching out from the Nil Maqdishu 69 degrees 30 min longitude 1 degrees 10 min North latitude It is placed on the side of a river that comes out of the Nile of Magdachou and has its mouth at 2 marhala to the east of the town. Out of that river comes an arm that forms close to Meurka a sort of gulf. At the east of Meurka is the Muslim town of Magdachou (madinat al Islam) celebrated in this region whose name Maqdishu occurs frequently on the lips of travelers. It is at 72 degrees longitude, 2 degrees latitude at the Indian Ocean shore, its harbor offers little security in the rainy season.

At the beginning of this section at 0 deg, 10 min (still of the former section) and at 2 deg latitude is the mouth of Nil Maqdishu, which flows through the lands that belong to the town with the same name. At about 12 miles from it and then mouths into the sea. Close to Maqdishu it looks like the river is less big then the Nile of Egypt, but it is deep and it lost lots of water on the way, giving birth to other rivers.

 

The people of the land plant twice a year: once just after the floods of the river, one uses this water to irrigate the terraces, the other, when the rain season has arrived. The river after running for about 2,000 miles mouths at the east of Magdachou.

 

At the end of the Gulf of Herbs (South Arabia), to the east, is the great and high mountain called in the books: Ras al- Djumdjuma; we also call him the Gulf of the Moon.  At this cape come the ships of Mogadiso. It is the place of arrival of ships (coming from Mogadiso) and elsewhere.

Note: what Ibn Said gives here is a description of the fertile and productive lands of the Shebelle River; the hart-land of the Ajuran empire with Merka as its capital and Mogadishu as its most important town and Islam as the official religion. He ends with noting the important international trade.

 

1269 Mosque of Arba Rukun

(At the Mihrab) The weak servant in need of the mercy of God Most High Husraw son of Muḥammad as - Sirazi in the year 667 (1268-69).

1269 Mosque of Fakhr ad-Din

God - there is no God besides him, the living, the existing by virtue of his own; they have no hold on him neither drowsiness nor sleep; all that is in belongs to him heaven and what is on earth; who is he who can intercede with him, if not with his permission? He knows what was before them and what will be after them; men embrace of His science only what he wants; his throne extends over the heavens and the earth, nor does the custody of these tire him: he is the lofty, the magnificent. There is no compulsion for religion: the straight path is well distinguished from error; whoever does not believe in Taghut (idol or oracle) and instead believes in God, will have grasped the tight handle, not susceptible to breaking; and God hears everything and knows everything. In the name of the gracious and merciful God. He makes the prayer at the two ends of the day and night; verily good deeds drive away bad ones, this is a warning to those who reflect. His master: Hagi bin Mohammed bin Abdullahi. Date: in the last days of Sha'aban of the year 667 (1269 AD).

 

Fakr-ad-din-Mosque

The alcove of the mihrab is inlaid with an Indian marble carving of a lamp hung by a chain hung from the apex of a cinquefoil arch that replicates the mihrab around it. Above this marble work is a glazed tile with an inscription of the year 1269, religious verses, and a name which might be the artist's or the architect's.

Note: Fakhr ad-Din after who this mosque is named became the first Sultan of Mogadishu. This must have happened between 1269 and about 1300. There are still several mentions of Mogadishu being a republic before 1300AD

 

1283 Al-Qazwini (1283)

Maqdaschu is a town … Its people are Arabs who don't have a sultan. The people handle their businesses through agreements. …. They export sandalwood, ebony, amber, and ivory.

Note: The town was clearly still a republic.

 

1289 Qassim Bin Mohammed al Barzali (1339)

…. the Sheikh, the jurist, the imam, the righteous, Shams al-Din, Abu Abdullah, Muhammad bin Ali bin Abi Bakr bin Ali bin al-Hasan bin Ahmed bin Yusuf bin Asad al-Tamimi, al-Jawhari, died. ……. His birth was on Wednesday the twenty-eighth of the month of Rajab in the year six hundred and forty-eight (1250AD) in the city of Shiraz ….. His father was from the city of Kilwa, an island in the sea that belonged to the Zanj, and he was a merchant who memorized the Qur’an. …. He traveled in his youth to Kash and Hormuz, then to Dhofar and Aden, and entered the Hijaz, and performed Hajj more than once ….. He toured the Hijaz, then returned to Aden, then traveled to Al-Sumnat in India. ……  then he traveled to Maqdashuh, a city on the sea coast, and resided there for a period, then to Hormuz and Kash, and entered Basra and resided there for a period, then entered Baghdad and studied there, then returned to Basra. From there he spent time with the Arabs (in) the wilderness, arriving in Hama, and entering Damascus in the year six hundred and eighty-eight (1289AD), ….

Note: here we have a man of the intellectual Muslim elite going to reside in Mogadishu; he is not the only one to go there. The special thing about him is that his father came from Kilwa.

This is the Muhammad b. ‘Ali b. Abi Bakr, the Great Jurist, the scholar, Shams al-Din, al-Tamimi, al-Maqdishawi al-Shafi‘i (648/1250-718/1318). He is mentioned by al-Asqalani (1448); Al-Dhahabi (1348); Ibn Nasir al-Din (1348); Al-Barihi Al-Sukski Yemeni (1499); Qassim Bin Mohammed al Barzali (1339)

Ibn Nasir al-Din 1438 has the following to say about him: Faqih Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Ali bin Abi Bakr al-Maqdashi, is a teaching assistant in Al-Badriya (Al-Bathari School) with Sheikh Alaa Al-Din Al-Maqdisi, where it is said: Al-Maqdashawi, Oh, tell us on the authority of Ibn Al-Dhakhamisi; 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.

 

1295 Nur al-ma'arif (1295)

Imported in Aden from Africa: ivory, eunuchs, civet, non castrated slaves male-female, ebony, Heavy animal leather, Light animal leather, Animal raw leather, leopard skin, the Abyssinian slaves are in four categories (different prices and different taxes), the Zanj slaves in three categories, Arabic gum from Zanzibar in two categories, sandalwood, Subbab, ivory in three categories, amber, betelnut, costus, incense in three categories, myrrh, cauris in three categoris, fat of apes, Spiral Ginger from Mogadiscio, molasses, clarified butter from Maqdisu, sesame oil of Maqdisu, sukkar: maqdisi.

1295 Marco Polo (1295)

Chapter XXXIII: Concerning The Island of Madagascar. (=Mogadishu)

The people are all Saracens, adorning Mahommet. They have four Sheikhs, i.e., four elders, who are said to govern the whole island. And you must know that it is most noble and beautiful island, and one of the greatest in the world, for it is about four thousand miles in compass. The people live by trade and handicrafts. The amount of traffic in elephants' teeth … is something astonishing. In this island they eat no flesh but that of camels, and of these they kill an incredible number daily. They say it is the best and wholesomest of all flesh, and so they eat of it all the year round.

 

They have in this island many trees of red sandel, of excellent quality, in fact, all their forests consist of it. They have also a quantity of ambergris, for whales are abundant in that sea, and they catch numbers of them, and so are Oil-heads, which are a huge kind of fish, which also produce ambergris like the whale. There are numbers of leopards, bears, and lions in the country, and other wild beasts in abundance. Many traders, and many ships go thither with cloths of gold and silk and many other kinds of goods, and drive a profitable trade.

 

… the ships from Maabar (south east coast of India) which visit the island of Madagascar, … arrive thither … in twenty days, while the return voyage takes them more than three months.

 

……… The great Khan (Mongol emperor of China) set to those parts to inquire about these curious matters, and the story was told by those who went thither. He also sent to procure the release of an envoy of his who had been dispatched thither and had been detained, so both those envoys had many wonderful things to tell the great Khan about those strange islands …………

Note: We learn here they had a republic led by 4 Sheikhs. And that using the monsoon ships from India (Maabar) made it in 20 days but the return was difficult. We also get details on international trade. As to the envoys from China: the Yuan Shih; History of the Mongol dynasty has that in 1287 and in 1289 Maabar presented zebras to the emperor.

 

1296 Al-Malik al Ashraf Umar (1296)

Has a calendar in which the dates of the sailing Mogadishu to Aden and back are given.

 

1300 Abu al-Uqul (1300)

Has a calendar in which the dates of the sailing Mogadishu to Aden and back are given.

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1325 Al-Dimashqi (1325)

(about rivers in the first climate). Djob, the big and the small one, in the land of Maqdashou,

….. the other (leaving from lake Koura) to the east declining to the south called the river of Demadem or of Maqdashou; … as the Demadem River flows into the southern sea …..

To the tribes of the Negroes belong also the Zendj or the Zaghouah, called after Zagou, son of Qofth b. Micr b. Kham …… Their capital is Maqdashou, where the merchants of all countries go. It owns the coast called Zenjebar, which has several kingdoms. They are divided into several tribes, are most of the time naked, and are the most savage of all people.

Note: The river of the Damadim ……. through the land of Hawiah up to the red Makdishu, with three arms, one of which is the big Gubb, the other one the small Gubb, the third the river of Demdem. This description of the river system in South Somalia is a bid more correct than the other ones found in medieval sources.

 

1327 Najm al-Din Umar ibn Fahd (1480)

In the year twenty-seven and seven hundred (1327AD)

(people who died)

And Sheikh Abu Bakr bin Omar bin Othman bin Al-Hajj Ismail, the Lord of Maqdishuh, for the three days remaining from Rabi` al-Akhir (=fourth month).

 

1330 Abou Bekr ibn Bedr (1330)

The fara attabi or striped onager which is brought to us from the countries of Makdichou and also from other countries, is an animal of a curious aspect, colors wonderfully arranged.

The whole individual is marked with black stripes and white stripes, regularly traced on both sides of the body and the like. The female becomes tamed, can be raised in the stables or barns, and allows to be ridden. But she can hardly live long in captivity.

 

1331 Abu al-Fida (1331)

Is a repetition of Ibn Said 1250

1331 Ibn Battuta (1331) Tuhfat an-nuzzar

On leaving Zayla we sailed for fifteen days and came to Maqdasha (Mogadishu), which is an enormous town. Its inhabitants are merchants and have many camels, of which they slaughter hundreds every day. They also have many sheep. The merchants are wealthy, and manufacture textiles which takes its name from the city and which is exported to Egypt and elsewhere.

He then explains that visitors need a patron in the town for their business transactions.

As Battuta is a lawyer, he becomes the guest of the Qadi.

They then go to greet the Sheikh which is the name still given to the Sultan.

Note: Here we have a big change instead of an Islamic Republic there is now a government institute of a Sultan; but still called Sheikh.

 

As we have said, the Sultan of Mogadishu is called Shaikh by his subjects. His name is Abu Bakr ibn Shaikh Omar, and by race he is a Berber. (huwa fi'l-asl min al-Barbara). He talks in the language of Mogadishu but knows Arabic. ……….. When I arrived at the palace with the Qadi, whose name was Ibn Burhan al-Misri (meaning from Egypt), a eunuch came out and greeted him.

Damascus rose water (Import: Syria) is sprinkled on him and he is housed in the house reserved for Islamic students (=They have a Muslim University for foreign students).

He received clothes to go to the mosque on Friday (imports from Egypt and Jerusalem idem for the Sultan clothes). At the mosque the Sultan is greeted as they do in Yemen.

 The man who gives his greeting places his forefinger on the ground, and then on his head, and says: May God prolong your might.

The market at Mogadishu.

 

Note: The various tribes occupied different quarters in Mogadishu (hence presumably its expansion), but recognized the supremacy of the tribe of Muqri, who called themselves Qahtanis, i.e. south-Arabians, and furnished the qadi of the city. The sultanate seems to have emerged only towards the end of the thirteenth century, and the most noted of its sultans was this Abu Bakr b. Fakhr al-Din.

……… I embarked at Maqdashaw (Mogadishu) for the Sawahil (Swahili) country, with the object of visiting the town of Kulwa (Kilwa, Quiloa) in the land of the Zanj.

 

Later he visits the Maldives.

on the Maldives: They consume a lot of perfumed oil like the essence of sandal wood and they treat themselves with ghaliya (= a perfume of musk and ambergris) brought from Makdachaou (Mogadishu).

Later during the same visit he was presented with five sheep by the Maldivian vizir: He gives me permission and sends me 5 sheep, a kind of animal that is rare in these islands, so they bring them from Ma'bar, Malabar and Makdachaou (Mogadishu). The vizier sends me also rice, chickens, butter and spices.

Later he goes to India

...After a while we leave for Hily (in Elimala), where we arrive after two days .......  I met in the mosque a pious qadi from Makdachaou (Mogadishu). His name was Said. He was a devout Moslem and an Islamic doctor of law. He was handsome, had a good character and was constantly fasting. He told me he had lived 14 years in Mecca and as many in Medina; that he had met the emir of Mecca, Abou Nemy, and the one from Medina, Mansour, son of Djammaz, at the end he also traveled in India and China.     

 

(after hearing in India that the pregnant wife he had left behind in the Maldives had given birth to a son-two years earlier Ibn Battuta returned to the Maldives in 1346) He landed at Kinalos Island in Malosmadulu Atoll and was 'welcomed with respect' by the island chief whose name, abd al-Aziz al-Makdashawi (that is, of Mogadishu), indicates a clear connection with the Somali coast.
I ask for the grace of God; hit the road, and arrive in 10 days at the Maldive islands and disembark at the island of Cannlous (modern Kinalos in Malosmadulu Atoll). The governor of the island Abd Al'aziz Almakdachaouy, receives me with respect, takes care of me and equips a boat for me. ………… He gets to see his son and then leave to Bengal.

 

1332 Ibn al-Ahdal (1451)

(around 1332)

(Jurist Ahmed arrives in Ethiopian Offat Sultanate)

…. and his days were prosperous during the days of the House of the Jurist, in architecture and teaching, and students used to come to him from every direction, even from Zaila, Jabarti, and Maqdishwah, …..  and the jurist Ahmed died in the year fifty or seven hundred and fifty-one (1350AD).

 

1337 Muhammad al Fasi, Maliki (1430)
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. 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.

 

1347 Cowar el-aqalim (1347)

Then we find the province of Zendjs, of which the first part, which is called Anhiya (literally: Prophets), stretches up to the Nile of the Demadem, who goes to Mogadoxo, where it joins the sea. The Nil of Mogadoxo is the border of the province of Berbera. Some other towns, starting from Amina (literally safe, secure) up to Berbera, are found on the river, which has more then 300 parasangs in length.

Note: this is a short description of the Ajuran empire.

 

1350 Spanish Franciscan (1350)

Mogadishu is mentioned as Magdasor

 

1350 Najm al din al Misri (1350)

Mogadishu: Longitude 86 deg 0 min Latitude 4 deg 0 min. Direction towards Mecca 44 deg 28 min NW

 

1350 al Hasan ibn Ali al-Sharif al-Husayni (1412)

Shaykh Kamal al-Din al-Maqdashi arrived from Mogadishu in 751 (1350AD) in his ship a chest made of leather (and) there was no payment imposed upon him other then one tenth.

1362 Mujahid ibn Ali ibn Daud (1362)

Wild donkeys…and the Farra (=run wild) zebra, which is given to us from the land of Mekdho (Mogadishu) and other places.

They create strange and exotic colors on their bodies -black and white equal lines on both sides of the body these lines do not differ from each other, female zebra are more easily tamed and amenable for riding, and therefore could be raised at the court, but they do not live very long in captivity. 

 

A zebra in China (Ning Xian Wang 1430)

 

1366 Abu Makhrama (1521)

Muhammad Ba'alawi;

… he traveled to Maqdishuh (Mogadishu), where he became teacher in many branches of Islamic science. He died on the tenth of Dhu al-Hijjah in the year sixty-seven and seven hundred (1366AD).

 

 

 

1369 Muhammad al Fasi, Maliki (1430)

Al-Maqdashi, Bashin Mujamah: He mentioned to our honorable Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Fasi, and mentioned that he lived in Mecca for about twenty years, and during that time he married my aunt, the honorable Mansoura, daughter of Ali al-Fasi, and he returned to Medina, and gained fame in the Two Holy Mosques and in Alexandria, for his private and public greatness. He was one of the saints. He did miracles. When he arrived in Mecca; He had money for himself. So he divided it into a budget.

Mohammed Abdullah Artan has the following to say about him: Sulayman al-Maqdashi (10) [Mogadishu] (d. 770/1369) Sulayman al-Maqdashi settled in Jerusalem, via Mecca, before that via Madina, before that Mogadishu. Sulayman al-Maqdashi stayed in Mecca around twenty years. The lay people and scholars alike honoured him. He died in Jerusalem in 770/1369.

 

1372 Ibn al-Ahdal (1451)

(before 1372AD)

… A group of people from the countries of Zaila, Jabart, and Maqdashwah (=Mogadishu): among them: the jurist Alam al-Din Suleiman. He was the sultan of his country (in Ethiopia) at that time, because he came as a pilgrim with a group, so they travelled in group, so the people of the group sold them sold them out to an uproar against a section of the Arabs, terrorizing them, and they ransacked them. So God saved them from killing, so they returned …

 

1376 Al Malik al Afdal al-Abbas (1376)

Has three calendars in which the dates of the sailing Mogadishu to Aden and back are given.

Dahlak, Sawakin  and Maqdisuh (Mogadishu) are designated ‘city states’ with only a limited number of inhabitants.

 

A variety of banana (mawz) from Mogadishu is recorded to exist in Yemen, (others translate it as muqaddasi =Jerusalem)

1402 Ch'uan Chin (1402)

The Arabic Source for his map:

Sugiyama Masaaki found: 麻哈荅采: Ma-ha-da-cai; Mogadishu a name found on the Red Sea coast close to Egypt.

Kai-Lung Ho gives it as: 麻哈答來 ; Ma-ha-da-lai or 麻哈答束 Ma-ha-da-shu.

This map taken from Kai-Lung Ho shows Mogadishu wrongly placed on the Red Sea. But correctly just north of the mouth of the Nile of Mogadishu and opposite Aden. Sugiyama Masaaki identifies the first three places of interest for East Africa:

1: Mogadishu 麻哈答來 (Ma-ha-da-lai) (Sugiyama 2007 p58)

2: Aden 哈丹 (Ha-dan) (Choi, Chang-Mo, 2012 p32)

3: Zufar? 外法剌 (Wai-fa-la) (Choi, Chang-Mo, 2012 p32)

4: The place just left of Mogadishu is: 顔細哈你赤 (Yan xi ha ni chi) according to me 顔細哈拔赤 (yan xi ha ba chi): The Zan-shi of the Habashi.

5: Just north of Mogadishu is 羅的里尼 (Luo di li ni) being Rud-I Nil the Persian name for the Nile (Hudud al Alam).

 

The Chinese Source for his m ap:

Except of this first Mogadishu there is another one this time not taken from Arabian sources but from Chinese sources.

Map of the islands on the very bottom of the map on the edge between Africa and Asia.

 

 

-Of the islands on this map the lowest is East Africa (x-island), above it Arabia island, according to the Chinese sources of this map. The explanation is that the Chinese sailors knew that if you cross the ocean starting from the Asian continent you come to South India, crossing again you arrive in South Arabia and crossing again in East Africa.

On the African East Coast we have four names: left to right:

哈八牙  Ha-ba-ya (Habasha)

馬合哈叔 or 馬合答叔  Ma-ge-ha-shu or Ma-ge-da-shu (Mogadishu)

奴喏 or 奴啱 : Nu nuo -  Nu yan; the first translates as submissive slaves.

麻龍沙 Ma-long-sha ???

 

1403 Al-Sakhawi (1497)

(805AH)(1403AD) Muhammad ibn Abi Qasim Jamal Abu Abdullah Al-Makdashi; In the dictionary - the sheikh of the grammarians, Balin, for the benefit of the group of these people, Al-Shehab, Ahmed Bari Omar Al-Mutqash. He died in Rabi’ al-Awwal, so we redeemed him forty-five days.

 

1405 Al-Anwa wa-al-tawqi at..... (1405)

Has a calendar in which the dates of the sailing Mogadishu to Aden and back are given.

 

1406 Ibn Khaldun (1406)

After the equator (the river) has passed close to Mogadisco, on the southern shores of the ocean. Many people have fantastic ideas about this river, and believe that this river is part of the Nile. But Ptolemy wrote in his geography that it has nothing to do with the Nile.

… the villages of Berbera, … In the east they touch the land of the Zanj. Then there is the town of Mogadiscio (Maqdashu) which is overfilled with people and its standard of civilization is that of nomadic people. One also finds lots of merchants there. …

… Mogadishu, which is often visited by Muslim merchants.

 

1412 al Hasan ibn Ali al-Sharif al-Husayni (1412)

Taxes

Civet, on the ounce 1/12+1/3
Slaves from Aden and its environs, per head two and a half dinars
Merchant ships of Mogadishu-slaves per head 2 1/2

linen with a selvage from Mogadishu and elsewhere (linen with a selvage is taxed in the same way): for ten 3 1/12

Cotton nut-coloured garments with selvage from al-Shihr, Mogadishu, Zafar and Syria: one 1/4, 1/8, ten 3 3/4.

 

1428 Najm al-Din Umar ibn Fahd (1480)

In the year 831AH (=1428)

(The mamluk Sultan is arriving in Mecca and hasty preparations are made to provide drinking water in the city)

And Omar Shaheen Al-Othmani worked in some places in Bir Khum and Ain Hanin, (=water places close to Mecca) and he spent the amount of five hundred shekels until a little water reached the well, he spotted the Khum well and ran it to the large pool in al-Mu'alla (=In Mecca). When the time was short and the arrival of the pilgrim was near, Shaheen used the laborers of Zaila and Maqadisha (=Mogadishu) on the waterwheel that is in the path of the Sultan at the entrance of Bab al-Mualla, day and night. And he ran it to the pond. Now the water of the Khum well spring and the water of the water-wheel are poured into the large pool. And the pilgrim was satisfied with it.

Note: The laborers of Zaila and Maqadisha: this must be the slaves imported through Zaila and Mogadishu.

 

1430 Taizong Shi lu (1430)

During Yong-le in 1416; 1421; 1423
The envoys of Mogadishu and many other countries including several East African ones offered (3 times) tribute of horses, rhinoceros, elephants and other local products.

 

1431 Jin Youzi (1431)

Lion tribute

Towards the throne of the emperor ….. the Mugu-dou-shu (Mogadishu) country 木骨都束國 sent a tribute lion that is more a monster than a lion with its copper shaped iron claws and chisel-teeth …..and artworks from tens of thousands of miles away brought by the embassy…..

 

1431 Cheng Ho (1431)

Inscription in stone in which Mogadishu is mentioned in a list of 30 countries visited by Cheng Ho. The country of Mu-ku-tu-shu (Mogadishu) presented hua-fu-lu (zebras) as well as lions.

 

1432 Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (1448)

Died in the year 836 AH (1432)

Ali ibn Yusuf ibn 'Umar ibn Anwar, the ruler of Mekdhoh of our time, is known as Muayad-bin-Muzaffar ibn Mansur.

Also mentioned by Al-Sakhawi 1497; Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani: (d1448); Abd al Basit ibn Khalil 1490
 

1436 Fei-Hsin (1436)

The land of Mou-kou-tou-chou. They live along the sea shore. The people construct the walls with pilled up stones. As military exercise they practice with bow and arrow. Their habits include quarrels and violence. The houses are built of cut stone and four or five stories high, with their kitchens, lavatories and reception rooms all on the upper floors. The men do up their hair in knots hanging all around and wrap cotton cloth around their waists. The women do up their hair in a chignon behind and brighten up the crown with yellow varnish. From their ears hang a number of strings (of coins) around their necks they wear silver rings, and a fringe hangs down on the breast. When they go out, they cover themselves with a cotton sheet, and veil their faces with blue gauze. On their feet they wear shoes or leather slippers. Towards the foot of the mountain (the granite upland stretching from the Shebelle basin to the Juba) the country is a desert of brown soil and stones. The soil is poor the crops sparse. Rain might not fall for a period of several years. They make very deep wells and draw up the water in sheep-skin bags by means of cog-wheels. They also feed their camels, horses, cattle and sheep on them. The native products are frankincense, gold coins, leopards, ambergris. The goods used in trading (here by the Chinese) are gold, silver, and colored taffetas.

The poem says; The foreign name is Mou-kou-tou-chou, the mountains are red and the color of the land yellow. For long periods the sky is clear without rain and for several years the land is without crops. There are found jewels with precious stones and pearls, ambergris and incense. When looking at those objects you disapprove because of the strangeness of them, but if you have obtained them you find pleasure in their perfection.

Note: The description of the wells really fits into the Ajuran empire.

 

1436 Maqrizi (1441)

Year 1436

In this month: an epidemic broke out in Taiz in the country of Yemen, including a message during prayers in Mecca that on one day in the Mosque there were hundred and fifty funeral. In another message that had died in three days two thousand people, several villages were empty of its inhabitants. (the epidemic) Evolved to include all the countries of Abyssinia, from Caffers and Moslem, and the rest of the country Zinj, and Mekdcoh up to Berbera, Aden, Taiz, and Saada, and its mountains.

 

1438 Xuanzong Shih-lu (1438)

The new Xuan-de Emperor orders Zheng He to go to 20 countries including Mogadishu and Brava to announce he had taken on the mandate of Heaven.

 

1440 Muhammad al Fasi, Maliki (1440)
Bin Yusuf Al-Maqdisi. Jamal al-Din, judge of Mogadishu. He died on Sunday the sixteenth of Jumada al-Awwal in the year eight hundred and forty-four (1440AD) in Mecca.

 

Jamal al-Din, Sheikh bin Shaybah; he entered Egypt and elsewhere, and that he was born - as far as I was told - in the country Makdshoh. And he used to frequent it, and some of his children were born to him there.

Al Maqrizi 1441 has the following to say about him:

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 others 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 Misr, Muqdashuh (Mogadishu), and other (places).

 

1441 al Maqrizi (1441)

He also writes a fantastic story about the monkeys taken over in Mogadishu. But:

Dr. Muhammad Hussain Muallem Ali wrote in his article: Al-Maqrizi ... between Lamu and Mogadishu (2020) that the text of Maqrizi got messed up. This story of the Qadi of Lamu has a story of Mogadishu in it but ends again with a description of Lamu (126). As the description of the customs in Mogadishu as found by Ibn Battuta are very different from those described here; the story should not be attributed to Mogadishu. Dr. Muhammad does not conclude that it needs to be attributed to Lamu; only that a mess-up happened.

 

1441 Abdul Wahab bin Abdul Rahman Al-Barihi Al-Sukski Yemeni (1499)

The scholars of Zabid; Sheikh Majd al- Din al - Shirazi and Imam Nafis al-Din al- Alawi who died in thirty - eight and eight hundred (1435) and including Faqih Jamal al- Din Muhammad ibn Abi al - Qasim Al Maqdashi who read on a group of art literature, the most famous jurist Shams al- Din Ali Al Akqash arranged a tribute of the sons of Sultan Ashraf ibn Al Afdal and Al-Zaher and his younger brothers, ……

…and died in the year 845AH (1441) in the benefit and mercy of Allah; Sharaf al-Din Abu al-Qasim bin Ali knewn as Ibn Zubaydah and he who read the art of literature on the jurisprudent Jamal al-Din al-Maqdashi…

1442 Luo Maodeng 16^th century

Fei pa chan shih the magician from Mogadishu who with his discs killed off the soldiers of China.

 

The only Chinese war that was fought in Mogadishu in a drama by Luo Maodeng. Here the beginning is given; the end you find on my webpage on Luo Maodeng.

The next goal is Mogadishu, which reins the small states Brawa and Giumbo. Wang Ching-hung advises Cheng Ho, for the sake of prudence to send spies to the three states Brava, Giumbo and Mogadishu. Liu Tien-chueh, Wu Cheng and Chou Yuan-tai explore these areas, of which mainly Mogadishu is hostile. The kings of Brava and Zhubu (Giumbo or el Jubb) are ready to supply letters and tokens of submission but Mugadishu's ruler pleads sickness and stalls. The king of Mogadishu seems to have said: The Ming empire and our country are thousands of miles apart. And today without reason it has send soldiers against us. Obviously they want to take us over. In Mogadishu, after this report Liu Tien-chueh says: it is clear that the king is not honest. When Liu Tien-chuehs suggests, simply to attack; besieging Mogadishu with breastworks, catapults and 40,000 men, also bombards (hsiang-yang chi), Cheng Ho rejects this: Your proposal is reasonable, but since the soldiers have entered into the Western Sea, we have already subdued several states - in some instances, it was easy, in others the attack was difficult - but it also happened that they voluntarily and with sincere sentiment subjugated. We have so far not a single man pleased with force. And because we now come here, we could because (our principles vary) and can we subject the people to violence? Cheng Ho in the end invites the commander in chief of Mogadishu to a duel. The Chinese are fast put on shore. Mogadishu sends an archer to spy out the Chinese camp. The Chinese divines his purpose, but decides that the best course is to let him see as much as possible of China's superior armaments and military skills. Awed by a dazzling display of martial arts, the archer is send back to advise his king that a formal submission won't cost him much, and will avoid any trouble that might otherwise arise, causing him a dilemma which it would be too late to regret. And this forces Yun-mu-chen, the supreme commander of Mogadishu’s troops, to accept a duel.

 

1442 Zhang, Tingyu

Mou-Kou-Tou-Chou. (Mogadishu) Leaving by boat from small Ko-lan (Quilon) one can reach this place in 20 days and nights.
In the 14th year of Yung-lo's reign Mogadishu (Mou-kou-tou-chou) sent an embassy and, with the countries of Brava (Pou-la-wa) and Malindi, presented a letter of felicitations, rendering homage to the court and bringing tribune. Cheng Ho received the order to go there carrying an imperial decree, and silk. He left in company with ambassadors to recompense (the king of that country) Later (the ambassadors) returned carrying tribute, and once more (the Emperor) ordered (Cheng) Ho to accompany them to present flowered silk to the king and to his concubines. In the 21st year (1423) ambassadors again appeared with tribute and, when they left, they again took away gifts for the king and his concubines. In the fifth year of Hsuan-te's reign (1430) an edict for these countries was again published.
This land is stretched along the sea; uninterrupted mountains, the land is deserted, full of stones and dry and there is little to harvest. The whole year through the drought rules, it sometimes does not rain for years. The people are obstinate and quarrelsome in their habits. The military exercise is the use of bow and arrow. There are no trees. Just like in Ormuz they built houses with collected stones; they use dry fish to feed the cattle, the sheep, the horses and the camels.

1442 The Mao K'un Map