The East African presence in Arabia and the Persian Gulf ca. 1000-1900. (Patreon)

A lot has been written about the arrival of different groups of foreigners on the East African coast and their influence on Swahili society. Until recently, the history of the Swahili civilization was often interpreted in terms of its non-coastal affinities, and how the different immigrant groups contributed to Swahili culture.

But recent scholarship argues that a better understanding of the Swahili Coast would be achieved if the common dualisms of Africa/Arabia, Traditional/Muslim, Indigenous/Foreign are avoided, and the coast is instead approached as a cosmopolitan region of the Indian Ocean world with its characteristic reciprocal exchanges.

In this new understanding, the Swahili weren't simply recipients of foreign guests and ideas, but active participants in the cultural exchanges and travel across the Indian Ocean world.

For over 1,000 years, Swahili merchants, scholars, craftsmen, pilgrims, and other travelers sailed across the western Indian Ocean to Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Archeological and documentary evidence locates the Swahili in many cities across the region from the Hejaz to Yemen to the Persian Gulf, where they established communities and engaged in cultural exchanges that were previously thought to have been introduced by foreigners to the East African coast.

In this article, I explore the history of the East African presence in south-western Asia, focusing on the Swahili travelers who explored and settled the region from Arabia to the Persian Gulf between 1,000 C.E to 1,900.

a dhow off the coast of Zanzibar, Tanzania, ca. 1890

places where the Swahili are attested in Arabia and the persian gulf 

Where did the Swahili cultural exchanges occur? : a brief background on early Swahili history.

Speakers of the Swahili language have lived along 2,500 km of the Eastern African coast since the mid-first millennium. The term Swahili is ambiguous in its usage for different periods in history. In modern historiography, it refers to the language, society, and culture that emerged on the East African coast, characterized by distinct material culture and lifeways; including a mixed farming-fishing economy and maritime trade.

The early 2nd millennium began the classical phase of Swahili history. Increased trade, growing wealth, and expanding urbanization and cosmopolitanism led to a rise in the number and size of Swahili urban settlements. Archeological evidence shows this to be a period of significant external contact, with increased importation of foreign wares, the earliest Arabic inscriptions, and the reconstruction of old timber mosques and houses into white-washed 'stone' structures built with porities coral.

It was during this phase that the political structures of some city-states like Mogadishu and Kilwa became centralized under the rule of dynasties which were products of unions between local and foreign lineages.

(Horn and Crescent pg 22-23)

This was also a period when small groups of immigrants from southwestern Asia were integrated into Swahili society and likely played an important role in the cultural exchanges that characterized this period, particularly the adoption of Islam, the Arabic writing script, and possibly a few architectural styles.

While most Swahili historians argue that these cultural exchanges primarily took place on the East African coast when the local population integrated small groups of foreigners, some suggest that these developments may as well have been brought to the East African coast by the Swahili who had been to the Arabian peninsula and the Persian Gulf. As the Swahili specialist James de Vere Allen argues;

"Such people certainly seem more likely than Middle Eastern missionaries or immigrants to have introduced the particular blend of Islam and the old Shungwaya religion which made up Shirazi Islam [of the Swahili]"

(Swahili Origins: Swahili Culture & the Shungwaya Phenomenon pg 185-186)

At the time the abovementioned theory was proposed, its author admitted a lack of sufficient evidence from the Asian side for the presence of East Africans, besides one lone reference to East Africans in Siraf.

However, in the following years, archeological digs in several sites along the southern coast of the Arabian peninsula have corroborated the seemingly lone reference to East Africans living in southwestern Asia during this critical period of cultural exchange.

the swahili coast

Archeological evidence for the presence of East Africans along the coast from Yemen to the Persian Gulf, between the 10th-12th century.

Excavations on the site of Sharma near the Hadrami coast of Yemen, which was occupied between 980–1150, have revealed a high proportion of eastern African ceramics with strong parallels with the typical Tana wares of the Swahili, especially those found at the town of Shanga. These African ceramics comprise 16.2% of all the unglazed pottery, and throughout occupation vary between 21.5% (c. 1000 CE) to 14% (c. 1150 CE).

Sharma was a transit entrepot where different groups of traders were at the intersection of routes between the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, India, and eastern Africa. Trade with the Swahili coast was substantial, indicated by the residue of gum-copal obtained from eastern Africa. The African ceramics may have held substances such as copal but were also likely used by emigrant Africans living in the settlement. There was likely an African merchant community resident in Sharma, in contact with East Africa, and who were receiving familiar pots from home regularly.

(When did the Swahili become maritime pg 106, The Swahili corridor revisited pg 6-7)

Swahili material culture wasn't confined to Yemen but also appears along the eastern coast of the Arabian peninsula. Eastern African ceramics, mainly post-C.E. 1000 globular pots, also occur on the eastern Hadrami coast at the site of al-Shihr, and smaller port towns such as al-Hamr al-Sharqiya on the southern Omani coast, and Suhar on the Batinah coast of Oman. While proportions are smaller than in Sharma, these discoveries provide evidence of the intensity of the eastern African trade of that time and may also indicate the existence of African inhabitants or travelers.

(when did the Swahili become maritime pg 107)

Unlike the coast of southern Arabia, archeological evidence for East Africans at the Persian cities of Shiraz and Siraf remains elusive.

Shiraz was the political capital of the Persian Buyyid kingdom (945–1055 CE) while the port city of Siraf was the chief emporium of the Persian Gulf. The latter in particular boasted a population of several hundred thousand inhabitants in the 10th century, and it had extensive trade contacts with the Swahili coast where many Siraf ceramics have been found, and about which textural records mention the trade in timber and ivory from the Swahili coast. Historians and geographers did not indicate the composition of Siraf's population or its political structure, but it is known that Persians, Arabs, Jews, Indians, and other national groups, including Africans, formed its population.

(Persian Gulf Seafaring and East Africa pg 348)

Recent comparative analysis of the architectural styles of the Swahili's so-called "shiraz mosques", and the mosques of Siraf, have shown that the construction style was likely exported from the Swahili coast to Siraf rather than the other way round. The ubiquity of the shirazi-mosque on the East African coast during the 9th-12th century, the abundance of textural evidence for the exportation of timber to southern Iran, and the rarity of the shiraz mosque style outside Siraf, point to the likelihood that East African masons were imported to the region and brought/created their own construction styles.

(In the name of Shiraz pg 498-512)

While the abovementioned architectural analysis seems speculative, it conforms to the cultural ambiguity and complexity of Swahili society and culture, and how it has eluded most scholars seeking to precisely define its character. On the other hand, the abundance of archeological evidence outlined above indicates that the cultural exchanges and developments often thought to have only occurred on the East African coast with the arrival of Arab and Persians, also took place on the Arabian and Persian coast following the travel of East Africans to those regions.

Swahili merchants and royals in Rasulid Yemen and the Hejaz from the 13th to 15th century

Although most of the Swahili cultural exchanges with southwestern Asia seem to have taken place in the context of trade, they were doubtlessly primarily facilitated by the Swahili's adoption of Islam.

The Swahili greatly shaped the daily practice of Islam on the coast and embraced the mobility and universalism of the religion, which strengthened pre-existing practices of travel, migration, and intermarriage. The Swahili deployed the universalism of Islam as a means to strengthen partnerships with other societies, especially those in the Islamic heartlands of the Hejaz and Yemen, which the Swahili merchants reached using local ships, following established sea routes.

(Swahili port cities pg 69-70)

The earliest evidence for the arrival of Swahili traders and other travelers in southwestern Asia comes from the 13th century. Yemeni sources from the Rasulid dynasty era (1229-1454) confirm that ships from the city of Mogadishu made annual trips to the port cities of Hadramawt in Yemen.

The Mogadishu ships left their hometown in June for Aden, taking advantage of the southwest wind, and left the Yemeni port during the fall. Mogadishu ships also traveled annually to al-Šiḥr and the two small neighboring ports, Raydat al-Mišqāṣ and

Ḥīyrīğ. Trade from Mogadishu, which was taxed around 4,000 dinars at al-Sihr, included ebony, ivory, foodstuffs, captives, cotton cloth, and gum copal from Zanzibar.

(L’Arabie marchande, Chapter9, par. 29-30)

Aside from cloth and foodstuffs, most of the goods carried on Mogadishu's ships came from Swahili cities further south and were transshipped to the Benadir cities of southern Somalia, most notably Brava/Barawa and Mogadishu.

The Yemeni qadi Mas'ūd mentions these Swahili ships at the end of the 14th century about Barāwa, which he presents as a "small locality on the coast of an island in the province of Maqdišū” adding that “There is an anchorage ( marsā ) sought by boats ( ḫawāṭif ) from India and from each small city of Sawāḥil.”

(L’Arabie marchande, Chapter9, par. 31)

Evidence for voyages from Kilwa to Rasulid Yemen appears in 1336 when a ship “from Kilwa” loaded with rice, reached Aden, the ship was owned by a certain Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Šarīf Mūsā Ḥusayn. Decades later in October of 1388, an anonymous Yemeni chronicle reports the arrival of a diplomatic gift from the “land of the Zanğ” (Swahili coast), specifying that there were "wonders none of which had previously entered the land of Yemen."

(L’Arabie marchande, Chapter9, par. 32)

There's evidence from the Kilwa side of potential links between Arabia and the Swahili city. The globetrotter Ibn Battuta, who visited Kilwa around 1331 mentioned the presence of sharifs from Mecca and Medina at the sultan's court, which has been further corroborated by recent discovery of documents regarding the Ibadis linked to Oman, that were present at the Kilwa court in the 12th century.

The ease of Ibn Battuta's direct return journey from Kilwa to the port of Dhafar in Yemen, indicates that this was a regular sea route used by merchants active in Kilwa, both local and foreign.

(Travels of Ibn Battuta Vol II, pg 381, The chronology of Kilwa pg 11)

Evidence of Kilwa's links to Yemen comes from the supposed origin of the city-state's ruling lineage known as the Mahdali dynasty which had nevertheless been resident on the coast for a while. It is during the early 14th century that the first of the Kilwa sultans is recorded to have traveled to Aden and performed a pilgrimage to Mecca. This Kilwa sultan was Abu al-Mawahib, who was the same ruler met by Ibn Battuta, he traveled to Aden in his youth and acquired great proficiency in sacred sciences, before making the pilgrimage to Mecca.

(Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 48, pg 389)

A number of al-Mawahib's successors would later perform the pilgrimage. These include Talut bin al-Husayn (ca. 1362) who is said to have died on pilgrimage and his son Husayn b. Sulayman (ca. 1389-1412) who successfully accomplished the pilgrimage and returned. He appears to have been accompanied by his son named Rush, who repaired the Kilwa mosque and also bears the title of Hajj. During the reign of al-Hasan ibn Sulayman, internal conflicts drove some Kilwa elites to exile on a pilgrimage to Mecca including one named Sabhat, the inspector of weights and measures.

(Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 48, pg 390, 393-394)

While the evidence for Kilwa's political links to Yemen appears significant, there is little evidence from the Yemeni side acknowledging any suzerainty over Kilwa, nor even a formal relationship between its rulers. As the historian Eric Vallet writes "Unlike Abyssinia, the Ḥiğāz or even the Gulf, willingly included by Sultan al-Afḍal al-'Abbās in the list of all those who had pledged allegiance to al-Muẓaffar Yūsuf, Maqdišū and the Bilād al-Zanğ [Swahili coast] never entered the sphere of Rasūlid ambitions and interests."

(L’Arabie marchande, Chapter9, par. 33)

However, considering recent genetic studies which prove that Persian and later Arab intermarriages with the Swahili were far from fictional, it can be suggested that Kilwa's Mahdali dynasty would have been the product of a union between Kilwa's local lineage (s) and an immigrant Yemeni lineage --albeit one that had no significant connection to the Rasulids-- and the elites of this new lineage started (or reinvigorated) a royal pilgrimage tradition in concert with the already established trading and pilgrimage activities of the ordinary Swahili, particulary from the Lamu and Comoros archipelago.

14th century palace of Husuni Kubwa in Kilwa 

The Swahili pilgrimage tradition from the 15th to 18th century.

The earliest account of direct travel from the Lamu archipelago to Yemen and the Hejaz comes from the Egyptian historian al-Makrizi (d. 1442), who describes the city of Lamu based on information he obtained from a Qadi of Lamu who had been on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

More detailed evidence comes from 16th-17th century Portuguese documents, which reveal a substantial trade between the city-state of Pate and Mecca. These sources also include the migration of the Alawi clans from Yemen, who eventually intermarried with various Swahili dynasties, particularly on the Comoros archipelago, whose rulers also regularly traveled to Mecca.

(Les cites-etats Swahili, pg 71, 159, 179-180)

In the 16th century, East African traders and ships visited Southern Arabian ports, as well as Socotra Island. By the early 17th century, ships from the Swahili coast were regularly recorded as visiting southern Arabia. In 1614, Two ships from Nzwani arrived in al-Shihr. in 1616 by a ship from Mogadishu which anchored in Mocha, at the same time as two ships from Pate and Malindi. In 1623, Mocha received several ships from the Swahili coast. The cities of al-Shihr, Kish and Mocha had regular shipping connections with Mogadishu, Malindi, Pate, Sofala and the Comoros islands. By the 18th century, Swahili ships could sail as far as Muscat in Oman and the Persian Gulf. Records from 1606 of a Pate ship to Hormuz, and in 1777 to Oman. 

(East African travelers and traders pg 182-183)

This period also provides more evidence of East Africans in the Persian gulf, particularly at the port city of Julfār in the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah (in the United Arab Emirates). Archeological digs at the site uncovered an East African earthenware vessel dated to the 16th-17th century that was remarkably similar to those found in Mombasa and is dated to the same period. Furthermore, a copper coin from Mogadishu belonging to Sultan Ali b. Yusuf was also found next to the East African vessel. Both the coin and vessel provide some small evidence of the sea-faring links that existed between Julfar and the East African coast.

(Julfār, an Arabian Port pg 49-51)

However, the bulk of the evidence for East Africans in southwestern Asia during this period comes from the Hejaz region of western Arabia, in the city of Mecca.

The first sultan from the Comoro archipelago who undertook the pilgrimage was the sheikh who 'ruled' the island of Mwali as a dependency of Nzwani and had been to mecca before the arrival of the Dutch to his island in 1602. Another early 17th-century account mentions that one of the rulers of Nzwani spoke a little Arabic, which he had acquired on pilgrimage to Mecca.

(Islands in a Cosmopolitan Sea pg 57, Les cites-etats Swahili pg 180)

In 1775, the crown prince of Nzwani named sheik Salim is known to have visited Mecca before proceeding to the island of Sri Lanka where he contacted the Dutch who then visited his island for trade in 1776. As the two travelers mentioned above, Salim was a product of the union between the local dynasties of Nzwani and the recently arrived Hadrami-Alawi clans who'd been living at Pate, being born to the ruling Queen Halima and a sharif named Ahmed.

(The Dutch on the Swahili coast pg 309, 324, Islands in a cosmopolitan Sea pg 67)

The abovementioned Dutch account utilizes a sea route that was typically used by the Swahili sailors, which hugged the coast until Brava, before heading for the Red Sea.

Brava's ascendancy was the result of Mogadishu's decline and descent into piracy, as the ruined city was by then "was now inhabited by Arabs and a gathering of evil natives" presumably referring to the aftermath of the city's conquest by the Hawiye Somali clan a century earlier. As the Dutch account notes, their Swahili pilots described the city of Brava as "the last safe anchorage which they knew before mecca. All their ships which went from Zanzibar and Pate to Mecca, Muscat, and Surat, and returned from those places, anchored there."

(The Dutch on the Swahili coast pg 343-344)

The Swahili royal pilgrimage tradition was not confined to the descendants of intermarriages between the local dynasties and Hadramis but was also adopted by local dynasties with no links to the sharifs, such as the rulers of Ngazidja (Grand Comore). The first of the Ngazidja sultans to undertake the journey to Mecca was Fumu Mvundzambanga, the ruler of Itsandra in the late 17th century, who unfortunately died on the journey. His later successor, Sultan Fumnau, succeeded in undertaking the journey to Mecca around the year 1797.

(Islands in a Cosmopolitan Sea pg 73)

the late 18th-century fortresses of Itsandra on Grande Comore are associated with Sultan Fumnau's reign 

East Africans in Arabia during the 19th century: Merchants, Scholars, Pilgrims, and Envoys.

The 19th century was a period in which the journeys of Swahili travelers to Arabia were relatively well documented. This coincided with the gradual control of the Omani sultans over parts of the coast who based their capital at Stonetown on Zanzibar island, even as the European powers were expanding their interests across the region, especially the British in Aden (Yemen).

The most active visitors from the Swahili coast to southern Arabia were merchant vessels from the Benadir cities of Mogadishu and Brava which regularly transported grain across the region. One visitor from 1843 remarked that grain "supplies the whole coast of Hadramaut and Oman' and that the Benadir" may be styled the grain coast for the supply of Southern Arabia. At Mogadishu itself, another visitor "was much struck with the number of large dhows at anchor…We found twenty vessels from 50 to 200 tons, all filled with or taking in native grain"

(Muqdisho in the Nineteenth Century pg 449)

Besides the merchants, the scholarly community of the Benadir region regularly visited such towns of Hadramawt as Tarim and stopped on their way on the Hajj pilgrimage. Some of them were students of the prominent ulama of Mecca, eventually spreading several religious orders to the Benadir such as the Qadiriyyah and Ahmadiyya, which in Brava was led by the scholar Nurein Sabir.

(Translocal connections across the Indian Ocean pg 78-80, 88)

The most celebrated scholar from Brava who traveled to the Hejaz was Qādirī Sheikh Uways (1847–1909). He was born and educated in Brava, but unlike most ulama of his time, belonged to a family of humble origins. He studied in Baghdad and Mecca, and, after his return to East Africa in 1882, actively spread the Qadiriyyah in Brava, Mogadishu, and the Benadir hinterland. Sheikh Uways regularly traveled abroad and kept in contact with the most important religious scholars of his time, particularly those of the Hejaz and Zanzibar. His student, Qāsim b. Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Barāwī (1882–1922), an important member of the waungwana patricians of Brava, also made two journeys to Arabia.

(The religious poetry of Brava pg 87-88, 107)

Several poems composed by Brava's scholars include advice on traveling abroad and rules to be followed while on pilgrimage to the cities of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. For pilgrims from Brava, the voyage to Mecca via Jeddah on the Red Sea could take over five months to complete. Oral traditions relating to this period also indicate that women from Brava undertook the pilgrimage alongside their male relatives.

(The religious poetry of Brava pg 472, Translocal connections across the Indian ocean pg 88)

Further southwards between the Lamu archipelago and Zanzibar, the bulk of the Swahili travelers appear to have been pilgrims traveling to Mecca.

An account from 1814 records a "thousand negro Hujjaj" traveling from the Swahili coast to the red sea port of Suakin (in Sudan) before proceeding to Mecca. This is a significant number, compared to the "two thousand Negros from Soudan" (west Africa) and about "five hundred Negro pilgrims from Kordufan" (modern Sudan)

(Collateral roles in pilgrimage pg 479)

Pilgrims from Zanzibar in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, ca. 1888, Qatar National Library digital repository 

Unlike the Benadir scholars however, few Swahili scholars from this period are known to have visited the Hejaz, as most accounts about known Hajjs from this period appear to have been recent Hadrami immigrants. Many of the manuscripts found in the collection of the Riyadha Mosque in Lamu, carry inscriptions of copyists whose names indicate origins in Ḥaḍramawt or Mecca, alongside resident East Africans. Some of these manuscripts were purchased and copied abroad by their owners and brought back after the pilgrimage, but most who undertook such appear to have been recent immigrants.

(From Dust to Digital, Chapter 5)

Some fragmentary evidence for resident Swahili scholars traveling to Mecca could be gleaned from the name of Mombasa’s most celebrated poet, Muyaka bin Haji (1760-1840) indicating that his father had visited Mecca. Better-known personalities who visited the Hejaz include Sheikh Abdalla bin Muhamed Ba Kathin al-Kindi, a Lamu-born scholar who made two pilgrimages to Mecca in the late 19th century.

(Lamu: History Society pg 168)

A later report by the British traveler and Mombasa resident Arthur John Byng Wavell, who visited Mecca around 1907 disguised as an Arab from Zanzibar, mentions that there were a "certain number of Swahilis and Arabs from the coast living in Mecca" Among these was a youth named Kepi, whose father, sheikh Muhammad, had died shortly after arriving in Mecca from Mombasa.

(A modern pilgrim in Mecca pg 144-145)

It is uncertain when Swahili women from this region, particularly the Lamu archipelago, began to accompany their menfolk, but it likely predated the oldest such journeys recalled in oral traditions of the mid-19th century. Much of this increase in pilgrim traffic from the Swahili coast was facilitated by the steamship's introduction in the later half of the 19th century, which cut down the travel time from one year to just three months.

(Lamu: History Society pg 45)

Further south in the Comoros archipelago, the most remarkable account of an East African traveler from this era was the journey of Prince Abudin (Abdullah) of Nzwani Island.

Arriving at the British-controlled city of Aden in Yemen in 1858, Prince Abudin utilized his island's longstanding relationship with the British to travel across western Asia and Europe. His visit was ostensibly to cede Nzwani as a British protectorate, but the offer was turned down by the British --possibly because he wasn't the ruler of the island.

Abudin visited Muscat, Bombay, Karachi, Zanzibar, Mauritius, Madras and Sri Lanka, where he joined his uncle Prince Muhammad in London before traveling back through Cairo to Aden.

(Domesticating the World pg 15-16)

Studio portrait of prince Abdullah taken in 1860, possibly at Aden, Yemen, Qatar National Library digital repository 

Conclusion:

The above overview of the East African presence in South-western Asia is far from exhaustive but it provides a much-needed introduction to the reciprocal nature of exchanges between both regions that is often thought of as one-sided.

While popular historiography of the Swahili coast had until recently focused on elucidating the indigenous roots of its cultural developments, it risked denying the aspects of Swahili society that were outward-looking and cosmopolitan. These aspects of Swahili society challenge popular misconceptions of Africa's isolation, showing that Africans were active agents in the cultural exchanges of the Indian Ocean world.

References

Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African Coast, 800-1900 by Randall L. Pouwels,

Swahili Origins: Swahili Culture & the Shungwaya Phenomenon by James De Vere Allen

Swahili Port Cities: The Architecture of Elsewhere By Sandy Prita Meier

L’Arabie marchande: État et commerce sous les sultans rasūlides du Yémen (626-858/1229-1454) by Éric Vallet

The Travels of Ibn Battuta, A.D. 1325-1354: Volume II by H.A.R. Gibb

Les cités-États swahili de l'archipel de Lamu, 1585-1810: dynamiques endogènes, dynamiques exogènes by Thomas Vernet

Islands in a Cosmopolitan Sea: A History of the Comoros By Iain Walker

Translocal Connections across the Indian Ocean: Swahili Speaking Networks on the Move by F Declich

'Stringing Coral Beads': The Religious Poetry of Brava (c. 1890-1975) by Alessandra Vianello

Lamu: History, Society, and Family in an East African Port City by Patricia W. Romero

Domesticating the World: African Consumerism and the Genealogies of Globalization by Jeremy Prestholdt

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 48

The Chronology of Kilwa Kisiwani, AD 800–1500 by Mark Horton

Persian Gulf Seafaring and East Africa: Ninth-Twelfth Centuries by T.M Ricks

The Dutch on the Swahili Coast, 1776-1778 by R Ross

Muqdisho in the Nineteenth Century: A Regional Perspective by E.A Alpers

Collateral roles in pilgrimage by Jacke S. Phillips

From dust to digital : ten years of the Endangered Archives Programme

East African travelers and traders in the Indian ocean by Thomas Vernet

When did the Swahili become maritime by J Fleisher

The Swahili corridor revisited by M.Horton

In the name of Shiraz : The stone mosques of the East African coast reconsidered by Sylvia Wu

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