EIGHT
East Africa and the
Horn of Africa
? fourth century to c. 957/? tenth century to c. 1550
The modern Tanzanian coastland
| ⊘ ? c. 346/? c. 957 | ‘Alī b. al-Ḥusayn b. ‘Alī |
| ? | Muḥammad b. Alī |
| 386/996 | ‘Alī b. Basḥat b. ‘Alī |
| 389–93/999–1003 | Dāwūd b. ‘All |
| 395/1005 | al-Ḥasan b. Sulaymān |
| 433–93/1042–1110 | ‘Alī b. Dāwūd |
| 499/1106 | al-Ḥasan b. Dāwūd |
| 523/1129 | Sulaymān |
| 525/1131 | Dāwūd b. Sulaymān |
| 565/1170 | Sulaymān b. al-Ḥasan b. Dāwūd |
| 585/1189 | Dāwūd b. Sulaymān |
| 586/1190 | Tālūt b. Sulaymān |
| 587/1191 | al-Ḥasan b. Sulaymān |
| 612/1215 | Khālid b. Sulaymān |
| 622/1225 | ? b. Sulaymān |
| 661–5/1263–7 | ‘Alī b. Dāwūd |
Transfer of power to the Mahdalis |
The island of Kilwa (the Quiloa of the Portuguese seafarers, modern Kilwa Kisawani), off the east coast of modern Tanzania and some 140 miles south of Dar es Salaam, was the seat of a series of Muslim sultans who came to control much of the trade along the East African coast until the coming of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. The first, so-called Shīrāzī line of these (any origin for them in the Persian city of Shiraz is, however, very improbable) may have begun to rule in the tenth century, but they emerge more clearly into the light of history during the twelfth century. They were succeeded towards the end of the thirteenth century by a line of Mahdali Sayyids, who continued until the decline of Kilwa and its trade as the Portuguese assumed control of the East African coastland trade. This latter line in Kilwa included rulers of what the Kilwa Chronicle calls ‘the family of Abu’1-Mawāhib’. Obscure sultans continued in Kilwa as vassals of the Portuguese and then of the Omanis, until the Bū Sa‘īdīs of Zanzibar (see below, no. 65) deposed the last one in 1843.
A good number of the coins of the sultans, and especially of the Mahdalis, have come to light through discoveries of hoards and through archaeological investigation. But dates are sparse, and the genealogy and chronology of the sultans remain distinctly obscure; the dates given in the table above, reckoned from the regnal years given in the Kilwa Chronicle, are in all cases only approximate.
Zambaur, 309 (very fragmentary); Album, 28–9.
El2‘Kilwa’ (G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville).
J. Walker, ‘History and coinage of the Sultans of Kilwa’, NC, 5th series, 16 (1936), 41–8.
idem, ‘Some new coins from Kilwa’, NC, 5th series, 19 (1939), 223–7.
G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville, The Medieval History of the Coast of Tanganyika, with Special Reference to Recent Archaeological Discoveries, London 1962, with genealogical tables at the end.
idem, The French at Kilwa Island, Oxford 1965, 28ff.
Elias Saad, ‘Kilwa dynastic historiography: a critical study’, History in Africa, 6 (1979), 177–207.
600–1312/1203–1894
The island of Pate, off the modern Kenyan coastland
| 600/1203 | Sulayman b. Muẓaffar |
| 628/1227 | Muḥammad b. Sulaymān |
| 650/1252 | Aḥmad b. Sulaymān |
| 670/1272 | Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Sulaymān |
| 705/1305 | Muḥammad b. Aḥmad |
| 732/1332 | Umar b. Muḥammad |
| 749/1348 | Muḥammad b. ‘Umar |
| 797/1395 | Aḥmad b. ‘Umar |
| 840/1436 | Abū Bakr b. Muḥammad |
| 875/1470 | Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr |
| 900/1495 | Abū Bakr b. Muḥammad |
| 945/1538 | Bwana Mkuu I b. Muḥammad |
| 973/1565 | Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr |
| 1002/1594 | Bwana Bakari I b. Bwana Mkuu I |
| 1011/1602 | Abū Bakr Bwana Gogo b. Muḥammad |
| 1061/1651 | Bwana Mkuu II b. Bwana Bakari I |
| 1100/1689 | Bwana Bakari II b. Bwana Mkuu II |
| 1103/1692 | Aḥmad b. Abī Bakr |
| 1111/1699 | Bwana Tamu Mkuu, Abū Bakr b. Muḥammad Bwana Mtiti |
| 1152/1739 | Aḥmad b. Abī Bakr b. Muḥammad |
| 1160/1747 | Bwana Tamu Mtoto, Abū Bakr |
| 1177/1763 | Mwana Khadīja bt. Bwana Mkuu b. Abī Bakr Bwana Gogo |
| 1187/1773 | Bwana Mkuu b. Shehe b. Abī Bakr Bwana Tamu Mkuu |
| 1191/1777 | Bwana Fumo Madi, Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr Bwana Tamu Mtoto |
| 1224/1809 | Aḥmad b. Shehe b. Fumo Luti |
| 1230/1815 | Fumo Luti Kipanga b. Bwana Fumo Madi |
| 1236/1821 | Fumo Luti b. Shehe b. Fumo Luti |
| 1236/1821 | Bwana Shehe b. Muḥammad Bwana Fumo Madi, first reign |
| 1239/1824 | Aḥmad, Bwana Waziri b. Bwana Tamu b. Shehe, first reign |
| 1241/1826 | Bwana Shehe, second reign |
| 1247/1831 | Aḥmad, Bwana Waziri, second reign |
| 1250/1835 | Fumo Bakari b. Bwana Shehe |
| 1262/1846 | Aḥmad b. Shehe b. Fumo Luti |
| 1273/1857 | Aḥmad Simba b. Fumo Luti b. Shehe |
| 1306/1889 | Fumo Bakari b. Aḥmad, d. 1308/1891, ruler in Witu |
| 1308/1890 | Bwana Shehe b. Aḥmad b. Shehe |
| 1308–12/1890–4 | Fumo Omari b. Aḥmad b. Shehe, last ruler in Pate |
| 1312/1894 | British rule |
| 1312-after 1326/ |
|
| 1894-after 1908 | Omar Madi, under British suzerainty |
This line of rulers apparently stemmed from the same tribal group as the Nabhānīs ruling in Oman before the Ya’rubids (see above, no. 53), though probably not from the Nabhānī ruling family. They ruled the island of Pate in the Lamu archipelago off the Kenyan coast from the thirteenth century onwards under Omani suzerainty, after 1109/1698 (the date when the Omanis took Mombasa from the Portuguese) paying customs dues to Zanzibar. The rulers of Pate also controlled Witu on the mainland, but came under British control at the end of the nineteenth century. A remarkably full list of the rulers of Pate is to be found in the Swahili oral traditional history of the family, only written down at the end of the nineteenth century (see the bibliography below); the dates in it, followed faute de mieux in the above table, should obviously be regarded as very approximate.
EI 2 ‘Lamu’, ‘Pate’ (G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville).
G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville (tr. and introd.), Habari za Pate: the History of Pate…, unpublished paper.
J. S. Kirkman, ‘The early history of Oman in East Africa’, Journal of Oman Studies VI (1980), 41–58, with lists of the rulers of Pate and the Nabhānīs at pp. 56–7.
64
THE MAZRUI (MAZRŪ‘l) LIWALIS OR GOVERNORS OF MOMBASA
c. 1109–1253/c. 1698–1837
Mombasa and Pemba island in the East African coastland
| c. 1109/c. 1698 | Nāṣir b.‘Abdallāh Mazrū‘ī |
| 1141/1729 1142/1730 |
 |
| 1146/1734 | Muḥammad b. ‘Uthmān b. ‘Abdallāh |
| 1159/1746 | Sayf b. Khalaf, non-Mazrū‘ī governor |
| 1160/1747 | ‘Alī b. ‘Uthmān |
| 1167/1754 | Mas‘ūd b. Nāṣir |
| 1193/1779 | ‘Abdallāh b. Muḥammad b. ‘Uthmān |
| 1196/1782 | Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ‘Uthmān |
| 1227/1812 | ‘Abdallāh b. Aḥmad |
| 1238/1823 | Sulaymān b. ‘Alī |
| 1240/1825 | Sālim b. Aḥmad |
| 1253/1837 | Assertion of authority by the Bū Sa‘īdīs |
The Mazrū‘ī family (Swahili Wamazrui) originally stemmed from eastern Arabia, having migrated from Oman at the end of the seventeenth century. Over nearly a century and a half, they provided an almost unbroken line of governors (Swa. liwali < Ar. al-wālī) in Mombasa, with branches on Pemba island and elsewhere. At times they were strong enough to attack the Bū Sa‘īdīs in Zanzibar (see below, no. 65), and they intervened in the affairs of Pate (see above, no. 63). The Bū Sa‘īdī ruler of Zanzibar Sa‘īd b. Sulṭān nevertheless suppressed the Mombasa line in 1253/1837, but members of the Mazrū‘ī family continued to hold positions of power and of religious and intellectual eminence on the coastland, and the family has remained influential to this day. As with the rulers of Kilwa and Pate, a local chronicle exists for the Mazrū‘īs, but this was compiled as recently as c. 1946.
EL2‘Mazrū‘ī’, ‘Mombasa’ (G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville).
G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville and B. G. Martin, ‘A preliminary handlist of the Arabic inscriptions of the eastern African coast ’, JRAS (1973), 98–122.
Shaykh al-Amīn b. Alī al-Mazrū‘ī History of the Mazrui, ed. and tr. J. McL. Ritchie, The British Academy, Fontes Historiae Africanae, London 1995.
65
THE Āl BŪ SA‘ĪD IN EAST AFRICA
1256–1383/1840–1964
Zanzibar and the East African coastland
| 1256/1840 | Sa‘īd b. Sulṭān b. Ahmad, permanently established in Zanzibar, having been sporadically ruling there since 1242/1827 |
| 1273/1856 | Majīd b. Sa‘īd b. Sulṭān |
| ⊘ 1287/1870 | Barghash b. Sa‘īd |
| 1305/1888 | Khalīfa b. Barghash |
| 1307/1890 | ‘Alī b. Sa‘īd |
| 1310/1893 | Ḥāmid b. Thuwayni |
| 1314/1896 | Ḥammūd b. Muḥammad |
| ⊘ 1320/1902 | ‘Alī b. Ḥammūd |
| 1329/1911 | Khalīfa b. Kharūb |
| 1380/1960 | ‘Abdallāh b. Khalifa |
| 1383/1963–4 | Jamshīd b. ‘Abdallāh |
| 1383/1964 | Overthrow of the Bū Sa‘īdī family and a republican régime established in Zanzibar |
As noted in no. 54 above, the Āl Bū Sa‘īd of Oman came, like their predecessors the Ya‘rubids (see above, no. 53) to control either directly or indirectly much of the East African coastland. The vigorous and forceful Sa‘īd b. Sulṭān divided his time in the 1830s equally between Muscat and Zanzibar, but in 1256/1840 settled permanently in Zanzibar, primarily for commercial reasons. He introduced the cultivation of cloves on Zanzibar and the neighbouring island of Pemba as an export crop, so that he became very rich from this trade; it was during these years that Western European powers and the USA established consulates in Zanzibar. After his death, the Bū Sa‘īdī dominions became permanently divided into two separate sultanates, one in Oman based on Muscat and the other based on Zanzibar.
In 1307/1890, Zanzibar and Pemba became a British protectorate, one lying off the coast of German East Africa. The Bū Sa‘īdī sultanate achieved a momentary independence once more in December 1963. But in January 1964 a coup d’état ended Sultan Jamshīd’s rule, and in April 1964 Zanzibar was linked with Tanganyika in what was at first called the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar and then the Republic of Tanzania.
See the bibliography to no. 54 above, to which should be added EI2 ‘Sa‘īd b. Sulṭān’ (G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville).
912–1304/1506–1887
Harar, in south-eastern Ethiopia
1. The line of Ahmad Grāñ in Harar and Ausa
| 912/1506 | Ahmad Grāñ b. Ibrāhīm, Imām, Ṣāḥib al-Fatḥ |
| 950/1543 | (Bat‘iah) Dël Wanbarā, Aḥmad Grāñ‘s widow, and his son ‘Alī Jarād, jointly |
| 959/1552 | Nūr b. Mujāhid, nephew of Aḥmad Grāñ, Ṣāḥib al-Fatḥ al-Thānī, d. 975/1567 |
| 975/1567 | ‘Uthmān |
| 977/1569 | Ṭalḥa b. ‘Abbās al-Wazīr, with the title of sultan |
| 979/1571 | Nāṣir b. ‘Uthmān |
| 980/1572 | Muḥammad b. Nāṣir, k. 985/1577 |
| 985/1577 | Muhammad Jāsā, Imām, transferred his capital to Ausa, leaving his brother in Harar as his vizier there, k. 991/1583 |
| 993/1585 | Sa‘d al-Dīn |
| 1022/1613 | Ṣabr al-Dīn b. Ādam, d. 1034/1625 or 1041/1632 |
| 1041/1632 | Ṣādiq |
| 1056/1646 | Malāq Ādam b. Ṣādiq |
| 1057/1647 | Aḥmad b. al-Wazīr Abrām |
| 1083-?/1672-? | Imam ‘Umar Dīn b. Ādam, overthrown by the ‘Afar at an unknown date |
2. The line of ‘Alī b. Dāwūd in Harar, independent of Ausa
| 1057/1647 | ‘Alī b. Dāwūd |
| 1073/1662 | Hāshim b. ‘Alī |
| 1081/1671 | ‘Abdallāh I b. ‘Alī |
| 1111/1700 | Ṭalḥa b. ‘Abdallāh |
| 1134/1721 | Abū Bakr I b. ‘Abdallāh |
| 1144/1732 | Khalaf b. Abī Bakr |
| 1146/1733 | Ḥāmid b. Abī Bakr |
| 1160/1747 | Yūsuf b. Abī Bakr |
| 1169/1755 | Aḥmad I b. Abī Bakr |
| ⊘ 1197/1782 | ‘Abd al-Shakūr Muḥammad I b. Yūsuf |
| ⊘ 1209/1794 | Aḥmad II b. Muḥammad |
| 1236/1820 | ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥammad |
| ⊘ 1240/1825 | ‘Abd al-Karīm b. Abī Bakr |
| ⊘ 1250/1834 | Abū Bakr II b. Aftal Jarād |
| ⊘ 1268/1852 | Aḥmad III b. Abī Bakr |
| ⊘ 1272–92/1856–75 | Muḥammad II b. ‘Alī |
| 1292–1302/1875–85 | Egyptian occupation |
| ⊘ 1302–4/1885–6 | ‘Abdallāh II b. Muḥammad b. ‘Alī |
| 1304/1887 | Conquest by the Emperor Menelik of Ethiopia |
Harar has been an ancient centre for Islam and its diffusion within the interior of the Horn of Africa, mainly among the Galla and Somali there, whereas the coastal areas have been Islamised from such maritime centres as Maqdishū (Mogadishu). (The names of many sultans of Mogadishu are known from coins, but their genealogical connections and their chronology are almost wholly obscure.) The Walashma‘ (Amharic, Walasma) sultanate of If at transferred itself to Harar in the early sixteenth century, and it was one of the commanders of the Walasma, Ahmad Grāñ (Amharic, ‘left-handed’), who upheld the Muslim cause in Ethiopia until his death in battle with Christian Ethiopian and Portuguese forces in 950/1543. Thereafter, various of his descendants ruled in Harar and Ausa until the mid-seventeenth century, when a new line of sultans, that of ‘Alī b. Dāwūd, took over power at Harar for over two centuries. The connection of the last sultans of this line, from ‘Abd al-Karīm b. Abī Bakr onwards, with the original line of ‘Alī Dāwūd is uncertain.
A Turco-Egyptian force occupied Harar in 1292/1875 and executed its sultan, and in 1304/1887 the Emperor Menelik captured Harar and incorporated it into the Ethiopian kingdom.
Zambaur, 89, 309 (fragmentary).
EL2‘Harar’ (E. Ullendorff).
R. Basset, ‘Chronologie des rois de Harar (1637–1887)’,JA, 11th series, 3 (March-April 1914), 245–58.
E. Cerulli, ‘Gli emiri di Harar dal secolo XVI alla conquista egiziana (1875)’, Rassegna di Studi Etiopici, 2 (1942), 3–20.
E. Wagner, Legende und Geschichte. Der Fatḥ madīnat Harar von Yaḥyā Naṣralldh, Wiesbaden 1978.
Ahmed Zakaria, ‘Harari coins: a preliminary survey’, Journal of Ethiopian Studies, Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University, 24 (November 1991), 23–46.