Abbasid expeditions to East Africa

Two Abbasid expeditions to East Africa are mentioned in late Arabic Book of the Zanj. The Abbasid caliphs al-Manṣūr (754–775), Hārūn al-Rashīd (786–809) and al-Maʾmūn (813–833) are reputed to have sent punitive expeditions to the Islamized city-states of the Somali coast and set up governors there.[1][2] The Book of the Zanj does not survive in any copy earlier than the 20th century and its historical reliability is highly questionable for the early Islamic period.[2][3]

According to the Book of the Zanj, Islam came to Mogadishu and Kilwa in 694–695 during the reign of the Umayyad caliph Marwān I. They accepted Islam and agreed to pay the kharāj to the caliphs. The Abbasids, who took over from the Ummayads in 750, sent an emissary, Yahya ibn ʿUmar al-ʿAnazī, to the East African cities in 765–766.[4][5][6][7] The sultans of Mogadishu, Mārka, Barāwa, Faza, Sīwī, Bata, Manda (Munda), Ṭaqa, Lamu (Āmu), Ūzi, Malindi (Malūdi), Uyūmba, Kilifi, Basāsa, Zanzibar, Kilwa and Waybu are among those who accepted the emissary.[5] Gervase Mathew dates this to 766–767 and considers it military expedition.[3]

In 804, according to the Book, the Zanj refused to pay the kharāj and Hārūn sent an army against them. He replaced the Arab walīs (governors) with Persians in every village from Mogadishu to Kilwa.[4][5][6][7] The Persians were loyal for many years, but they stopped sending the kharāj even during the reign of Hārūn and entered open rebellion during the Miḥna of al-Maʾmūn, when he espoused the createdness of the Quran. They sent a manifesto to Baghdad and the caliph sent an army of 50,000 (raised either in Iraq or Egypt) to Malindi, which caused the leaders of the rebellion to flee into the nyika (brush country). They returned when the army left, but paid the outstanding kharāj and accepted the opinion of al-Maʾmūn.[4][5]

According to Neville Chittick, these accounts in the Book of the Zanj must be given up as mythical. He notes, however, that there is a gold dinar of Hārūn al-Rashīd dated to 798 or 799 has been found at Pemba, which is usually identified with the Qanbalū of Arabic sources. He suggests that if the accounts in the Book of the Zanj bear any relation to history it is probably to be found in the early settlement of Muslims on the East African coast associated with this coin find.[2]

References
  1. Ali Abdirahman Hersi, The Arab Factor in Somali History: The Origins and the Development of Arab Enterprise and Cultural Influences in the Somali Peninsula, Ph.D. diss. (University of California at Los Angeles, 1977), pp. 111–112.
  2. H. Neville Chittick, "The East Coast, Madagascar and the Indian Ocean", in J. D. Fage and R. Oliver (eds.), The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 3: From c.1050 to c. 1600 (Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 183–231, at 194–195 and 198.
  3. Gervase Mathew, "The East African Coast until the Coming of the Portuguese", in R. Oliver and G. Mathew (eds.), History of East Africa, Volume 1 (Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 94–127, at 102.
  4. Mohamde Haji Mukhtar, "Islam in Somali History: Fact and Fiction", in Ali Jimale Ahmed (ed.), The Invention of Somalia (The Red Sea Press, 1995), pp. 29–42, at .
  5. James McL. Ritchie and Sigvard von Sicard (eds.), An Azanian Trio: Three East African Arabic Historical Documents (Brill, 2020), pp. 79–80.
  6. Mohamed Haji Mukhtar, Historical Dictionary of Somalia, new ed. (The Scarecrow Press, 2005), p. xxvi.
  7. Abdurahman Abdullahi, Making Sense of Somali History, Volume 1 (Adonis and Abbey, 2017), pp. 51–52.
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