Ruler of Mafia

Who he is

Name

Not known for 1200

Title

Ruler (in the chronicle, 'the first ruler of Mafia' was Bashat, appointed by his brother, the sultan of Kilwa)

Since

Not pinned

Born

Not known

Family

In the chronicle, Bashat was the first ruler of Mafia; his son Ali bin Bashat was later chosen sultan of Kilwa by the colonists; Dawud bin Ali, driven from Kilwa by the king of the 'Shanga', fled to Mafia and died there. Whether Mafia was still held by a kinsman of the house in 1200 is not recorded.

Confidence

low

Kilwa Chronicle as summarised on Wikipedia, Kilwa Sultanate; Chittick (1965) on Mafia's equal importance with Kilwa about 1200; coins of Ali bin al-Hasan found at Kisimani Mafia (Chittick's excavations).

Overlord

The sultan of Kilwa (by the chronicle)

What it holds

• Kisimani Mafia town (see Kisimani Mafia)
• The island of Mafia with Chole, Juani and Jibondo and their fishing and coconut villages

How it was acquired

By appointment from Kilwa in the chronicle's account of the dynasty's early years.

Allies and rivals

Bound to Kilwa by kinship; its harbour lies across the channel from the Rufiji delta, whose mangrove poles and farmers supply it.

How things stand that morning

Probably a Kilwa dependency on 1 January 1200; not pinned. Later towns on the island (Kua on Juani) are of the thirteenth century and after.

Wealth

Fishing, coconuts, cowries and tortoiseshell; a stopping place for ships between the Mrima coast and Kilwa; mangrove poles from the Rufiji.

Military

No figures.

Threats

• Breaking away from Kilwa
• Raids by sea

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. Through 1200No dated event is known.

Where the sources disagree

• Some modern summaries put Kilwa's control of the Mafia archipelago only in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries (the time of Kua); the chronicle has it from the founder's generation.

Evidence: Chronicle tradition and Chittick's excavation; no name for 1200.

On the map: The island is drawn whole; the ruler's actual reach over the villages is not known.

Primary sources for Kilwa

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Kilwa Chronicle (Arabic version about 1520 to 1530; Portuguese summary printed by João de Barros in 1552). The only narrative for the Swahili coast before the Portuguese, in two versions that agree on the dynasty and disagree on much else: the arrival of Ali ibn al-Hasan from Shiraz, his purchase of the island, and the line of his descendants, with reign lengths that put Sulayman ibn al-Hasan, Dawud ibn Sulayman, Talut and Husayn ibn Sulayman in the decades around 1200 (Bosworth's conversion gives Husayn about 1191 to 1215), the winning of Sofala's gold trade, and later the Mahdali dynasty of Abu'l-Mawahib. Read online
• The coins of Kilwa and the early Swahili inscriptions (coins struck from about the eleventh century; dated inscriptions from 1107). The only contemporary writing from the coast around 1200.
• The Travels of Ibn Battuta: Egypt, the Horn, the Swahili coast and Mali, Ibn Battuta (dictated to Ibn Juzayy) (1355, at Fez). A century and a half late, but the first eyewitness of places that in 1200 are known only from hearsay: Zeila and its stench, Mogadishu with its sultan, qadi and merchant hosts, Mombasa, and Kilwa under the Mahdali sultan Abu'l-Muzaffar al-Hasan, raiding the Zanj of the mainland; and the Sahara road from Sijilmasa through Taghaza and Walata to the court of Mali under Mansa Sulayman, then Timbuktu, Gao and Takedda among the veiled Berbers. Read online
• The History of the Observant Traveller: the pages on Zeila, Berbera, Mogadishu and Dahlak, Ibn al-Mujawir (Yusuf ibn Yaqub ibn al-Mujawir) (about 1221 to 1230). The closest description of the Horn's ports to 1200, written about twenty-five years later by a trader and official who worked the Aden trade: Zeila and its traffic in slaves, ivory and the goods of the Ethiopian interior; the Barbar (Somali) coast with Berbera and Mogadishu, and the sea route from Aden to Mogadishu and on to Kilwa with its sailing seasons; the Dahlak islands with their own sultan and his dues; Socotra; and the customs and prices of Aden under the Ayyubids of Yemen. Read online
• The East African Coast: Select Documents, Various (edited and translated by G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville) (the collection published 1962; second edition 1975). The standard English collection for the coast, and the one place to read together everything written about the Swahili towns near 1200: al-Masudi and Buzurg ibn Shahriyar (tenth century), al-Idrisi (1154), Yaqut (1220s), Ibn al-Mujawir (1220s), Ibn Said, the Chinese notices of Duan Chengshi and Zhao Rugua (1225), Ibn Battuta's visit of 1331, the Kilwa Chronicle in both versions, and the Portuguese.