Socotra, the Christian island

Who rules

Name

Not known: no ruler or headman of Socotra is named for 1200

Title

Ruler of Socotra

Since

Not known

Born

-

Family

-

Confidence

low

Yaqut, Ibn al-Mujawir, al-Mas'udi and Marco Polo through the Wikipedia histories of Socotra.

Overlord

None attested for 1200. The Ibadi imam of Oman al-Salt ibn Malik (851-886) had sent a fleet to drive out the Ethiopians who took the island about 880; the Habudis of Dhofar are said to have taken tribute later in the thirteenth century; the Mahra sultans rule it only in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

What the realm holds

• The whole island with its villages and anchorages (Suq, Hadibu, Qalansiya)
• The small islands of Abd al-Kuri, Samha and Darsa (not pinned)

How it was acquired

-

Allies and rivals

Visiting raiders from the Indian coasts; merchants from Aden, Arabia and India. No outside overlord attested.

The realm that morning

Self-governing Christian islanders; headmen and clergy not named. Across the water lie the Somali coast and Cape Guardafui (nub records).

Wealth

Aloes (the famous Socotrine aloes), dragon's blood resin, ambergris, livestock; supplies sold to passing ships and raiders.

Military

Not recorded.

Threats

• Raiders who use the island
• An outside power seeking tribute (the Habudis later)

Places of note

• Qalansiya: Anchorage at the western end of the north coast.

Where the sources disagree

• The evidence comes from writers of the 1220s and later; the position in 1200 is inferred.

Evidence: Travellers and geographers, none of them dated to 1199-1200; no ruler named.

On the map: Drawn through the islanders' province.

Primary sources for this realm

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.

• History of the Observant Traveller (A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia), Ibn al-Mujawir (Jamal al-Din Yusuf ibn Ya'qub) (about 1226 to 1232). A merchant-traveller's description of western and southern Arabia a generation after 1200: Mecca and the Hijaz ports, the Red Sea crossing, Zabid and the Tihama, Aden with its customs and tariffs, the Hadramawt coast, Dhofar and Oman, Socotra, and the opposite African shore at Zeila and the Dahlak islands. 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