The land of Sofala

Who rules

Name

Not known. No ruler of Sofala is named in any source for 1200; the first named ruler is the elderly shaykh Yusuf (Isuf) whom the Portuguese met in 1502

Title

No single ruler is attested: the chiefs of the coast and, at the main anchorage, a headman over the trading community

Since

Not pinned

Family

Not known

Confidence

low

Al-Mas'udi (about 943) and al-Idrisi (1154) describe the land but name no ruler; the Kilwa Chronicle's story of Kilwa winning the trade is undated in itself and its dates are modern reconstructions.

Overlord

Not pinned. Kilwa's Shirazi sultans may already have an agent here (see likely course and discrepancies); Mogadishu's merchants had traded here first according to the Kilwa Chronicle.

What the realm holds

• The anchorage of Sofala itself on the Buzi estuary (its 1200 form is unknown; the medieval site is lost to the sea)
• Sayuna, Dandama, Jantama, Bukha and Daghuta of al-Idrisi (unlocated)
• The trade paths up the Buzi and the Save towards the plateau gold and the middle Limpopo

How it was acquired

Not applicable: a trading coast of local chiefs. Muslim traders frequented it from at least the tenth century (al-Mas'udi, Buzurg ibn Shahriyar).

Allies and rivals

The merchants of Mogadishu (first in the trade according to the Kilwa Chronicle) and of Kilwa (who took it over at a date not pinned) compete for its gold. Inland, the gold and ivory came from the plateau chiefdoms (the Leopard's Kopje and Gumanye peoples), from Mapela and from the K2 kingdom on the middle Limpopo, either overland or by the Save; who carried it to the coast is not known.

The realm that morning

A coast of chiefs and anchorages under no power that can be named. The Muslim traders on it are visitors and residents, not rulers, as far as the evidence shows. North of the Pungwe mouth the coast and the Zambezi delta belong to the next sheet's researcher (zan); south of the Save lie the Bazaruto coast and Chibuene, drawn here as the Inhambane coast peoples.

Wealth

Gold (alluvial and reef gold from the plateau and its edges), ivory, iron, perhaps copper; glass beads, cloth and other imports coming in. Al-Idrisi stresses its gold and iron.

Military

Nothing is known. No walls, forts or armed force are attested for 1200.

Threats

• A takeover of the trade by Kilwa (if it has not already happened) or by Mogadishu's merchants
• Changes on the plateau that move the gold to other routes

Court and kin

Not known. No ruler, family, minister or household of 1200 is recorded.

Coinage

None minted on this coast. Gold dust and beads were the media of exchange as far as later evidence shows; no coin of 1200 is attested here.

Religion

Local Bantu religion inland; Islam among the resident and visiting traders; Indians among the residents of Sayuna (al-Idrisi), religion not stated.

Wars and treaties

None attested on 1 January 1200.

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.

In 1200

1. Monsoon season, December 1199 to March 1200Ships that sailed south on the north-east monsoon (kaskazi) from the Benadir and Kilwa are on this coast or at Kilwa trading for gold and ivory, and return north on the south-west monsoon (kusi) from about April.Depends on: The normal monsoon cycle; Sofala lay at the far end of the voyages, so ships often wintered on the coast or traded through Kilwa. Stopped by: Shipwreck, war between Kilwa and its neighbours, or a fall in inland supply.

Later, on the likely course

1. Not pinned: about 1170-1190 on the chronicle's reconstructed dates, late thirteenth or early fourteenth century on Chittick's archaeological readingKilwa's control of the Sofala trade becomes firm and pays for its coastal expansion and new building.Depends on: Kilwa's sultans keeping their agents and alliances on this coast; the plateau's gold output rising. Stopped by: Mogadishu's merchants or a local chief excluding Kilwa's ships.

Places of note

• Sofala anchorage on the Buzi estuary (probable site, lost to the sea): The later Portuguese fort of 1505 stood here; the earlier Muslim town lay on the same estuary.
• Mouth of the Save: The southern limit of the land of Sofala as later defined; a route inland.

Where the sources disagree

• The Kilwa Chronicle (in the Portuguese version through Barros) credits the Shirazi sultan Sulaiman Hasan, whose father Dawud is said to have made his fortune at Sofala, with taking the gold trade from the merchants of Mogadishu. In Freeman-Grenville's chronology as repeated by Bosworth, Sulaiman ibn al-Hasan reigned from about 1170 for 18 years (the Wikipedia text also gives about 1178-1195, and the Sofala article 'the 1180s'), which would put Kilwa's agents at Sofala before 1 January 1200. These dates are reconstructions from reign lengths, and Chittick warned that 'very little reliance should be placed on the regnal years'. On the archaeology of Kilwa, Chittick (1965) put the arrival of the Shirazi founder Ali bin al-Hasan itself at about 1200 and tied 'the gaining of control of Sofala and the gold trade' to a change of dynasty in the latter part of the thirteenth or early fourteenth century; later coin finds have pushed the founder back earlier again, but Kilwa's gold-funded growth is still placed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. We treat Kilwa's control on 1 January 1200 as not pinned and unlikely, and the coast as its own realm. The zan researcher holds Kilwa's own record.
• English Wikipedia's Sofala article says Sofala formally belonged to the Mwenemutapa: that is the fifteenth-sixteenth century situation and must not be back-projected; the Mutapa state did not exist in 1200.
• Al-Idrisi's Sayuna is often identified with a place near the Save or near Sofala; no identification is secure.

Evidence: Written sources only: al-Mas'udi (tenth century) and al-Idrisi (1154) before 1200, the Kilwa Chronicle (sixteenth century) after. No excavated site of 1200 is known on this stretch of coast; the medieval Sofala site has been eroded.

On the map: The drawing follows the later definition of the 'lands of Sofala' (Buzi to Save). Al-Idrisi's towns cannot be placed, and his Daghuta may lie south of the Save.

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.

• 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 Pleasure of One who Longs to Cross the Horizons (the Book of Roger), al-Idrisi (Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Sharif al-Idrisi) (completed in 1154 at Palermo, for Roger II of Sicily). The fullest geography of Africa a generation before 1200: the Maghreb and Ifriqiya town by town with distances and products; the Sahara routes through Sijilmasa, Awdaghust, Ghadames and Zawila; the Sudan with Ghana, Takrur, Sila, Barisa, Kawkaw (Gao) and Kugha, and Kanem with its towns Manan and Njimi; Nubia and Dongola, the Beja and the Red Sea ports; Zeila and Berbera; and the Zanj coast with Malindi, Mombasa, Qanbalu and Sofala with its gold, the earliest systematic notice of the Swahili towns. Read online
• Mapungubwe, the Zimbabwe plateau, Toutswe and the Comoros: the archaeological record (no text; radiocarbon-dated sites). There is no written word from the interior south of the Zambezi or from the Comoros in 1200; all that is known is from excavation. 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.