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. Compiled three centuries later from tradition: the chronicle's own dates are reckoned from reign lengths, Chittick argued that the dynasty should be moved down so that the Shirazi arrival falls near 1200, and the coins in the Mtambwe Mkuu hoard point back to the eleventh century. Nothing in it can be pinned to the year 1200 beyond the name of a sultan of the house of Sulayman.
About this source
- Title
- Kitab al-sulwa fi akhbar Kilwa (the Kilwa Chronicle)
- Author
- Anonymous
- Author's dates
- a Kilwa author of the early sixteenth century; the Portuguese version from a copy of about 1505
- Written
- Arabic version about 1520 to 1530; Portuguese summary printed by João de Barros in 1552
- Language
- Arabic; Portuguese
- Covers
- the sultans of Kilwa from the Shirazi founder to the Portuguese conquest of 1505
- Kind
- Chronicle
The Arabic manuscript (British Library Or. 2666) is a copy made in 1877 of a text that itself breaks off in the sixteenth century. The JRAS 1895 volume was located on the Internet Archive but Strong's page range could not be checked there; Theal's vol. 6 was confirmed to hold Barros's Decade I extracts but the Kilwa chapter was not checked page by page. The chronology of the early sultans is the central problem.
Where to read it
Editions
- S. A. Strong (ed.), The History of Kilwa, edited from an Arabic MS, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1895), pp. 385 to 430, Arabic text with English summary: the JRAS 1895 volume at the Internet Archive
- João de Barros, Décadas da Ásia, Decade I, book 8, chapter 6 (Lisbon, 1552), Portuguese (not freely online)
Translations
- G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville, The East African Coast: Select Documents (Oxford, 1962), English of both versions (not freely online)
- G. M. Theal, Records of South-Eastern Africa, vol. 6 (Cape Town, 1900), English translation of Barros's chapters on the East African coast
Read it online
- Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1895 (with Strong's edition) at the Internet Archive
- Theal's Records of South-Eastern Africa, vol. 6, at the Internet Archive