Entries written within a generation of 1200 from earlier books and from informants: Maqdishu (Mogadishu), described as a town of the Barbar (Somali) on the edge of the Zanj country with no single ruler but elders for each group, the earliest notice of the town; Manbasa (Mombasa), Lanjuya (Zanzibar) and the Zanj coast; Zayla, Barbara and the Dahlak islands; Dunqula (Dongola) and the Nubians; the Beja; Kanem, Zaghawa, Ghana, Kawkaw and the Sudan, mostly from al-Bakri and al-Idrisi; and the towns of Ifriqiya and the Maghreb. Yaqut never went to Africa; his value is the odd fresh report, as on Mogadishu, among much copying.
About this source
- Title
- Mu'jam al-buldan (the entries on Africa)
- Author
- Yaqut al-Hamawi
- Author's dates
- 1179 to 1229
- Written
- 1224 to 1228, at Mosul and Aleppo
- Language
- Arabic
- Covers
- a gazetteer of the Muslim world and its neighbours as known in the 1220s
- Kind
- Geography
Another entry in this library covers Yaqut for Asia. Only volume 1 of Wüstenfeld's edition was located in this search; the others were not checked.
Where to read it
Editions
- F. Wüstenfeld (ed.), Jacut's geographisches Wörterbuch, 6 vols (Leipzig, 1866 to 1873), Arabic: vol. 1
- Mu'jam al-buldan, 5 vols (Beirut, Dar Sadir, 1955 to 1957), Arabic (not freely online)
Translations
- No complete translation; the African entries are translated in Levtzion and Hopkins (West Africa), Vantini (Nubia) and Freeman-Grenville (East Africa) (not freely online)
Read it online
About the source
Realms this source covers in 1200
- Mogadishu and its elders
- The Swahili towns
- The Somali clans
- Zeila
- The sultanate of Dahlak
- Makuria (Dotawo) under King Basil
- Alodia (Alwa)
- The Beja
- Kanem: the Sayfawa mai
- Ghana (Wagadu)
- Gao (Kawkaw): the Songhay kingdom
- The Almohad caliphate of Muhammad al-Nasir
- Mahdia under the rebel al-Ragragi
- The oases of the northern Sahara
- The Fezzan