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, a town, island and archipelago, in lat. 2° S. off the Kenya coast, together with Pate and Manda islands [ q.vv.] and some smaller islands, probably to be identified with the Pyralaae Islands mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea of ca. A.D. 106 as an established resort of Arab and Egyptian sea traders. Nevertheless, the first archaeological evidence found on Manda does not antedate the 8th or 9th century A.D., nor on Lamu before the 13th century. The first reliable literary evidence is that of Ibn Tag̲h̲rībirdī (later 9th/15th century), but the Swahili traditional history Khabar …

(p.), New (Year’s) Day. 1. In the Islamic heartlands. The word is frequently represented in Arabic works in the form Nayrūz , which appears in Arabic literature as early as the verse of al-Ak̲h̲ṭal [ q.v.] (see al-D̲j̲awālīḳī, Muʿarrab , ed. A.M. S̲h̲ākir, Tehran 1966; al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ṣubḥ al-aʿs̲h̲ā , ii, 408). It was the first day of the Persian solar year and is not represented in the Muslim lunar year (al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , iii, 416-17 = §§ 1301-2). In Achaemenid times, the official year began with Nawrūz, when the sun entered the Zodiac…

(a.), literally, an iron ploughshare, and an iron stamp or die used for stamping coins ¶ (see Lane, Lexicon , 1937). From the latter meaning, it came to denote the result of the stamping, i.e. the legends on the coins, and then, the whole operation of minting coins. 1. Legal and constitutional aspects. As in the Byzantine and Sāsānid empires to which the Arab caliphate was heir, the right of issuing gold and silver coinage was a royal prerogative. Hence in the caliphate, the operation of sikka , the right of the ruler to place his name on the coinage, eventua…

(Ar. pl. Mazārīʿ, Swa. Wamazrui), an Arab tribe found in the Gulf States and in East Africa, where for two centuries they have intermarried with the local population. In the Gulf States they are found in Abu Dhabi, where they are regarded as a section of the Banī Yās. Outside Abu Dhabi, it is uncertain whether they are regarded as a section of the Banī Yās. Some are found in Dubai, in Sharjah, and in various districts and villages of ʿUmān, their centre being the walled town of al-Alāya, where the ¶ s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ recognised as head of the family resides. In East Africa, in Kenya and on the island…

, the nisba of the Sultans of Kilwa [ q.v.], in frequent use by Africans and Europeans to perpetuate a myth of a “S̲h̲īrāzī” period of history and of “migration” into East Africa. The nisba is first recorded in Barros’ translation of a dynastic history of Kilwa of ca. 1506, and in the independent Arabic Kitāb al-Sulwa fī ak̲h̲bār Kulwa ( ca. 1550; B.L. Or. ms. 2666); and on two seals, in a treaty between the Sultan of Kilwa and a French slave-trader, 4 November 1776. Various Swahili histories collected in the 19th century and after, on the coast and as fa…

(a.), inscriptions. 1. Islamic epigraphy in general. The study of Arabic inscriptions today constitutes a science full of promise, an auxiliary science to be sure, but a science indispensable to the scholarly exploitation of a whole category of authentic texts capable of throwing light on the civilisation in the context of which they were written. From a very early period, seeing that the first dated Arabic inscription available to us goes back to the year 31/652 and that we are aware of previous inscr…

, the capital of the Somali Republic, independent since 1960, comprising the former Italian Somalia and British Somaliland, lies in lat. 2° N. on the East African shore of the Indian Ocean. Although it is not specifically mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea ( ca. A.D. 106), this Alexandrine report attests the presence of Arab and Egyptian traders on the coast. The principal exports were cinnamon, frankincense, tortoise-shell and “slaves of the better sort, which are brought to Egypt in increasing numbers.” Recent excavations at …

(in Arabic script Manbasa , Swa. Mvita), an island and town on the east coast of Africa, lying in lat. 4° S. and long. 39° E. The island ¶ is about 3 miles in length from north to south, and nearly the same from east to west. It is so placed in the deep inlet formed by the convergence of several creeks as to be almost wholly surrounded by mainland, only the southeastern angle being exposed to the Indian Ocean. This peculiarity of situation suggested to W.E. Taylor the derivation of the name Mvita “the curtained headland”, from Swa. n( ta) “point”. The more usual derivation from vita …

, the name of various localities and islands of the east coast of Africa, amongst which should be mentioned Kilwa Kivinye , on the mainland (8° 45′ S.) about 140 miles south of Dār al-Salam (Dar es Salam), and in particular, the Quiloa of the Portuguese (Kulwa in Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, ii, 191 ff., tr. Gibb, ii, 379 ff., and in the ms. B.M. Or. 2666, but Kilwa in Yāḳūt s.v.). This last is today called Kilwa Kisawāni , and is situated on an island near to the Tanzanian coast, 150 miles south of Dār al-Salām (8° 58′ S., 39° 34′ E.). It is the site, covering about one km.2, of the capital of a region ¶ which stretched fr…

, a settlement on the East African coast. It lies on the Tanzanian coast north of Dar es Salaam, and has a ruined Friday mosque of 14th or ¶ 15th century date divided into two aisles by three central pillars. There is an extensive cemetery, with tombs, some highly decorated with elaborate carvings, of the past five centuries. It includes a pillar tomb [see manāra. 3. In East Africa] decorated with green celadon plates, of date ante 1350. A small tomb has an inscription commemorating Masʿūd b. Sulṭān S̲h̲afīʿ ʿAlī b. Sulṭān Muḥammad al-Barāwī, who d…

, a town on the Kenya coast inlat 4° N. It is first mentioned in literature by al-Idrīsi ( ca. 1150); the Ma-in mentioned by Ou-yang Hsiu, Hsin T’ang-shu , ca. 1060, is more likely to have been situated in Somalia. Al-Idrīsi says that it was a town of hunters and fishermen, whose inhabitants owned and exploited iron mines. Iron was their greatest source of profit. The iron, however, as A. O. Thompson has shown, was not mined, but recoverable from seashore deposits. Al-Idrīsi also mentions Malindi as a centre of witchcraft, a…

, the largest tribal group in Mozambique [ q.v.], where they occupy the greatest part of the area north of the Zambezi River. A few also are found in Masasi, Kilosa and Tunduru districts in Tanzania. In 1980 they were approximately 30% of the total Mozambique population of some 12m. Almost all of them are Muslims. Their traditions assert that they reached Mozambique from the north during the 16th century, among other Bantuspeaking peoples then entering southern Africa. The Dominican missionary Fr Joâo d…

, in origin the name of a town, is the legal name of the People’s Republic of Moçambique in south-east Africa. It lies south of Tanzania, and borders on Malawi, Zimbabwe, the Republic of South Africa and Swaziland. The state became independent from Portugal in 1975, and is formally Marxist and atheist, but the constitution “guarantees the freedom of citizens to practise or not to practise a religion”. In 1980 the population was ca. 12.5 m., of whom 13.5%, or 1,685,000, were Muslims, 15 to 20% Roman Catholics, 5% Protestants, and the rest pagan. The Muslims are found …

, a name used for coins in a number of Islamic countries, derived from the silver real ( de plata), first issued by Pedro the Cruel of Castile (1350-9), followed by Ferdinand of Portugal (1367-83). In Spain it continued until 1870 and in Portugal until 1910. The relations of the Spanish and Portuguese currencies to those of the Near East belong to the monetary history of the Ottoman Empire and of Persia. From the early 16th century the eastern gold and silver currencies suffered frequent devaluation and debasement. Western merchants needed …

, an islet off Weti, Pemba Island, Tanzania, is in all probability mentioned twice by al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, and is given as one of the two independent cities mentioned on the island by Yāḳūt, s.v. al-D̲j̲azīra al-K̲h̲aḍrāʾ , the ordinary name for Pemba in Arabic. He records the name as M.T.N.BY , and the second city as M.K.NB.LŪ , the Ḳanbalū mentioned by al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, al-Masʿūdī and numerous others. Yāḳūt reports that the sultan was an Arab from al-Kūfa who had emigrated in order to settle there, which might suggest that the settlement w…

, capital of the British administered United Nations Trusteeship Territory of Tanganyika, formerly German East Africa, lies in Lat. 6° 49ʹ S. and Long. 39° 16ʹ E. The settlement of ¶ Mzizima (Swahili: the healthy town) was first made in the 17th century A.D. by Wabarawa, of mixed Arab-Swahili stock from Barawa, south of Mogadishu. The present name, a contraction of Bandar al-Salām (“haven of welfare”) at least dates from 1862, when Sayyid Mad̲j̲īd, Sultan of Zanzibar, built a palace and other buildings there, of which a few survive. So does his main street, “Barra-rasta” (Hind, baŕā rāstā …

, the name given to two Islamic settlements in North-West Madagascar: Old Massalajem, otherwise Langani, is also known as Nossi Manja, and the daughter settlement of New Massalajem, also known as Boeny (Swa. correctly Bweni). The original town is reputed to have been founded from Kilwa [ q.v.], and to have had regular trade relations with it and with Malindi and Pate, until its destruction by the Sakalava at the end of the 18th century. Sherds found there do not antedate the 14th century. New Massalajem served the Sakalava first as their nor…

, the name of a tribe in ʿUmān, whose tribes are divided into independent fak̲h̲ūd̲h̲ (sing. fak̲h̲d̲h̲ ), with leaders generally denominated s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ , each one considering himself independent of the others, and acknowledging no superior. S.B. Miles reported in 1881 that 400 “Beni Nebhán”, a Ḳaḥṭānī (G̲h̲afīrī) tribe, dwelt at Semáil ( sic for Samāʿīl), on the coast in 23′ 18° N., 58′ 58° E. They appear to have been of minor importance. J.R.L. Carter gives a genealogy of Nabāhina s̲h̲ayk̲h̲s of the Banū Riyān, exclusively from traditional oral sources, who used the title malik …

, the name of a group of islands off the Tanzanian coast in approximately 8° S and 40° E. They consist of a main island commonly known as Mafia Island, but by its inhabitants as Chole Shamba (Swa. “Plantation Chole”); a very small island known as Chole or Chole Mjini (Swa. “Town Chole”); Juani; Bwejuu; and Jibondo. The only references in Arabic literature are in Aḥmad b. Mad̲j̲īd al-Nad̲j̲dī’s log books, where it is called Manafiyya, and in the anonymous History of Kilwa , where it occurs once as Manfasiya, four times as Manfiyya, and three times as Manfa…

, headquarters of Kilifi District in the Coast Province of Kenya, in lat. 4° S, is a small port which was an independent sultanate until 1592, including the present Kioni, Kitoka and Mnarani. The large Friday mosque, the wealthy décor of the adjacent tombs, and the walls and gatehouse, show that Mnarani was the chief amongst these settlements in medieval times. The cemetery is noteworthy for eleven inscriptions in 15th century nask̲h̲ī script. Excavations by J. S. Kirkman in 1954 showed that the site was occupied from the end of the 14th centu…