The ‘Shirazi’ Colonization of East Africa

1965 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neville Chittick
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
East African ◽  
East African Coast ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Equal Importance ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The Persian Gulf

The paper puts forward a new interpretation of aspects of the early history of the East African coast, and in particular maintains that the immigration of the ‘Shirazi’ took place some zoo years later than the date in the latter part of the tenth century which has hitherto been accepted.After a brief summary of the Arabic sources bearing on the history of the coast, and of the received history of Kilwa before the beginning of the fourteenth century, the two versions of the Kilwa Chronicle are examined. The Arabic version is concluded to be more reliable than the Portuguese, though very little reliance should be placed on the regnal years of the sultans as given in either.The archaeological evidence, based chiefly on recent excavations at Kilwa, is examined, with particular reference to the coins minted on the coast. Certain types of these coins are found to have been hitherto wrongly attributed, notably those of 'Ali bin al-Hasan, which are shown to be the earliest.An outline of the history of the coast is presented, based on the combined historical and archaeological evidence. No satisfactorily attested relics of the period of trade with the Graeco-Roman world have yet been found. The earliest settlements discovered date from the eighth to ninth century A.O., most or all of which were probably pagan, but already trading with the Muslim world. By about i ioo there were several Muslim towns on the coast. This period is related to the Debuli of the traditions.The arrival of the ‘Shirazi’ is related to the appearance of coins of 'Au bin al-Hasan, who is identified with the first ruler of the ‘Shirazi’ dynasty at Kilwa (about A.0. I 200); Mafia was of equal importance at this time. A marked cultural break in the latter part of the thirteenth or early fourteenth century is thought to be related to a change in dynasty at Kilwa, a fresh settlement of immigrants, and the gaining of control of Sofala and the gold trade.It is suggested that the Shirazi settlement consisted not of a migration of people from the Persian Gulf direct to Kilwa and other places, but rather a movement of settlers from the Banadir coast.

ISAAC VOSSIUS, CATULLUS AND THE CODEX THUANEUS

2015 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 344-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dániel Kiss
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Manuscript Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancient Manuscript

For Bernd Niebling and his colleagues at the Lesesaal Altes Buch of the Universitätsbibliothek München While the earliest complete manuscripts of Catullus to survive today were written in the fourteenth century, it is well known that poem 62 already appears in an anthology from the ninth century, the Codex Thuaneus (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Parisinus lat. 8071). However, the Thuaneus may once have contained one more poem of Catullus. In his commentary on the poet, which appeared in 1684 but had been written decades earlier, the Dutch scholar Isaac Vossius makes the following comment on the last two lines of poem 11: Praetereunte postquam Tactus aratro est ] Vetustissimum exemplar Thuanæum in quo hoc Catulli carmen variorum epigrammatis subjungitur, legit fractus, non tactus. Et hoc probo, nisi malis stratus, nam in quibusdam libris tractus legebatur. It is surprising to find a reference to a lost part of such a well-known manuscript in a source from the seventeenth century. One may well ask whether Vossius really read this poem in the Codex Thuaneus. Could he have seen this manuscript? Can he be relied on to report its contents truthfully? And could a part of the volume have been lost since the seventeenth century? I will argue that the answer to all these questions is yes, and that it is very likely that the Thuaneus once contained Catullus 11 as well as 62. I will set out the consequences of this for our understanding of Catullus' manuscript tradition. Next, I will discuss another ancient manuscript of Catullus that Vossius claims to have read, namely his ‘vetus liber Mediolanensis’. The article will close with an appendix on the history of the Thuaneus before it was studied by Vossius.

The early history of West African highlife music

Popular Music ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Collins
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Early History ◽  
Dance Music ◽  
East African ◽  
East African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
History Of

Highlife is one of the myriad varieties of acculturated popular dance-music styles that have been emerging from Africa this century and which fuse African with Western (i.e. European and American) and islamic influences. Besides highlife, other examples include kwela, township jive and mbaqanga from South Africa, chimurenga from Zimbabwe, the benga beat from Kenya, taraab music from the East African coast, Congo jazz (soukous) from Central Africa, rai music from North Africa, juju and apala music from western Nigeria, makossa from the Cameroons and mbalax from Senegal.

scholarly journals A Contested Jurisdiction: Armenia in Late Antiquity

2017 ◽  
pp. 199-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Greenwood
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Roman Provinces ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Village

Although Roman and Persian engagement with late antique Armenia has been analysed from several perspectives, its juridical dimension has been largely ignored. This chapter provides a reassessment of the legislation pertaining to Roman Armenia from the reign of Justinian, arguing that it offers a reflection of legal practices operating beyond the newly reorganised Roman provinces, in districts of Armenia under Persian hegemony. It may also attest the seeping of Roman legal culture beyond the formal limits of the jurisdiction. Crucially, the local inheritance practices which the legislation prescribes find analogues in Sasanian jurisprudence. Although not every aspect of Persian legal culture will have been replicated in the districts of Armenia or received in the same way, the rich Armenian literary tradition from late antiquity reveals a proximate legal culture, expressed in terms of concepts employed and processes followed. Three illustrations from Łazar P‘arpets‘i History are examined. Furthermore two later compilations preserve valuable evidence of law in practice. The tenth-century compilation titled History of Ałuank‘ contains a collection of documents deriving from the Council of Partav convened in 705 CE. One of these confirms that land across Caucasian Albania was still being bought and sold at this time, that there was current uncertainty over whether the transfer of a village included the village church and its endowment, and that laymen had been represented as holding clerical status to circumvent this. A specific case is then outlined. The late thirteenth-century History of Siwnik‘ on the other hand contains transcripts of fifty-two documents, and summaries of twelve more, recording property transactions in favour of the bishops of Siwnik‘ and the see of Tat‘ev. It is argued that the earliest of these, dating from the middle of the ninth century, preserve clear vestiges of Sasanian legal culture. Armenian sources have much to tell us about law and legal tradition in Sasanian Persia.

Veiled Threats

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abigail Firey
Keyword(s):  
Women Religious ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
History Of ◽  
Symbolic Value ◽  
The Veil

It has long been recognized that the veil taken by consecrated women religious draws upon nuptial associations and thus symbolizes the trope that consecrated women are brides of Christ. The history of the veil’s symbolic value in the early Middle Ages can, however, be probed more extensively than it has been. This chapter proposes that prior to the tenth century polyvalent symbolism and intermittent use produced competing understandings of the veil. That competition culminated in efforts in the ninth century to regulate the practice of veiling, and also in discursive shifts in representation of the veil’s significance. By tracing the chronology of the connection of the veil to the concept of the bride of Christ, Firey invites consideration of the possible function of symbolism as a device for parties with opposing views to negotiate contested positions, practices, and meanings.

Heritage, Tourism, and Slavery at Shimoni: Narrative and Metanarrative on the East African Coast

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 247-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Wynne-Jones ◽  
Martin Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Deep Sea ◽  
National Park ◽  
Heritage Tourism ◽  
East African ◽  
East African Coast ◽  
The Past ◽  
African Coast ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Village ◽  
Important Site

There's a hole in the side of Africa, where the walls will speak if you only listen Walls that tell a tale so sad, that the tears on the cheeks of Africa glisten Stand and hear a million slaves, tell you how they walked so far That many died in misery, while the rest were sold in Zanzibar Shimoni, oh Shimoni, You have to find the answer and the answer has been written down in ShimoniWhen Kenya-born singer-songwriter Roger Whittaker sang these doleful words in 1983, the village of Shimoni was a relatively quiet backwater on the southern Kenya coast, known primarily for its deep-sea fishing club. It is now a much larger and busier place, where tourists come to see the ‘slave cave’ that gives Shimoni its name (Swahili shimo-ni, “at the cave”), and embark on boat trips to Wasini Island and the nearby Kisite-Mpunguti Marine National Park (see Figure 1). Whittaker's song played a significant role in this development, by bringing Shimoni and its caves to wider attention, and focusing on one of a number of narratives about the caves' past usage. The lyrics of ‘Shimoni’ did not simply embellish a local tale, but (re)created it in the image of metanarratives about the history of slavery on the East African coast. As we will argue in this paper, these metarratives now dominate reconstructions of the past in Shimoni, and are reinforced by the activities and institutions that constitute and promote the caves as an important site of cultural heritage.

Money and its Uses in the Javanese States of the Ninth to Fifteenth Centuries A.D.

1996 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Wisseman Christie
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Maritime Trade ◽  
Malay Peninsula ◽  
Silver Alloy ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
History Of

AbstractCoins appeared relatively late in the history of maritime Southeast Asia. No indigenous coins have so far been dated to before the very end of the eighth or the beginning of the ninth century A.D. These early gold and silver (or silver alloy) coins, which seem to be unique to the region, have so far been found on the Malay peninsula, on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java and Bali, and in the Philippines. The prototypes for these coins were almost certainly first minted in the Javanese state of Mataram, and the spread of their use was apparently linked to the expansion of this state's influence in the maritime trade networks. As the early Asian sea trade boom began to affect the domestic marketing patterns of Java, after the beginning of the tenth century, the need for large numbers of smaller denomination coins grew more pressing. Chinese copper cash were first imported, and then copied, in order to meet this demand.

The Martyrdom of Jirjis (Muzāḥim): Hagiography and Coptic Orthodox Imagination in Early Fatimid Egypt

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 431-451
Author(s):  
Mark N. Swanson
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Full Text ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Coptic Orthodox ◽  
History Of ◽  
Museum History

The tenth-century neomartyr Jirjis (called Muzāḥim before his conversion to Christianity and baptism) is well known from the précis of his Martyrdom preserved in the Copto-Arabic Synaxarion (entry for 19 Baʾūna). The full text of the Martyrdom (as preserved in the fourteenth-century manuscript Cairo, Coptic Museum, History 469) allows us to date Muzāḥim’s imprisonments and execution to the year 978. If, as is probable, the Martyrdom was composed soon afterwards, it is a valuable witness to intercommunal relations and to processes of Coptic identity-definition in the early Fatimid period in Egypt. It draws the Christian-Muslim (and even Coptic-Melkite) boundaries as clearly as possible, offering a no-nuance evaluative stance that is in startling contrast with the more ecumenical approach of the sources preserved in The History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria.

Muslim statehood in Azerbaycan (IX-XIII centuries)

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (10) ◽  
pp. 68-85
Author(s):  
Yaroslav Valentinovich Pilipchuk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Caspian Sea ◽  
Slow Growth ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
The Caspian Sea ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
Extended Power

This paper is dedicated to the history of Muslim statehood in Azerbaijan in IX-XIII century. The first truly strong was the Sajid dynasty, originating from the Sogdian aristocracy. Its representatives exalted themselves as ghouls in the service of the Abbasids. Having become rulers in Azerbaijan, the Sajids tried to pursue an independent and aggressive policy towards Armenia, which did not always provoke a positive reaction from the caliph. Only at the end of the Sajid rule did their interests again coincide with those of Baghdad. The Muzafarids were another Iranian dynasty, this time the Delemite. Its representatives came from Dalem during its expansion to the northwest. They took upon themselves the blows from Russia, the Ravadids and the Seljuks. The rabadids were a dynasty of Arab origin, which soon became Kurdish. Onomasticon of the dynasty in the 10th - 11th centuries generally Iranian. The era of the greatest power of the Rawwadids was the time of the reign of Mamlan I, who pursued an aggressive policy towards Christian neighbors and the threat from which the Armenians and Georgians neutralized by the conclusion of a defensive alliance. XI century was the time of the gradual fading of the Rawwadids. The Shaddadids were of Kurdish dynasty descent and ruled in Arran. Slow growth of their power was observed in the 10th century, when they began expansion in the possession of the Muzafarids. This dynasty is characterized by close ties with the Armenians. Emirs Fadl and Abu l-Asvar carried out an attack on the Armenian territories, which the Armenians could recapture only by cooperating with the Georgians. To destroy the emirate of the Shaddadids were not able and the Romaios in the middle of the XI century. Only the Seljuks in Arran were able to eliminate the power of the Shaddadids in 1093, and they survived in Shirak until 1199. Shirvan was a state inhabited by Iranian-speaking and Caucasian populations. The Mazyadid dynasty was originally Arab in origin. Shirvan maintained close ties with the state of Lizan. In the tenth century, the Shirvanshahs extended power besides Shirvan to Derbent and Arran. In the second quarter of the XI century. Mazyadids were replaced by the Qesranid dynasty, the onomasticon of which is already Iranian. This dynasty, unlike the Sheddadids in Arran and the Rawwadids in Azerbaijan, retained power in Shirvan under the Seljuks. The Caesranids, like the Mazyadids, continued to claim power over Derbent in the XII century. Shirvan became an object of expansion from Georgia. Shirvans could only resist it with the help of the Seljuks. However, this did not exclude dynastic marriages with Georgian Bagrationi. The most prominent Qesranid was the Shirvanshah Akhsitan, who, with the help of the Georgians, repelled the invasion of the Derbent Khazars and personally repelled the invasion of the Dagestan highlanders. In alliance with Queen Tamar, the Shirvanshah opposed the Atabeks of Azerbaijan. XIII century was the time of the decline of Shirvan, when he became the object of invasion of the Mongols, Kipchaks and Khorezmians. From 1070 Azerbaijan became the possession of the Seljukids, and from 1093 Arran became such. For several decades, Azerbaijan and Arran were the property of the younger Seljukids and were part of the Iraqi Seljuk Sultanate. The design of the state of the Atabeks of Azerbaijan can be dated to the middle of the XII century. Under its first rulers, Shams ad-Din Ildengiz and Jahan-Phelevane, the influence of the Ildengizids extended from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf and from Erzurum to Khorasan. The Ildengizids were those who restrained the expansion of Georgian Bagrationi against Muslim countries and were actually omnipotent workers of the Sultans under the weak Seljukids. Qizil-Arslan has already ceased to look around at the Seljukids completely and has titled itself with a magnificent title. The end of the XII century. - beginning of the XIII century were the time of the decline of the Atabeks of Azerbaijan due to the strife between the Ildengizids and the victories of the Georgians. 20-30-ies of XIII century were the time of the fall of the Atabek state of Azerbaijan. Key words: Shirvan, Azerbaijan, Arran, Sajids, Mosaferids, Shaddadids, Rawwadids, Ildengizids, Seljukids

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