Somalia In Aden, Battuta embarked on a ship heading first to Zeila on the Somali littoral of the Gulf of Aden. He then moved to Cape Guardafui and further down the Somali seaboard. Spending about a week in each of his destinations, Battuta would later visit Mogadishu, the pre-eminent city in the بلد البربر Bilad al Barbar ("Land of the Berbers"), which was the medieval Arabic term for the Horn of Africa.[17][18][19] By the time of his appearance on the Somali coast in 1331, the city was at the zenith of its prosperity. Battuta described Mogadishu as "an exceedingly large city" with many rich merchants, which was famous for its high quality fabric that it exported to Egypt, among other places.[20][21] He added that the city was ruled by a Somali Sultan originally from Berbera in northern Somalia who spoke both Somali (referred to by Batutta as Mogadishan, the Benadir dialect of Somali) and Arabic with equal fluency.[22][23] The Sultan also had a retinue of wazirs (ministers), legal experts, commanders, royal eunuchs, and assorted hangers-on at his beck and call.[22]
.I read his visit to Ziela,where he said the city was inhabited by 100,000 people and the dominamt madhab was of the Shia brand
