Moroccan scholar ibn Battuta visited mogadishu in 1331

[Somali-Transporter]

It where under the Ajuuraan kingdom in Mogadishu, Insha-allah from now on i will post, one interesting thread every day.. so now lets go back in time, and imagine what the Moroccan scholar, Abu Abdullah Mohammad Ibn Battuta saw in Mogadishu, and many of you will be surprised..

and he where not the only one who visited Mogadishu, they where many scholars and people of knowlegde WHO actully wrote about Mogadishu or other places of somalia, i will post one thread everyday.. to keep you Guys interested in this.. unless you ask for it..

The contemporary Somalia attests to be a classical case of failed state, distinguished from that of medieval Somalia cited in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and numerous books written in the middle ages as a prosperous country connecting Africa to Arab World and as far as Southeast Asia.


''The Moroccan scholar, Abu Abdullah Mohammed Ibn Battuta, considered as the greatest traveller in his time, wrote in his Rixla that Mogadishu – Somali capital – was one of the most affluent cities in 1331, larger than Damascus, which was the capital of Mamluks at the time.

In the words of Ibn Battuta: “Mogadishu is a very large town. The people are merchants and very rich. They own large herds of camels…and also sheep. Here they manufacture the textiles called after the name of the town; these are of superior quality and are exported to Egypt and other places.”

He further described the city as a town of enormous size: “Its merchants are possessed of vast resources; they own large numbers of camels, of which they slaughter hundreds every day (for food), and also have quantities of sheep. In this place are manufactured the woven fabrics called after it, which are unequalled and exported from it to Egypt and elsewhere.”

The civilisation was evident in the city-state as the Sultan sent Ibn Battuta two small welcoming gifts: a plate of betel leaves and areca nuts, and a vial of Damascus rosewater. Mentioning the possession of the ruler from the palace to the mosque, Ibn Batutta made this invigorating description:

Sounded drums

Over his head were carried four canopies of coloured silk, with the figure of a bird in gold on top of each canopy. His garments on that day were a large green mantle of Jerusalem stuff, with fine robes of Egyptian stuffs with their appendages underneath it, and he was girt with a waist wrapper of silk and turbaned. In front of him were sounded drums and trumpets and fifes, and before him and behind him were the commanders of the troops, while the qadi, the doctors of the law and the sharifs walked along side him.

People of Mogadishu, as Ibn Battuta observed, were generous, urbane, fat and erudite. In fact, they were genuine followers of Prophet Muhammad’s instruction: “Travel in search of knowledge, even though that adventure takes you to China.”

Piracy was extraterrestrial to Somalis when Ibn Battuta was stormed by Hindu pirates off the coast of India. Medieval Mogadishu, which boasted to be a city-state, was under the rule of Sultan Abubakar Sheikh Omar, who preached tolerant and cohesive Islam dissimilar to born-again ‘jihadists’ whose interpretation of Islam justifies today that murdering innocent civilians is a part of wider ‘jihad’ toward infidels''