For comparison, the Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta (1304-1369) visited the East Coast of Africa about a century earlier than Zheng He and Fei Xin, in 1331. He visited Mogadishu, which he described 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.”
Ibn Battuta also described a procession
of the ruler (in Mogadishu called a Shaikh) from the palace to the mosque:
“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.”
Quoted in Robert O. Collins, ed.
Eastern African
History (New York, 1990).
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Reference Page for Online Illustrations
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Comments to: Robert Jeremy Fish
Last updated:12/23/98
