EIGHT
62
? fourth century to c. 957/? tenth century to c. 1550
The modern Tanzanian coastland
1. The Shīrāzī dynasty
|
⊘ ? c. 346/? c. 957 |
‘Alī b. al-Ḥusayn b. ‘Alī |
|
? |
Muḥammad b. Alī |
|
386/996 |
‘Alī b. Basḥat b. ‘Alī |
|
389–93/999–1003 |
Dāwūd b. ‘All |
|
395/1005 |
al-Ḥasan b. Sulaymān |
|
433–93/1042–1110 |
‘Alī b. Dāwūd |
|
499/1106 |
al-Ḥasan b. Dāwūd |
|
523/1129 |
Sulaymān |
|
525/1131 |
Dāwūd b. Sulaymān |
|
565/1170 |
Sulaymān b. al-Ḥasan b. Dāwūd |
|
585/1189 |
Dāwūd b. Sulaymān |
|
586/1190 |
Tālūt b. Sulaymān |
|
587/1191 |
al-Ḥasan b. Sulaymān |
|
612/1215 |
Khālid b. Sulaymān |
|
622/1225 |
? b. Sulaymān |
|
661–5/1263–7 |
‘Alī b. Dāwūd |
|
Transfer of power to the Mahdalis |
2. The Mahdali Sayyids
|
⊘ 676/1277 |
al-Ḥasan b. Ṭālūt |
|
⊘ 693/1294 |
Sulaymān b. al-Ḥasan |
|
708/1308 |
Dāwūd b. Sulaymān, first reign |
|
⊘ 710/1310 |
al-Ḥasan b. Sulaymān, Abu ’1-Mawāhib |
|
⊘ 733/1333 |
Dāwūd b. Sulaymān, second reign |
|
757/1356 |
Sulaymān b. Dāwūd |
|
757/1356 |
al-Ḥusayn b. Sulaymān |
|
763/1362 |
Ṭālūt b. al-Ḥusayn |
|
⊘ 765/1364 |
Sulaymān b. al-Ḥusayn |
|
767/1366 |
Sulaymān b. Sulaymān b. al-Ḥasan |
|
791/1389 |
al-Ḥusayn b. Sulaymān |
|
⊘ 815/1412 |
Muḥammad b. Sulaymān, al-‘Ādil |
|
824/1421 |
Sulaymān b. Muḥammad |
|
46/1442 |
Ismā‘īl b. al-Ḥusayn b. Sulaymān |
|
858/1454 |
Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. Sulayman, al-Maẓlūm |
|
859/1455 |
Aḥmad b. Sulaymān b. Muḥammad |
|
860/1456 |
al-Ḥasan b. Ismā‘īl, al-Khaṭlb |
|
870/1466 |
Sa‘īd b. al-Ḥusayn |
|
881/1476 |
Sulaymān b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn |
|
882/1477 |
‘Abdallāh b. al-Ḥasan |
|
883/1478 |
‘Alī b. al-Ḥasan |
|
884/1479 |
al-Ḥasan b. Sulaymān, first reign |
|
890/1485 |
Sabḥat b. Muḥammad b. Sulaymān |
|
891–4/1486–9 |
al-Ḥasan b. Sulaymān, second reign |
|
895/1490 |
Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad |
|
900/1495 |
Muḥammad b. Kiwāb, brother of Sulaymān b. Muḥammad, usurper |
|
900–4/1495–9 |
Fuḍayl b. Sulaymān |
|
Six further rulers, either usurpers or Portuguese appointees, until c. 957/c. 1550 |
The island of Kilwa (the Quiloa of the Portuguese seafarers, modern Kilwa Kisawani), off the east coast of modern Tanzania and some 140 miles south of Dar es Salaam, was the seat of a series of Muslim sultans who came to control much of the trade along the East African coast until the coming of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. The first, so-called Shīrāzī line of these (any origin for them in the Persian city of Shiraz is, however, very improbable) may have begun to rule in the tenth century, but they emerge more clearly into the light of history during the twelfth century. They were succeeded towards the end of the thirteenth century by a line of Mahdali Sayyids, who continued until the decline of Kilwa and its trade as the Portuguese assumed control of the East African coastland trade. This latter line in Kilwa included rulers of what the Kilwa Chronicle calls ‘the family of Abu’1-Mawāhib’. Obscure sultans continued in Kilwa as vassals of the Portuguese and then of the Omanis, until the Bū Sa‘īdīs of Zanzibar (see below, no. 65) deposed the last one in 1843.
A good number of the coins of the sultans, and especially of the Mahdalis, have come to light through discoveries of hoards and through archaeological investigation. But dates are sparse, and the genealogy and chronology of the sultans remain distinctly obscure; the dates given in the table above, reckoned from the regnal years given in the Kilwa Chronicle, are in all cases only approximate.
Zambaur, 309 (very fragmentary); Album, 28–9.
El2‘Kilwa’ (G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville).
J. Walker, ‘History and coinage of the Sultans of Kilwa’, NC, 5th series, 16 (1936), 41–8.
idem, ‘Some new coins from Kilwa’, NC, 5th series, 19 (1939), 223–7.
G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville, The Medieval History of the Coast of Tanganyika, with Special Reference to Recent Archaeological Discoveries, London 1962, with genealogical tables at the end.
idem, The French at Kilwa Island, Oxford 1965, 28ff.
Elias Saad, ‘Kilwa dynastic historiography: a critical study’, History in Africa, 6 (1979), 177–207.