Thread by @AromataMerchant

Addressing the claims of
@rhaplord (Isaac Samuel) and his lies on the history of South Somalia.

🧵 Medieval description of the inhabitants and the geography of South Somalia.

Isaac Samuel's claims are that Muqdisho, Barawe and Merca are Swahilli (Bantu) cities.

I will go through these sources to show that these cities had nothing got to do with Swahili Bantu people.

One of the earliest sources on Muqdisho was one from the 12th century by Mohammad bin Hossein

He places Muqdisho firmly in the Barbara Sea, with Barbara being an ethnonym used for Somalis from Berbera and Zeila to Southern Somalia.

Another source on Muqdisho comes from world-renowned traveller and geographer Ibn Batutta. He describes the monarch as being - you guessed it - a Barbar.

The nail in the coffin is the distinct language he used when describing Kilwa, a city undoubtedly of Persian-Swahili origin, where the sultan is referred to as someone who hunts interior Zanj.

Another source on Muqdisho is by Ibn Khaldun. Ibn Khaldun describes Muqdisho as the people who are Berbers described in ancient Arab poems.

The next writer we will move onto is Al-Maqrizi. He describes Muqdisho as a town of the Berbers.

Also Maqrizi is the first writer to talk about Lamu. He says that Lamu is located south of Mogadishu. This is where the Bantus and Swahilis live near Lamu.

Now onto Merca. Ibn Idrisi and Ibn Said both describes Merca as a Barbar Somali city. In fact they get into detail so much that they say Merca was the capital for the Hawiyes.

With regards to Barawe.
Abu Makhram a medieval Arab writer, (he is referencing Judge Masoud from the 14th century) describes Barawe as a city on the Berber coast.

Another place he fails is his understanding of the works of two scholars in particular. First we will assess the Dimashqi case.

In Dimashqi's text, he uses the word Zanj to describe the geographical position of Muqdisho in the world (as the capital of Zanj). The issue here is that Dimashqi uses this ethnonym in an unorthodox way: as a superficial racial classification most likely based on skin colour and hair texture rather than culture. For context, to him, the 'Zanj' world extends from Sudan through to Abyssinia, the Barbar coast AND the Swahili coast.

In addition, his source was a German historical article from the ‘70s. The same source attempts to contextualise Ibn Battuta's travels to Muqdisho in an unusual way. Despite the fact that Ibn Battuta, of the 12th century, outright says that the Barbars of Zeila and Muqdisho are the same, and where the king of Muqdisho is a Barbar who speaks Maqdishi language, the German authors suggests otherwise: that it could somehow be a Bantu language, the like of Swahili.

Al-Dimashqi uses the word “Zinj” (Black) as a broad term. He says these three countries make up the Zinj world: Sudan, (Sahel), Zinj (Swahili coast) and Berbera (Somalia).

But he gives further explanations and states that he considers Mogadishu as the capital of the Zinj world insinuating that it’s the best black city.

He refers to the inhabitants as living off the Sea of Berbera or the Sea of Mogadishu meaning that Mogadishu is the second name for Berbera (southern Somali) territory which he states while speaking of (Berbera/Mogadishu) “Sea of Berbera, because its coasts are populated by a race of negroes speaking the Berber language.

He says “Wabi” is the name for the “Nile of Mogadishu” which is the name for River in Somali. Wabi runs on the outskirts of Mogadishu.

Now when he talks about the actual land of Zinj (Swahili coast), he says it’s near Mogadishu which we know is accurate because medieval Arab geographers say that the “Land of Zinj” starts south of the southern Berber coast – Al-Dimashqi states “near the land of Maqdashou, it divides into three branches … three branches are populated by tribes of Zendj and wild negroes, and among the towns found there are Sofala and Kilwa. All three flow into the southern parts of the Zendj Sea”. So he differentiates between the inhabitants of southern Berbera coast (Somalia) and the Swahili coast.

Isaac Samuel’s next misunderstanding is Yakut al Hamawi’s source.

Yakut al Hamawi makes it clear that Muqdisho is in the Berber Mainland and these are not the Berbers of the Maghreb and they are the Berbers of the negroes.

Hamawi also calls Merca a Berber town.

Most people try to associate “Swahili” with Barawa due to “Chimwiini” being spoken there today, but this comes from the 19th century when Arab migrants came to Barawa with “Swahili” Bantu slaves, the dialect formed through master and slave communication.

As we can see in the (1891) census of Barawa which was taken by the Italians Somali tribes made up the “nucleus & principle” of the population of Barawa. After that it was the Arab migrants and the freed “Swahili”Bantu slaves.

On the coast of Barawa there were (600) Swahili Bantu slaves & (1.6k) Swahili Bantu slaves on the interior of Barawa.

Now onto maps. Here is Ibn Said’s map from the 13th century. He separates Muqadisho from the area of the Zanj.

From the 12th century, this map by Ibn Idrisi, makes it so you can see the land of the Zanj is distinct from Merca and notes it is in the land of Hawiye/Somali.

This is an Ottoman map from the 1500s. It shows that the Swahili lands starts in Malindi.

It’s very ironic that a man who acts like he cares about African history he seems to try his best to discredit Somali history.

This guy even blocked me