Zeila, Berbera and Mogadishu in the records of Rasulid Yemen, 1229–1454

In short

The Rasulid dynasty ruled Yemen from 1229 to 1454 and ran the customs of Aden, then one of the busiest ports of the Indian Ocean. Its officials kept detailed records: tax tariffs, sailing almanacs and handbooks for the administration. The historian Éric Vallet read these records for his book L'Arabie marchande: État et commerce sous les sultans rasūlides du Yémen (Publications de la Sorbonne, 2010; open on OpenEdition). Several passages concern the Somali coast. They describe Zeila as the gateway to the highlands, the sheep trade of Berbera and Maydh, and the ships of Mogadishu.

The main Rasulid texts Vallet uses are the Nūr al-maʿārif (late 13th century), the Mulakhkhaṣ al-fiṭan (14th century, a tax manual), the almanac of Sultan al-Ashraf ʿUmar, and the Irtifāʿ al-dawla al-muʾayyadiyya (a description of the state with maps). Unless noted, the facts below are from Vallet, L'Arabie marchande, chapter 6, cited by paragraph (§).

Zeila, "the port of Abyssinia"

• The gateway. The Yemeni writer al-Janadi calls Zeila "the village which is the port (bandar) of Abyssinia", from which one sails to most anchorages of Yemen, above all Aden, and from which caravans leave for every part of Abyssinia (quoted before §44). Vallet writes that, seen from Aden, Zeila was "without question" the main port of the Muslim coast of Africa (§44).
• Sailing seasons. Rasulid almanacs record ships leaving Aden for Zeila on the south wind (azyab) from October to the end of winter. The rest of the year the north wind made the crossing from Zeila to Aden easy. Ibn Battuta took four days from Aden to Zeila in January 1331 (§44).
• Fares. The Nūr al-maʿārif gives the cost of shipping from Zeila to Aden: 4 or 5 dinars for a mule, 2 or 3 dinars for a eunuch, and 4 dinars for a bahār of ivory. The owner of a mule had to hire a hide to put under it on board (§44).
• What passed through Zeila. Gold, slaves, mules and civet came down from the interior through Zeila to Aden (§46). The full list of goods from "Abyssinia" in the Nūr al-maʿārif adds ivory, tanned hides, the dye wars and the aromatic qusṭ (§50).
• The local economy. Vallet writes that Zeila also served a local economy of fishing and herding. He quotes Ibn Battuta, who called Zeila the capital of the Barbara, Shafiʿi Muslims who lived in a desert stretching two months' march from Zeila to Mogadishu and kept camels and sheep "famous for their fat" (§46). For Ibn Battuta's full account, see Ibn Battuta in Mogadishu and Zeila, 1331.

Sheep from Berbera, Maydh and other harbours

• Barbari sheep. The Nūr al-maʿārif and the Mulakhkhaṣ often mention barābir sheep, from the coastal plain and plateau, some of them shipped to Aden through Zeila (§46).
• The "Mayṭī" and "Barbarī". The almanac of al-Ashraf ʿUmar records that in September the "Mayṭī" and the "Barbarī" left Aden on the north-east wind. Vallet takes these as the ships of Maydh (Mayṭ) and Berbera (Barbara), two coastal places linked with the sheep trade (§47).
• Other harbours. The Nūr al-maʿārif also mentions tanned hides shipped from Ḥayra, on the same coast, and sheep imported from Marghawiyya (§47).
• Range of the ships. Ships of Zeila do not seem to have sailed much further east than Aden. Ships "of Barbara" went as far as al-Aḥwar, east of Aden, which passed Somali goods on to its hinterland (§48).
• A note on Maydh. In a footnote, Vallet cites the historian Joseph Cuoq for the legend that a Sheikh Isḥāq, ancestor of the Isaaq, settled at Maydh in the 13th century (note 115).

Al-ʿAra: a tax on the ships of Zeila

The 13th-century geographer Ibn al-Mujawir describes al-ʿAra, a village of fishermen and donkey drivers on the Yemeni shore near Bab al-Mandab. A tax was farmed there on fishing boats, on caravans between Aden and Zabid, and on "the ships of the people of Zeila" coming from Abyssinia, for 1,200 dinars a year. It was abolished in 1223, restored in 1227, and the farm then rose to 1,700 dinars. No medieval site has yet been found there (§48–49).

Trade with the highlands

• Two "sultans of Abyssinia". The Nūr al-maʿārif uses "sultan of Abyssinia" both for the Walashma ruler of Ifat and for the Christian king. A Rasulid court protocol says both are to be addressed as "great and illustrious sultan". Vallet writes that the Mamluks of Egypt did not use this form for either, and reads it as Rasulid recognition of two sovereign powers (§55, §73–74). For Ifat, see The Sultanate of Shewa and the founding of Ifat.
• Kalgur. Apart from Zeila, the only Muslim town the Nūr al-maʿārif names is Kalgur, on the edge of Shewa towards the Christian lands. Vallet sums up the text's picture as one land crossed, Ifat, with two ends, Zeila and Kalgur (§58–61).
• Money. Ifat and Kalgur used Egyptian silver dirhams, weighed rather than counted. Local rulers did not mint coins, and small trade used ḥaras, scraps of broken silver rings and bracelets. Barter remained the norm (§63).
• Cloth. Indian printed cottons dyed with indigo (maḥābish) were bartered for gold. A merchant who bought 10 pieces in Aden for 25 dinars could trade them for an ounce of gold worth 36 dinars in Aden, a profit of 44% (§64–65). The text gives the average gain on this trade as about 30% (§53).
• Merchants. Few names survive. One Hadrami merchant family lived at Kalgur; one son died there in 1269 (§65–66).
• The cost of eunuchs. Carrying a eunuch from the highlands to Yemen cost 21 dinars in expenses alone, mostly food on the road (§67).
• "Protectors". Merchants paid a set share of their goods to a nazīl, "a man among the notables of Abyssinia" who defended them from "injustice and oppression". Vallet asks whether these were local garād chiefs, the sheikhs of Zeila with whom merchants lodged according to Ibn Saʿid, or caravan leaders. The text records no taxes paid to the state on the road or at Zeila (§69–70).

The mosque at Zeila

Egyptian sources say that the Rasulid sultan al-Muẓaffar Yusuf tried to build a great mosque at Zeila. Only one writer, Mufaddal ibn Abi al-Fadaʾil, adds that a group of Zeila threw the building stones into the sea, and that the sultan then barred Zeila's ships from Aden for a year. Vallet suggests the people of Zeila feared losing transit income to stronger Rasulid control, and he calls the attempt short-lived (§78, note 198). In the 1370s a Yemeni chronicler wrote that the governor of Zabid was obeyed by "the people of ʿAwān, of Zeila and other distant lands"; Vallet explains this as a power to have wanted persons arrested, not to govern (§84–85).

Mogadishu's ships

These facts are from Vallet, chapter 9, §28–33.

• Three seasons. Ibn al-Mujawir divides the African route into three sailing seasons: Aden to Mogadishu, Mogadishu to Kilwa, Kilwa to the Comoros (§28).
• The only regular East African link. Vallet writes that by all Yemeni sources of the 13th century, Mogadishu was the only East African city reached regularly from Aden. The almanac records the "Maqdishī" ships leaving for Aden in June on the south-west wind and returning in autumn (§29).
• Hadramawt. Mogadishu's ships also sailed every year to al-Shihr and two nearby harbours, where they paid about 4,000 dinars in taxes and bought fish oil for coating hulls (§29, note 82).
• Goods. Aden tariffs list ebony, ambergris, ivory and Zanzibar copal arriving via Mogadishu, and the city also exported ghee and sesame oil. The al-Shihr tariff lists slaves of "Maqdishū" (§29–30).
• Mogadishu cloth. The Mulakhkhaṣ lists waist-cloths (fuwaṭ maqdishī) and bordered cottons named after Mogadishu, which are missing from the older Nūr al-maʿārif. Vallet reads this as a sign that weaving grew there from the later 13th century. Ibn Battuta wrote that cloth "with no equal" was made there and exported to Egypt (§30).
• The southern towns. Vallet writes that, apart from cloth and food, most goods on Mogadishu's ships came from the Swahili towns to the south. He cites the 14th-century Qadi Masʿud, who called Barawa a small place "in the province of Maqdishū" visited by boats from India and the coast towns (§31).
• No Rasulid claims. Unlike Abyssinia, Mogadishu and the coast to the south never came within Rasulid ambitions, Vallet writes (§33). He notes one Hadrami sharif, Abu Zakariyya, who in the early 13th century "went to Maqdishū, where he spread knowledge widely" (note 101).

Somalis in Aden

Ibn al-Mujawir tells a legend that the first people of Aden were driven out by the Barābir from the facing coast of the Horn, who built the first palm-leaf huts in the town. He also writes that Barbara and Abyssinians made up the majority of Aden's people. Vallet warns that the geographer's picture of Aden should be read with great caution (Vallet, chapter 2, §49–51).

Related pages

• Early Zeila before 1300
• Early Berbera before 1300
• Early Mogadishu and the Benadir coast before 1300
• Berbera coast trade fairs, 1000–1600
• Nomads, towns and the state in Ifat and Adal
• Chinese records of the Somali coast
• Mogadishu, Zeila, Berbera and Barawa, 1331–1586
• Marco Polo and the Somali coast, about 1298
• Scholars from Zeila at al-Azhar and in Cairo, 1300–1500
• Scholars from Zeila and the Horn in medieval Yemen, 1150–1450