Before 1500: Adal, Ajuran and the coast
Scholars from Zeila at al-Azhar and in Cairo, 1300–1500
From the early 1300s, freeborn Muslims from the Horn of Africa, known in Cairo as al-Zaylaʿi (from Zeila) or al-Jabarti, appear in Egyptian records as scholars and Sufis. By 1415 they had their own residence, the Riwaq of the Zayaliʿa, in the al-Azhar mosque, one of four student communities there named by al-Maqrizi. The historian Julien Loiseau, in 2019, traced this community from Fakhr ad-Din ʿUthman al-Zaylaʿi, who came to Cairo in 1305–1306, to the ancestor of the historian al-Jabarti, who arrived in the late 1400s.
In short
This page follows Julien Loiseau, "Abyssinia at al-Azhar: Muslim Students from the Horn of Africa in Late Medieval Cairo", Northeast African Studies 19, no. 1 (2019): 61–84 (HAL open copy). Page numbers below are those of the open copy. Loiseau writes that people bearing the name "al-Zaylaʿi", from Zeila, or "al-Jabarti", from the "Country of Jabart", were newcomers in Cairo in the 14th century, and that by 1415 they formed "one of the most visible communities of foreign students in Cairo" (pp. 6–7). For Zeila itself, see Early Zeila before 1300.
The "Country of Jabart"
The Cairo historian ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Jabarti (1753–1825) was the seventh generation of a family whose founder, also called ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Zaylaʿi al-Jabarti, left the Horn of Africa in the late 15th century. He described his ancestors' homeland: "The country of Jabart, or country of Zaylaʿ, is in the territories of the Abyssinians under the reign of the Ḥaṭī… It includes different places… inhabited by this people who are Muslims… and follow the Hanafī and Shāfiʿī schools only." Loiseau reads "Country of Jabart" as a name covering several Muslim areas in present Eritrea, eastern Ethiopia and Somalia, and as a term for all Muslims of the Horn (pp. 1–2).
The founder lived for years in Mecca and two years in Medina, then came to Cairo at the start of the 10th century AH (the late 1490s). In both holy cities and in Cairo he relied on a residence for people from his homeland, the riwāq of the "people of Jabart". In Cairo he became its head (shaykh), and the office stayed in his family into the 19th century (pp. 2–3).
The first scholars from Zeila in Cairo
- Fakhr ad-Din ʿUthman al-Zaylaʿi arrived in Cairo in 1305–1306 and, Loiseau writes, may be one of the earliest people from Zeila known by that name in Egypt. He wrote Tabyīn al-ḥaqāʾiq, a commentary on a handbook of Hanafi law, and the historian al-Suyuti listed him among the leading Hanafi scholars of Egypt. He died in 1343; his grave in the Qarafa cemetery was remembered for centuries, and an epitaph was carved for it in Ottoman times (p. 7). See Uthman al-Zaylaʿi.
- Jamal ad-Din ʿAbd Allah al-Zaylaʿi (died 1360), his student and "fellow countryman", was listed by al-Suyuti as a master of hadith in Egypt (p. 7).
- ʿAbd Allah al-Jabarti al-Zaylaʿi (died May 1378) was revered as a saint and buried in his own Sufi lodge in the Qarafa. In the 1390s Sultan Barquq had his body moved to the northern cemetery, near the sultan's planned tomb (pp. 7–8).
- Others. A holy man named ʿAbd Allah al-Zaylaʿi had a church in Giza closed and turned into a mosque in 1378–1379, after appealing to the Mamluk authorities. A Sufi named Muhammad al-Zaylaʿi, a follower of Muhammad Ibn al-Wafa, died in Cairo in 1390 after the pilgrimage (p. 8).
The riwaq at al-Azhar, 1415
In August 1415 a Mamluk officer made overseer of al-Azhar expelled its permanent residents at night, after rumours about their conduct. Al-Maqrizi wrote that about 750 students and Sufis lived there, in four communities, each with its own riwāq: the "ʿAjam" (Persian speakers), the "Zayāliʿa" (from Zeila), natives of the Nile Delta, and the "Maghāriba" (North Africans). Loiseau writes that this is the first time student residences can be traced at al-Azhar (pp. 3–5).
The expulsion did not last. The biographical dictionary of al-Sakhawi, with more than 11,000 entries on people of the 15th century, names a "Riwāq al-Jabart" three times. Both people it names there were Egyptians from Upper Egypt, and Loiseau notes the long links between Upper Egypt and the Horn (pp. 5–6).
Patrons and diplomats
- An endowment, 1436. Jawhar al-Lala, a powerful court eunuch of Ethiopian origin, endowed 5,000 copper dirhams each Ramadan "for the poor and travelers among the people of Zaylaʿ and Jabart who are living as permanent residents in the living quarter of the Zayāliʿa at al-Azhar" (pp. 8–9).
- A royal letter, 1443. The Christian king Zara Yaqob wrote to the Mamluk sultan that many Muslims lived in his kingdom under his protection, and advised him to "ask the Jabartiyya who are dwelling in the mosque of al-Azhar, since their sultan is a Muslim". Loiseau writes that the community had become "a collective agent of the Mamluk diplomatic scene", seen as well informed about their homeland (pp. 9–10). For this letter, see also The seven Muslim kingdoms of the Horn.
- A scholar on the roof. ʿAli ibn Yusuf al-Jabarti came to Cairo in the 1440s, studied in Damascus, Baghdad (where he joined the Qadiriyya) and Aleppo, and from 1465–1466 lived in a cell on the roof of al-Azhar. Students of Qur'an recitation and several eunuchs followed him, and he invested in the trade of merchants he knew. He was buried in a mosque next to the tomb complex of Sultan Qaytbay (p. 11).
From "Zaylaʿi" to "Jabarti"
Loiseau suggests that the growth of this community was linked to the Red Sea trade coming more under Egyptian control in the 15th century, and to the spread of Islam among the peoples of eastern Ethiopia. He writes that "the gradual substitution of 'Jabart' for 'Zaylaʿ'" as the name for Muslims of the Horn was likely a result of that spread (pp. 11–12).
Related pages
Sources
- HAL open copy · amu.hal.science
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