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First, a bit of background info- in 1944, a small number of copper coins with Arabic inscriptions were discovered on a beach in Jensen Bay on Marchinbar Island, part of the Wessel Islands of the Northern Territory of Australia. These coins were later identified as from the Kilwa Sultanate.
Only one such coin had ever previously been found outside east Africa (unearthed during an excavation in Oman). The inscriptions on the Jensen Bay coins identify a ruling Sultan of Kilwa from the 12th century (the 11th Sultan of the Shirazi era, Dawud ibn Suleiman). This discovery has been of interest to those historians and archaeologists who believe it likely that people made landfall in Australia or its offshore islands before the first generally accepted such discovery, by the Dutch sailor Willem Janszoon in 1606.
So, WI a permanent colonial settlement and/or trading post had been established in the Wessel Islands of Northern Australia by the Kilwa Sultanate, in the early- to mid-12th century? Could TTL's North Australia (OTL's Arnhem Land, and the Arafura Sea coastline) develop along the same lines as the Zanj coast of East Africa ITTL? Or would the early success of the Kilwa Sultanate's colony lead to its early conquest by another better placed power, and a subsequent early colonial rush for Australia by a whole host of South-East Asian nations and imperial kingdoms (for example, the Mahapajit, or even the Chinese)?