So I work in a university and as part of my work I've been reading archelogical and linguistic reports from east africa.
The Shizari era is the term for the era in east african history after the first muslim conquests when arab traders began establishing control of of the east african coast and created the swahili culture by inter mixing with the bantu kingdoms. The swahili people are essentially viewed as arab influenced bantus who became a seperate people in this era.
It's called the shizari era based on the semi mythical founder figure of arab tanzania, ali ibn al-hussein shizari, who the story goes was a persian trader, the younger son of nobility, who fell out with the trading elite at mogadishu (the first and grandest arab port in africa) and set up his own trading port at Kilwa, tanzania on land he tricked from a bantu king who he then defeated in battle to hold on to.
It's a classic founder myth and one that I think modern historians are skeptical of but, whether he existed or not, enough persian, yemani and arab traders from mogadishu did set themselves up in kilwa and the surrounding area in the 10th century (or possibly the 12th) to ultimately lead to the swahili trading culture. So by the 1400s and 1500s when the great powers started showing up (zheng he's treasure fleets first then the portuguese indian armadas and the ottoman indian ocean fleets) there were 100s of swahili city states and trading ports through out madagascar, kenya, comoros, somalia, mozambique and tanzania, some were independent, some were part of bantu kingdoms but most were losely controlled by the central state in kilwa.
This was the centre of the arab slave trade, the ivory trade and the indian ocean trade. The kilwa organisation didn't survive the portuguese but swahil ports were taken over by portugal to give them stopping points to india, and the muslim arab trader elite it produced became the centre of the omani empite and the zanzibar sultanate. The shizari era set the stage for the future of east africa.
So I've been dealing with this for my work. And the question that comes to mind is could it have been prevented. Now even if ali ibn al-hussein shizari did exist and did found this culture by himself, if it wasn't him it would have been someone else. The middle east had been trading in east africa for centurie and centuries and once you have a base at somalia, moving south for more slaves and more goods is inevitable.
Unless somebody else is already there and trading and there isn't that vacumn to fill so explosively. Now the Bantu don't seem to have the culture and experience required to reach that point without outside help but there is another bantu hybrid culture active around this time.
The african malay hybrid culture in madagascar. Now it seems to be somewhat controversial how that culture happened. We know that all of madagascar share a common language and that genetically they seem to have both african and south asian ancestors. I was reading by a paper by Alexander Adelaar who argued that there was probably contact between east africa and indonesia for a relatively long ammout of time given the ease with which you can follow the indian ocean currents there but that the main colinisation had to come after the 7th century and the Srivijaya trading empire due to the ammount of indian loan words to have passed into malay and then into malagasy.
His theory seems to be that the malay operated in africa as well as india, china, arabia etc and dropped off a bunch of bornese ship workers who bred with the natives to create an east african race who then fled to madagascar in the wake of the bantu expansion. Which is why the madagascars have a common language and common african and asian mixed ancestors.
Which gives us, prior to shizari, a non arab culture in the region who has experience of trade and ships that the bantu could encounter.
Now they have huge disadvantages compared to the arabs, they don't know arabia as well, they don't know the language, the price of goods, the currents, they don't share a religion with the people they'd be trading to (the malay were buddhist which is a no no for this position as it prohibits working in the slave trade, while the real life malagasy soon turned to ancestor worship) and in terms of technology they only got writing and astrology etc from the arabs. But they will be there first and if they're established among the bantu it might be seen as easier to buy off them than deplace them, especially if some of their elite start practicing some form of islam (something which did happen but only in small ammounts with the malagasy in otl).
I'm not a huge expert on this but the idea is compelling to me and I just want to ask people who hopefully know more if it rings true as a possiblity.
The Shizari era is the term for the era in east african history after the first muslim conquests when arab traders began establishing control of of the east african coast and created the swahili culture by inter mixing with the bantu kingdoms. The swahili people are essentially viewed as arab influenced bantus who became a seperate people in this era.
It's called the shizari era based on the semi mythical founder figure of arab tanzania, ali ibn al-hussein shizari, who the story goes was a persian trader, the younger son of nobility, who fell out with the trading elite at mogadishu (the first and grandest arab port in africa) and set up his own trading port at Kilwa, tanzania on land he tricked from a bantu king who he then defeated in battle to hold on to.
It's a classic founder myth and one that I think modern historians are skeptical of but, whether he existed or not, enough persian, yemani and arab traders from mogadishu did set themselves up in kilwa and the surrounding area in the 10th century (or possibly the 12th) to ultimately lead to the swahili trading culture. So by the 1400s and 1500s when the great powers started showing up (zheng he's treasure fleets first then the portuguese indian armadas and the ottoman indian ocean fleets) there were 100s of swahili city states and trading ports through out madagascar, kenya, comoros, somalia, mozambique and tanzania, some were independent, some were part of bantu kingdoms but most were losely controlled by the central state in kilwa.
This was the centre of the arab slave trade, the ivory trade and the indian ocean trade. The kilwa organisation didn't survive the portuguese but swahil ports were taken over by portugal to give them stopping points to india, and the muslim arab trader elite it produced became the centre of the omani empite and the zanzibar sultanate. The shizari era set the stage for the future of east africa.
So I've been dealing with this for my work. And the question that comes to mind is could it have been prevented. Now even if ali ibn al-hussein shizari did exist and did found this culture by himself, if it wasn't him it would have been someone else. The middle east had been trading in east africa for centurie and centuries and once you have a base at somalia, moving south for more slaves and more goods is inevitable.
Unless somebody else is already there and trading and there isn't that vacumn to fill so explosively. Now the Bantu don't seem to have the culture and experience required to reach that point without outside help but there is another bantu hybrid culture active around this time.
The african malay hybrid culture in madagascar. Now it seems to be somewhat controversial how that culture happened. We know that all of madagascar share a common language and that genetically they seem to have both african and south asian ancestors. I was reading by a paper by Alexander Adelaar who argued that there was probably contact between east africa and indonesia for a relatively long ammout of time given the ease with which you can follow the indian ocean currents there but that the main colinisation had to come after the 7th century and the Srivijaya trading empire due to the ammount of indian loan words to have passed into malay and then into malagasy.
His theory seems to be that the malay operated in africa as well as india, china, arabia etc and dropped off a bunch of bornese ship workers who bred with the natives to create an east african race who then fled to madagascar in the wake of the bantu expansion. Which is why the madagascars have a common language and common african and asian mixed ancestors.
Which gives us, prior to shizari, a non arab culture in the region who has experience of trade and ships that the bantu could encounter.
Now they have huge disadvantages compared to the arabs, they don't know arabia as well, they don't know the language, the price of goods, the currents, they don't share a religion with the people they'd be trading to (the malay were buddhist which is a no no for this position as it prohibits working in the slave trade, while the real life malagasy soon turned to ancestor worship) and in terms of technology they only got writing and astrology etc from the arabs. But they will be there first and if they're established among the bantu it might be seen as easier to buy off them than deplace them, especially if some of their elite start practicing some form of islam (something which did happen but only in small ammounts with the malagasy in otl).
I'm not a huge expert on this but the idea is compelling to me and I just want to ask people who hopefully know more if it rings true as a possiblity.