Chinese (Song Dynasty) Trade Mission In Somalia (995-1081)
- Thread starter killerxsmoke
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Garaad diinle
This is breaking new if i've ever seen one, tell me I'm not dreaming did the text really call them samathi? Samathi here is most certainly samali which would be the oldest mention of the name somali in history so far. Furthermore in another text they were literally called samalan Kingdom, this is crazy. It also mentioned mogadishu which would be the oldest mention of the name, they travelled along side zeila oman and egypt. A later account of aden would also mention zeila and mogadishu merchant traveling to yemen and till this day you'd find people in yemen from clans named maqadisha and zeila'a among the yemenis. Relationship between somali ports must've been very strong. Now we could confidently say that the name somali is a millennia old name if not older. This was long before ifat was born which is really significant.
Also i remember reading about some omani sailors of this time period hailing those of them who've travelled all the way to china through the sea as celebrated adventurers and here we've got a somali merchant ship casually sailing to the chinese court with trade product such as ivory frankincense etc probably acquired from different somali port. Somali navigation must've been advanced specially since they would've travelled to china before the invention of the compass. They were as good of a sailer as any other arab or persian sailor who've travelled to china. This also means that there were ship building tradition throughout the somali coast be it north or south.
This would have to rewrite much of what we know about somali trade in the indian ocean. If somali merchant fleets made it all the way to china what about indonesia or closer yet indian? Somalis weren't a small player on the world stage there must be more account of somali merchant all over the indian ocean. I wonder is it possible that there were even older record of somali merchant in china? When did it really began they must of been familiar with the sea route before their arrival it also said another zeila ship which means there must've been others that made it there. Muslim presence in guangzhou dates back to 7th-8th century so we might find even older account of somali sailors in chinese account.
Also i remember reading about some omani sailors of this time period hailing those of them who've travelled all the way to china through the sea as celebrated adventurers and here we've got a somali merchant ship casually sailing to the chinese court with trade product such as ivory frankincense etc probably acquired from different somali port. Somali navigation must've been advanced specially since they would've travelled to china before the invention of the compass. They were as good of a sailer as any other arab or persian sailor who've travelled to china. This also means that there were ship building tradition throughout the somali coast be it north or south.
This would have to rewrite much of what we know about somali trade in the indian ocean. If somali merchant fleets made it all the way to china what about indonesia or closer yet indian? Somalis weren't a small player on the world stage there must be more account of somali merchant all over the indian ocean. I wonder is it possible that there were even older record of somali merchant in china? When did it really began they must of been familiar with the sea route before their arrival it also said another zeila ship which means there must've been others that made it there. Muslim presence in guangzhou dates back to 7th-8th century so we might find even older account of somali sailors in chinese account.
Last edited:
Quick! find "Samathi" in any document older than this.
Garaad diinle
Already did immediately after my post kkk. While we might not know how the twitter user came upon this valuable piece of information but i just had to try to look for more info on this. While i might want to write a lot including some of my theories i'm sure no one wants to read a novel size text so i'll summarize. Turns out my theory was right, well sort of. Somali and chinese contact goes back all the way to the tang empire in the 8th century around the latter half of the umayyad dynasty which is crazy but there is something even more crazier in store.
In the text of Jia Dan a cartographer of the tang dynasty describe zeila as western most port of chinese trader so it's not a description of somali sailors in china but chinese sailors in the somali coast, still it's very significant non the less. What i find fascinating is the description of a kingdom called the kingdom of samalan and it had zeila as it's capital. This kingdom of samalan proceeded ifat by centuries and so far the oldest mentioned kingdom in east africa aside form axum.
Step a side
VIP
The Indian Ocean trade routs were well established by the 9-10th century. The only interesting thing is the mentioning of the word that could possibly be the very first word for Somali.
LMAO this showed without a doubt all the Ethio- nationalist & banaadiri lies about Somali civilization being built by shsishiye was a complete lie. First Harla being proved as a Somali subclan by @Cartan Boos & now this. 
Good dayLMAO this showed without a doubt all the Ethio- nationalist & banaadiri lies about Somali civilization being built by shsishiye was a complete lie. First Harla being proved as a Somali subclan by @Cartan Boos & now this.
Somali_patriotic
Everything unuka leh
Share the sources bro
Let's beat the shewa being first Islamic sultanate in the horn allegations (shewa sultanate never existed btw)
Even Shewa was made up?
Somali_patriotic
Everything unuka leh
Check this made up dynastyEven Shewa was made up?
Since when did Abadir umar al rida and aw barkhadle come from the same dynasty?!
Also archeologicalists founded no traces for this made up sultanate
That's as old as the oldest Islamic structure in shewa
Ethiopians make up shiet tbh, i even heard they made up manuscripts calling them medieval
Ethiopians are top tier Hoteps.
Yeah it makes zero sense now that you bring this up I remember reading in Futah Al Habesh that the Imam's army encountered a group of polytheists (possible waaqists?) near Shewa on their way to karbash the habesh. So much for an Islamic Emirate in Shewa if there were still pagans in the area well into the 16th century
Garaad diinle
Nothing magical really. All i did is using search alongside google translate and bit of intuition.
Here is the first link.
Li shi xue
www.google.se
Text says
早在八世纪,中国已和泽拉港通航,当时在贾耽( 730 年— 805 年)记录的航线中叫三兰国,被当作印度洋西部地区中国帆船航线最南的终点港。所以三麻兰国的中心是泽拉。
Translation:
Romanization of the kingdom.
三麻兰国的中心是泽拉。
Sān má lán guó de zhōngxīn shì zé lā.
The center of the Sammaran/sammalan Kingdom is Zela.
Emir of Zayla
𝕹𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖔𝖋 𝕻𝖔𝖊𝖙𝖘
So Shewa Sultanate is completely bs? Who ruled the region if it wasn’t them? Was it Ifat/Adal?
Emir of Zayla
𝕹𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖔𝖋 𝕻𝖔𝖊𝖙𝖘
This reminds me of a theory I once read that all of Barbaria (the ancient coastal city states and interior towns like Abbasa) was ruled by a League confederation like how the Ancient Greek city-states were governed with a head city as the leader/mediator amongst them all and they would come together against foreign invasions, regional politics and to sign treaties with foreigners.
Garaad diinle
Interesting where did you read that from?
@Garaad diinle what do you think of this theory put forward by a Sino-scholar with regards to ‘Zhongli’ being an ancient Chinese transliteration of the word ‘Somali’;
and this possible early reference to Mogadishu;
China and Africa in Global Context Encounters, Policy, Cooperation and Migration By LI Anshan · 2022 - Pages 9 and 12.
Remember that one of Mogadishu’s nicknames according to al-Idrisi (1100-1165) was Dar Al-Islam and the fact that the modern Tanzanian city with the same name didn’t exist yet in that period (and would not for another thousand plus years).
and this possible early reference to Mogadishu;
China and Africa in Global Context Encounters, Policy, Cooperation and Migration By LI Anshan · 2022 - Pages 9 and 12.
Remember that one of Mogadishu’s nicknames according to al-Idrisi (1100-1165) was Dar Al-Islam and the fact that the modern Tanzanian city with the same name didn’t exist yet in that period (and would not for another thousand plus years).
Harla kingdom was in 6th sxb
Shewa came from Somali prince name actually which is hilariousWait now that I think of it isn't Shewa an Amharic term?
awfat = shewa
Garaad diinle
Hard to say really. If the assumption here is that shenli is equivalent to somali then it's not so obvious for non speakers of mandarin or chinese in general. Of course it may also correspond to a clan or a locality after all somalis were called many things. I remember someone saying that it stands for shunguwaya which is certainly possible but still not proven as of yet.
This one is very interesting i need to look into it a bit more. They mention some writers without quoting them which makes it tricky. If it really is as it seems then this might very well be the first time mogadishu was called dar al-islam predating the account of al-idrisi.
I think i know where you going with this, you're talking about the arachnological discovery of hararge dating back to the 6th century and among the findings there were materials from china and egypt. I wanted to talk about it and how it may relate to the samalan kingdom but i thought it'll be a long discussion but you're right.
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