PERSIAN MIGRATION TO BANADIR
Migrations of individual Persians and groups of Iranians to the East African coast were a constant factor in medieval times. Evidence to this are the tombs of Persian migrants in Mogadishu, this was discussed in B. Cerulli, Somalia, I (Rome, 1957),(1)
Migrations of individual Persians and groups of Iranians to the East African coast were a constant factor in medieval times. Evidence to this are the tombs of Persian migrants in Mogadishu, this was discussed in B. Cerulli, Somalia, I (Rome, 1957),(1)
Further, one of the major tribes of Banadir are called Shaashi or Shanshiya. In his Kitab al 'Ibar, Ibn Khaldun notes that the population of Shash or Chach (now Tashkent) in Central Asia was ordered to evacuate the town around 604 H/ 1207-1208 (2)
by the Khwarizmshah Qutb al-Din Muhammad II. Chach lay in the path of an invading force of Qara Khitay Turks. These may have been set in motion by the movements of Mongol armies beyond them. (3)
According to a variant reading in an Egyptian edition of Ibn Khaldun's text, these migrants, many of them skilled weavers and cap-makers, dispersed into the "lands of Islam ... to Cairo, Baghdad, and Mogadishu.” (4)
Also, at some unspecified date the family of al-Wali al-Behzadi, coming from their native city of Sufari (?), arrived at Pate, then remigrated to Barawa on the Banadir coast. (5)
These points are noted by the excellent local historian, Sharif Aydarus al-Nadiri al-'Alawi, in his Bughyat al-Amal fi ta'rikh al-Sumal (Mogadishu, 1955), 45.46, 64. (6)
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