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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
Joukowsky_Institute@brown.edu
Kilwa, an island settlement off the coast of East Africa and part of present-day Tanzania, was a sultanate founded in the eleventh century by a Persian prince named Ali ibn al-Hassan. Its sultan from 1310 to 1333, al-Hasan ibn Sulaiman (a member of the Mahdali Dynasty), built a large palace and extended the Great Mosque of Kilwa. Ibn Battuta, who visited the court in 1331, spoke very highly of the sultan as a humble, generous and pious ruler. As one of the many places Ibn Battuta visited, Kilwa illustrates the diversity and vastness of the Muslim world by the fourteenth century.
Posted at May 05/2009 08:17PM:
mstubbe: Kilwa was an important trading center because it was able to access both the Indian Ocean trade routes and the interior of Africa. It was briefly taken over by Vasco de Gama in the 16th century, and although it was reconquered by Arabs, it lost significance as a trade center.